"Interstellar": A Movie Review.

November 22, 2014 at 12:52 P.M. I brought my laptop to the NYPL, Morningside Heights branch. I am prevented from accessing the Internet from my laptop even at the library.

Evidently, there is nothing wrong with the laptop. Hence, it is inexplicable to people why I am unable to use it to write from my home, or other Internet connection at a public location. 

I have received no notice from any government agency that I am not permitted to write online. For the time being, accordingly, I am forced to use library computers exclusively. 

I will try to find other public computers from which to access the Internet. 

I have the impression that some powerful officials do not wish to have me writing and publishing online. 

I wonder why this is true? ("Menendez Consorts With Underage Prostitutes" and "Christie Gives a Donor $1 Million of New Jersey Money.") 

Neither laws, nor courts and/or police respond to these illegalities that are brought to their attention and that I will continue to bring to their attention. ("An Open Letter to Cyrus Vance, Jr., Esq.")

I will soon post the overnight mail receipt number for the package sent to Mr. Vance for a second time. Follow-up letters to government officials will also be posted at this blog. 

"Silencing" me threatens all journalists and everyone writing on-line in America and elsewhere. ("New Jersey's 'Ethical' Legal System.") 

As regards the Constitution's guarantee of freedom of speech, persons conducting this censorship effort are "playing with matches." 

"Interstellar": Directed by Christopher Nolan; script by Jonathan Nolan & Christopher Nolan; Director of Photography (impressive) Hoyte Van Hoyten; edited by Lee Smith; music (not so impressive) Hans Zimmer. Paramount, 2014. 

Performers: Mathew McConaughey (Coop, Oscar please!); Ann Hathaway (Dr. Amelia Brand); Jessica Chastain (Murph as an adult); Bill Irwin (voice of TARS); McKenzie Foy (Murph as a child); John Lithgow (Donald); Timothee Chalamert (Tom); Wes Bentley (Doyle); David Gyasic (Romilly); Topher Grace (Getty); Michael Caine (Professor Brand); Ellen Burstyn, Matt Damon, and Casey Affleck in supporting roles. 

Reviews: 

Adam Rodgers, "The Physics of Interstellar: A Conversation With Christopher Nolan and Kip Thorne," in Wired, December, 2014, p. 44. (Article appearing after I posted my review that is excellent on the physics, but misses the biology and mythic aspects of the film.) 

Dennis Overbye, "'Interstellar': The Cinema of Physicists," The New York Times, Science Times, November 18, 2014, p. D1. (Some errors by Mr. Overbye, including failures to identify key issues: "The Theory of Everything"? Hawking and Sheldrake? "We" put the wormhole there under the plot-line which answers the question of who put the wormhole "there." The fifth dimension may be as many as eleven dimensions in string theory which would solve the planetary science issues. Is Mr. Overbye also "George Johnson"? "Is the universe only a numbers game?")

Lou Lumenick, "Over the Moon," The New York Post, November 14, 2014, p. 35. (Complementary review -- or even a rave -- but clueless about the science and philosophy in the film.)

A.O. Scott, "Off to the Stars, With Dread and Regret," The New York Times, November 5, 2014, p. C1. (Lost on the science; favorable on the performances. David Brooks is worse on the science and more confused on philosophical issues. Does Mr. Brooks write under pseudonyms? If so, what are those pseudonyms? "Manohla Dargis"? GOP?)

"There is No Reason At All [Why] You Should Care About the Universe. For One Thing, It Doesn't Care About You," Time, November 10, 2014, p. 44. (Arguably, this film is saying exactly the opposite of what this unsigned article suggests.)

Films Referenced in "Interstellar":

1. "2001, A Space Odyssey."
2. "The Wizard of Oz."
3. "Star Wars."
4. "Star Trek."
5. "Lost in Space," TV Show and Movie.
6. "The Bible." 
7. "Prometheus."
8. "Mindwalk."
9. "Lifeforce."
10. "Silent Running."
11. "Looper."
12. "Close Encounters of the Third Kind," "E.T.," "A.I." 

"Man and nature will combine in an all-embracing unity." -- Friedrich Holderlin.

"Interstellar" is the latest film by Christopher Nolan featuring a thoughtful script co-authored with younger brother Jonathan Nolan. Mr. Nolan -- the director, not the writer -- studied literature at the University of London, specializing in the Romantics, while younger brother, Jonathan, read philosophy and science at Oxford University.

The Nolans display a shared interest in Romantic ideas as well as the philosophy of science and contemporary physics which continues to inform their works. 

Lurking under the surface of the Nolans' plots and overt themes, however, is a fascinating and related meditation on the mystery of "doubleness" -- mirror-images and -symmetries -- leading to the mutuality of identity that must be poignant for twins, or any siblings and/or "dialectical partners." 

There is a "yes-and-no" quality to the self-as-duality which is intriguing to the Nolans because it seems to parallel the puzzles of cinema and the latest aesthetic theory to say nothing of quantum physics. ("'Inception': A Movie Review" and "'The Prestige': A Movie Review" then "Drawing Room Comedy: A Philosophical Essay in the Form of a Film Script.")

Several entanglement relations are detectable in this movie between fathers and daughters: Michael Caine's Professor Brand gives a daughter to Coop for his Promethean journey only to acquire Coop's daughter "Murph" as his only student. 

John Lithgow's aging paternal archetype adds to the poignancy of the "fathers and their children" theme that emphasizes the way most of us measure time's passage in our lives -- by way of transitions between or among generations -- as well as changes in our lives and concerns. 

These disturbing themes ("Ford" and "Dolores" or God and Man/Woman) continue to be explored in Jonathan Nolan's and Lisa Joy's spectacular "Westworld" series on HBO that also delves into the mystery and paradox of freedom as -- or against evil -- at the center of personhood. The Nolan style of film-making is nothing if not metaphysically ambitious as well as aesthetically adventurous. 

The child (in this case a daughter) is "father to the man," to paraphrase Wordsworth. "Lived" time will be contrasted with other forms of temporal passage and chronicling in this movie.

Coop's final quest for Amelia (as in the famous "aviator" Amelia Earhardt?) Brand takes him back to the stars as substitute father/lover to a new lover/partner/wife echoing themes from Greek mythology. Icharus? 

Dispositions that find many forms of expression across the generations hint at an analogy between quantum entanglements and genetic relations or evolutionary drives. 

Talents that are "inherited" as well as the instinct for survival reflect the curvature of moral space around the "morphogenetic" emotion and force that is love.

Much of the biology of "Interstellar" is found in discussions among the Chilean school of biologists, Humberto Maturana especially, and distinguished thinkers, such as Alister McGrath (genetic biologist and Anglican priest) of Oxford University together with Francisco Ayala of Princeton University. 

The film offers both a search for and suggested resolution to the mystery of "The Theory of Everything." The movie also provides theological speculation on the transformations of the Christian narrative in a secular age or in postmodernist-scientific culture.

"Coop" is the Promethean/Christ figure who dies and is reborn, Michael Caine's Dr. Brand is the god that fails; Ms. Hathaway's Dr. Brand, Jr. is the unified version of Christianity's Mary Magdalene/Mary the Mother of God who creates the "Lazarus" settlement on a distant planet that (she believes) permits humanity to conquer death. ("Duality in Christian Feminine Identity" and "'The Da Vinci Code': A Movie Review.")

Love is what allows for the only genuine "conquest" of death leading to the "rebirth" of Coop and his return to dwell among us before ascending to the stars, as I said, to rejoin "Mary" -- I mean, Ann Hathaway's "Dr. Brand."  

The crucial dialectic between love and death is at the center of this film with references to the second law of thermodynamics (entropy) balanced by suggestions of love as the unity of the other fundamental forces in the universe as well as the means of overcoming death. 

If the new school of biologists is correct (autopoesis) spontaneous order may counter entropy with the creation of ever-more beautiful or elegant order from chaos or decay. 

"Entropy" is the term for the way that all energy in the universe is running down (or dissipating) leading, eventually, to what has been called: "the heat death of the universe." 

Life, survival, love is set against collapse, disintegration, or evil as death. 

C.S. Peirce's classic essay "Evolutionary Love" is invoked beside the celebrated dialogue between David Bohm and Rupert Sheldrake. 

More on this fascinating scholarship will be offered later in this discussion. 

Several of Einstein's thought experiments -- notably, the "watch in the box and the watch in the rocket ship" -- are found in the plot twists of the movie, but these devices have not been detected or discussed by reviewers to the best of my knowledge.  

"One of the early thought experiments proposed by Einstein is the clock in the box experiment ..." balanced by the watch in the space ship that, decades later, is dropped into a black hole by Stephen Hawking. 

Please refer to Menos Kafatos & Robert Nordeau, The Conscious Universe: Part and Whole in Modern Physical Theory (New York: Springer/Verlag, 1990), p. 61 and then the crucial extended discussion of relativity, the time-space continuum, and quantum mechanics in Albert Einstein, "Quantum Theory and the Fundamentals of Physics," from 1936 that is reprinted in Out of My Later Years (New York: Castle Books, 1956), pp. 59-98, especially pp. 85-93. 

The Wizard of Oz is one of the films haunting "Interstellar" since survival -- like happiness or the proverbial bluebird -- is in our own backyard all along, or so we are told. 

Death and Hamlet's questions, Noir images, have continued to grow in importance for Mr. Nolan as he enters what is laughingly called "middle age." 

Climate warming  is easily solved as a human crisis in "Interstellar" by locating another habitable planet or two. The plot device suggests, unintentionally, that we should not worry about destroying the Earth because we can continue polluting multiple dimensions of reality and countless other worlds thanks to science. 

I suggest that we worry about climate warming here and now so that we do not have to escape our friendly planet.  

I doubt that this is the idea we are intended to derive from the movie ("don't worry about it!"), but I am sure that more than one audience member will exit the theater with a sigh of relief in order to get into a gas-guzzling BMW SUV. 

There is a surprising (and suspicious) shortage of African-Americans in this future America and very few, if any, dark-skinned persons who survive into the brave New World of the multiverse. 

I am somewhat alarmed by this development (to say nothing of the censorship I struggle against!) for many of our friends in urban neighborhoods, or those who presume to think differently, since the distant future looks like America in the nineteen-fifties.

A key theme is time and the running out of time (death for planets, species, persons) together with the prospects of transcendence and overcoming of death. The solution we are offered has to do with the elongation of time achieved not only in relativistic accounts of the space-time continuum, but also by way of the controlled plasticity of time achieved through a new "theory of everything" re-unifying the fundamental forces of physics -- gravity, the weak and strong nuclear forces, electromagnetism -- by way of the unsuspected "morphic field" of love. 

Along the way we will travel through a wormhole and fall into a black hole to discover the "singularity," a mathematical representation of infinite information in all directions (the tesseract)  that amounts to a new definition of God. Ian Stewart, Nature's Numbers: The Unreal Reality of Mathematics (New York: Basic Books, 1995), pp. 146-147. (Abstract mathematical "forms" may exist logically, but not empirically, as with multi-dimensional objects that are numerically definable and simulated in computer programs without being encountered in the "real" world.)

"We put it there." We did indeed. This human origin does not make any concept less real. "We" also invented physics and mathematics. Part of what is at issue in Christopher Nolan's films is the concept of "reality" and the ambiguous boundaries between the real versus unreal, dream and wakefulness, time and space, fiction and fact in an age when all bivalent relations are subject to intense challenge and debate. ("Has science made philosophy obsolete?" and "Michel Foucault and the Authorship Question" then "Jacques Derrida's Philosophy as Jazz.") 

Critics have mistakenly suggested that there is no vision of the divine in this movie. This is inaccurate: God is the mathematical structure that is infinite in all directions, perfect, eternal, where the force of love may impel us in one direction or another, towards one moment (and person) or another, based on need and connection. ("Would Jesus be a Christian?" and "'The American': A Movie Review.") 

Among the dimensions and entities brought together in the tesseract, a kind of mathematical weaving together of dimensions and forces, is time-space that becomes a Borgesian infinite library of moments, or "nows." Amit Goswami, The Self-Aware Universe: How Consciousness Creates the Material World (New York: Penguin, 1995), pp. 139-145. 

It is in this mathematical space that Coop experiences the "gravitational" pull of love bringing him to the crucial moment of his relationship with Murph that allows him to hint to her of a solution to the paradoxes in which we find ourselves located resulting in the rescuing of the human race. Robin Morgan, The Anatomy of Freedom: Feminism, Physics, and Global Politics (New York: Anchor Press, 1982), pp. 280-318. ("Judith Butler and Gender Theory.")

Before offering a more detailed consideration of key plot elements and turning to a full discussion of themes highlighted in the film that are unified under the symbol of the "twin" watches, I will comment on the concept(s) of time in the narrative: one watch is in a box on Earth, the other is in the rocket ship in the heavens; one (a "baby" watch) is given to Murph; the other (a "grown-up" watch, a Longines, by the way, certainly a respectable choice) is worn by Coop. 

We all have such watches inside ourselves that will one day stop ticking. Time's subtle dance and coy seductions is attached to gravity's enhanced solidity and malleability in the Smolin/Greene "loop quantum gravity" discussions of the unification problem in physics. Brian Greene, The Fabric of the Cosmos: Space, Time, and the Texture of Reality (London & New York: Penguin, 2007), pp. 489-491 ("Loop Quantum Gravity").

If there is a way to unite nature's fundamental forces, gravity is probably the key to the solution. 

In terms of subconscious associations, in this movie, time is "feminine" while gravity seems to be "masculine," whereas the fusion of the two is love with a bow to Darwin and Freud. 

Love and death, again, define the human condition. The idea is not that through love we return to a past moment, but that crucial moments in our lives -- as well as in life-narratives -- travel with us in our life-journeys. The influence of hermeneutic thinkers, especially Ricoeur and Gadamer is also important:

"Once inside the hole, therefore, [the hypothetical astronaut] will be imprisoned in a timewarp, unable to return to the outside universe again, because the outside universe will have happened. He will be, literally, beyond the end of time as far as the universe is concerned. To emerge from the hole, he would have to come out before he went in. This is absurd [only in a four-dimensional universe!] and shows there is no escape. The inexorable grip of the hole's gravity drags the hapless astronaut towards the singularity where, a microsecond later, he reaches the edge of time, and obliteration; the singularity marks the end of a one-way journey to 'nowhere' and 'nowhen.' It is a non-place where the physical universe ceases."

The quantum paradoxes become obvious and are underscored as the narrative progresses. In fact, the very idea of "narrative progression" is called into question in the movie's "cinematic" time:

"Questions such as 'What is happening now on Mars?' are intended to refer to a particular instant on that planet. But as we have seen, a space traveller sweeping past Earth in a rocket who asked the same question at the same instant would be referring to a different moment on Mars. In fact, the range of possible 'nows' on Mars available to an observer near Earth (depending on his motion) actually spans several minutes. When the distance to the subject is greater, so is this range of 'nows.' For a distant Quasar 'now' could refer to any interval over BILLIONS of years. Even the effect of strolling around on foot alters the 'present moment' on a quasar by thousands of years."

Physicist Paul Davies explains these anomalies in "Time," God and the New Physics (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1983), pp. 123-124. ("What is memory?" and "'In Time': A Movie Review.")

Please compare Errol E. Harris, "Time and the Transcendental Subject," in The Reality of Time (New York: SUNY, 1988), pp. 88-92 (" ... cognitive acts are not phenomena, but transcend, as they must in order to cognize, the objects and relations which they intend ...") with Stephen Hawking, A Brief History of Time: From the Big Bang to Black Holes (New York: Bantam, 1988), pp. 174-175 ("If we find the answer to that, [the unified field theory,] it would be the ultimate triumph of human reason -- for then we should know the mind of God ...").

Thanks to Christopher and Jonathan Nolan we now know that the mind of God is love and (or "as") a sublime mathematical elegance which may be redundant. Love is beauty for these thinkers. Hence, the "elegant universe hypothesis." 

" ... the unimaginable touch of time." -- William Wordsworth.

Coop finds himself farming some of the few remaining acres in North America capable of yielding viable crops after climate warming's dire effects. Mostly people eat corn in post-apocalyptic America. This must be better than government cheese. I say this as someone who has eaten government cheese and known days when he would have been grateful for some of that cheese.

Coop's son (played as an adult by Casey Affleck in an underappreciated part) may have a genuine grievance against dad and Murph, since he seems to get the short end of the stick in parental attention and love.

I am a Casey Affleck fan because he is not only a superb actor, but (like most of the best actors) Casey is willing to play disturbing and far from likable characters and unconcerned about appearing in the most flattering manner on screen. Please see: "The Killer Inside." 

Murph will become the bearer of the torch for humanity and Jr. will be only another struggling farmer from the heartland. 

A meeting at the boy's school makes it clear to Coop that the American decline includes school textbooks denying the reality of the moon landing as well as most other American achievements that are seemingly impossible to attribute to transgendered persons of color residing in the East Village of Manhattan. ("Whatever happened to the liberal arts?" and "Is the universe only a numbers game?")

In one of the few scenes featuring an African-American, the audience is told that the moon landing was staged to force an impossible economic competition on the former Soviet Union. Such insanity, apparently, is not unheard of in academic circles these days. ("Why Jane can't read" and "America's Nursery School Campus.")

Michael Caine's presence makes any movie better. He serves as "Philemon," or a Stephen Hawking-like scientist forced underground by political correctness who is a mentor to Coop. The senior Dr. Brand offers Coop redemption and the chance to do what he is trained to do so well -- pilot a space ship. ("Nihilists in Disneyworld.")

As Murph will fulfill her genetic endowment -- dad is an engineer and scientist, but a crappy farmer -- and salvific mission only by finding a formula for the theory of everything with dad's help ("back to the future!"), so Dr. Amelia Brand (Ann Hathaway) will "go where no man has gone before" to create the first off-world human colony called "Lazarus" when it is no longer needed. 

That is so annoying for a woman scientist -- to save the world when it is no longer necessary. On the other hand, the home planet is endowed with 11 more dimensions that we can happily ruin at our leisure. 

For those who crave more about the physics of the multiverse, Professor Michiu Kaku has devoted substantial attention to the topic in a Science Channel documentary on the "physics of the future" that accompanies his book by the same title.

We will journey into wormholes and, eventually, fall into a black hole to discover the "singularity" that allows for an experience of the infinite mathematics that is ultimate reality in which we are placed, uncomfortably and confusedly at the "moment."

References to the stories of the Hebrew Bible (complete with a flood) will prevent viewers from claiming that this is only a Christian narrative which it is, mostly. 

The tesseract, of course, is a representation of the "mind of God."

Along the way, as I have suggested, there are knowing references to Einstein's most famous thought-experiments and their subsequent elaborations, coupled with key themes in hermeneutic theory concerning temporality and narrative: 124 years elapse in the story on screen but only 2 and 1/2 hours pass in the movie theater, suggesting that the clever Nolans have placed all of us (in the audience) on a "spaceship" that alters the experience of time for the film's recipients. The movie "Interstellar" is our "spaceship" as audience members and participants in the work. The reference is to Hans-Robert Jauss and the "reader-response" theory. ("Metaphor is Mystery" and "A Doll's Aria.")

We have become time-travelers. Cool, pass me the popcorn. 

Derrida's "deconstruction" of time-experience and time-conception in language(s) comes to mind establishing beyond any doubt that the Nolan brothers have their postmodernist credentials fully up-to-date. Professor Derrida was among the leading thinkers posing a powerful critique to Western dualisms and all bivalent relations. Jacques Derrida, The Gift of Death (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995) and Paul Ricoeur, Critique and Conviction (New York: Columbia University Press, 1998) are meditations on death as the "end of time" by two of the leading philosophers of their generation in France concerned with "time and narrative" and the "deconstruction of time." 

Modernism's "linear" understandings time have been transformed into a postmodernist conception of time as circles/mandalas as we are forced to enter the "sliding doors" universe of the twenty-first century. ("'The Adjustment Bureau': A Movie Review.")

The Nolan brothers are transformed into robots paraphrasing the device on the old "Lost in Space" television show ("Danger Will Robinson!") except that the machines seem to have read Hans-Georg Gadamer. 

The tribute to "Star Wars" and the twin robots in the original film by Mr. Lucas is cute if a little heavy-handed. "Use the force!," Mr. Nolan. When combined with the "twin" watches the only conclusion is that the Nolans see themselves as mirror-images of one another in a very mutually annoying way. ("Dialectics, Entanglement, and Special Relativity.")

Jonathan Nolan seems to believe that his brother Christopher "talks enough for both of us." (Again: "'The Prestige': A Movie Review.") 

The concept of evil in the film is "entrapment in ego" in the form of Mr. Damon's character (what did Dr. Brand see in him?) whereas freedom is self-giving love, or sacrifice for others, in the form of Coop. 

Several ideas or concepts of love are juxtaposed, including eros that is only hinted at in the film. Love at several stages in the plot exerts a gravitational pull on characters, not exclusively on Coop or Murph. 

The fusion of Buddhist themes with astro-physics -- derived from Ken Wilber's writings -- is fascinating and familiar to those of us who have read these brilliant books:  

"The level of mind ["Inception"] by whatever other name it is given, is what there is and all there is -- so say its explorers. This, however, introduces a new task for this synthesis, namely, to attempt to describe the apparent (i.e., illusory) creation or evolution of our conventional levels of consciousness 'from' or 'out of' the level of Mind, somewhat as a physicist would describe the optics of a prism that creates a [second] prism from a single beam of light. But this is not an actual evolution of Mind through time, as we will explain, but a seeming evolution of Mind into time, for Mind itself is intemporal, timeless, eternal. We are approaching consciousness, in other words, from the viewpoint of the absolute Now-moment, and so this synthesis becomes a psychological interpretation of the philosophia perennis. It is this [view] inescapably made prey to the paradoxes, logical contradictions, and baffling assertions that must accompany all such interpretations for the sublimely simple reason that the level of Mind is ultimately not an idea but an intensely intimate experience which is so close to us that it slips through the net of words; and that is why it was so emphasized that treating consciousness as a spectrum [multiverse] is pure metaphor or analogy -- it tells what consciousness is like, but not at all what it is, for what it is goes behind words and symbols 'to the inwardness of one's spiritual experience,' which cannot be analyzed intellectually without somehow involving logical contradictions."

The Spectrum of Consciousness (Illinois: Fourth Quest, 1985), p. 26 then Ken Wilber, A Brief History of Everything (Boston: Shambala, 2007), pp. 423-453 ("The Ego and the Eco"). Juan Galis-Menendez, Paul Ricoeur and the Hermeneutics of Freedom (North Carolina: Lulu, 2004). (With the loss of linear time determinism is undermined. I understand that my essay on Ricoeur's philosophy is being translated into other languages. I will post the result at this blog: "Stephen Hawking's Free Will is Determined" and "Stephen Hawking is Right On Time.")

"Rage against the dying of the light." -- Dylan Thomas. 

Unlike most of us, Coop is able to see his child grown very old and on the verge of death. Coop experiences a kind of death and resurrection, as I have noted, and so does our planet in the story.

This is a theological theme of renewal that is found in all of the Nolans' films. The classic hermeneutic example of this device is the "Virgin birth": the animal grows into a spiritual being from base origins. 

Against the ubiquity of decline and death is the idea of an instinct for survival, for the human species and individuals. This instinct is also connected to love, as an emotion and cultural phenomenon, that is transformed into actual energy for "creative evolution" through elegance. The idea of creative evolution is part of the many teleological interpretations of cosmology currently being investigated in universities. John P. Briggs & F. David Peat, Looking Glass Universe: The Emerging Science of Wholeness (London: Fontana, 1984), pp. 163-265. (References to the biologists mentioned above can be found in this work.)

Coop is almost killed by the Matt Damon character and his effort at survival, in Darwinian terms, is described as "instinctive." Later in the story more complex notions of survival and subtle elaborations of Darwinian theory where "organicism" leads to further teleological interpretations of the universe's "narrative" will emerge. ("Is it rational to believe in God?") 

During a moment of inspiration the adult Murph speaks of love as the potential unifying power (form) that prevents the process of "dissipation" from holding sway. ("Pieta" and "The Allegory of the Cave.")

It is love alone which guides Coop back to the crucial "now" in time that allows him to provide the essential hint for his child's key insight about the multiverse. ("God is Texting Me!" and "Magician's Choice.")

This moment in the film-narrative is a single hermeneutic circle in a story that contains several such circles forming "clock-faces" that recapitulate the themes of the text underlining the Nolans' reading of Derrida as well as their fascination with the multi-verse or post-quantum physics. (Again: "Jacques Derrida's Philosophy as Jazz" and "Sherlock Holmes and the Case of the Missing Author.")

Compare David Bohm, Wholeness and the Implicate Order (New York & London: Routledge, 1980), pp. 140-157, pp. 172-214 with Jacques Derrida, The Problem of Genesis in Husserl's Philosophy (Chicago: University of Chicago, 2003), entirety. (Derrida's book is a short one and devoted to parallel themes to those in "Interstellar.")

I do not believe that the movie's hints concerning the sources to read are accidental or difficult to miss. The obvious reference is to C.S. Peirce's "Evolutionary Love" and to Rupert Sheldrake's concept of "Morphic Fields" exerted by and for life-forms. 

I begin with Peirce, then I turn to the conversation between Sheldrake and Bohm: 

"The doctrine of the primacy of chance naturally suggests the primacy of mind. Just as law is chance habit, [Murph's law: "Anything that can happen will happen."] so is matter inert mind. The principle law of mind is that ideas literally spread themselves continuously [Richard Dawkins' "memes"?] and become more and more general or inclusive, so that people who form communities of any sort develop general ideas in common when this continuous reaching out of feeling becomes nurturing love, such e.g., which parents have for their offspring or thinkers for their ideas, we have creative evolution."

Charles Sanders Peirce, "Evolutionary Love," in Chance, Love, and Logic: Philosophical Essays (Lincoln & London: U. Nebraska Press, 1998), pp. 282-292.

F.H. Bradley's Appearance and Reality (New York: McMillan, 1893), pp. 35-43 ("Space and Time") anticipates Einstein as well as developments in contemporary science by underscoring exactly this point about convergence, pp. 141-161. (Einstein's papers on "Relativity" date from 1905, then 1915 and 1918.) ("A Review of the t.v. Show 'Alice.'") 

Professor Sheldrake is one of the foremost biologists in the world today whose theory of morphic fields contributes to the plot of "interstellar." The dialectic between Sheldrake's and David Bohm's ideas is crucial to appreciating the contemporary science of emotive connection or organic entanglement parallel to entanglement among particles. ("Reality and The Theory of Everything" and, once more, "Dialectics, Entanglement, and Special Relativity.") 

"You could say that if the whole universe is thought-like, [tesseract] then you automatically have a sort of cosmic memory developing. There are systems of thought that take exactly this view. One of them is Mahayana Buddhist system -- the idea of Alayavijana, 'store consciousness,' is rather similar to that of cosmic memory ... The entire universe is, in one school of thought, Vishnu's dream. Vishnu dreams the universe into being -- it has the same kind of reality as a dream, and because Vishnu is a long-lasting god who goes on dreaming for a long time it retains a certain consistency. ... for example, could the gravitational forces that link together all matter have arisen through an original creative insight that all matter was one? ..." 

Rupert Sheldrake, Morphic Resonance: The Nature of Formative Causation (Vermont: Park Street, 2009), pp. 261-265. ("'Total Recall': A Movie Review" then, again, "'Inception': A Movie Review.")

In light of this comment, see Nick Herbert's discussion of the "multiverse" interpretation of quantum phenomena on a cosmological scale alongside Professor Bohm's scholarship on the "implicate order" of reality: Nick Herbert, Quantum  Reality: Beyond the New Physics -- An Excursion Into Metaphysics and the Meaning of Reality (New York: Doubleday, 1985), pp. 168-175 and David Bohm, Wholeness and the Implicate Order, pp. 172-214. ("John Searle and David Chalmers On Consciousness" and "Robert Brandom's Reason in Philosophy.")

On the mathematics of "entanglement," see Amir D. Aczel, Entanglement (London: Plume, 2001), pp. 249-253 then John Archibald Wheeler, A Journey Into Gravity and Spacetime (New York: Scientific American Library, 1990), entirety, and Roger Penrose, The Emperor's New Mind: Concerning Computers, Minds and the Laws of Physics (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989), pp. 391-450, pp. 450-483. ("Consciousness and Computers" and "Mind and Machine.")

The thematics of the film come down to another dialogue, this time between poets Dylan Thomas and W.H. Auden. Thomas is quoted several times by Michael Caine's character, Dr. Brand, notably on his death-bed:

Do not go gently into that good night,
Old age should burn and rage at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

W.H. Auden's response to the message of this poem is also Nolan's protest against decline and death for the nation and species that will open the final section of my review essay if I am allowed to complete this work. 

"We must love one another or die." -- W.H. Auden. 

W.H. Auden's response to the evil and death that he saw hovering over European civilization (September 1, 1939) -- life's response to the inescapable entropy in all of creation -- is emphasized:

All I have is a voice
To undo the folded lie, 
The romantic lie in the brain
Of the sensual man in the street
And the life of Authority
Whose buildings grope the sky:
There is no such thing as the State
And no one exists alone;
Hunger allows no choice
To the citizen or the police;
We must love one another or die.

"Interstellar" suggests that the mystery of life alone is a kind of defeat of death. The purpose of life is love.

This resolution is proposed as at least one meaning of the universe. This idea is certainly theological, but it is expressed entirely in a vocabulary of science and secular philosophy in a popular work of art in keeping with (and developing) the themes of the Nolans' earlier films. 

In raising the issue of whether physics has merged with bio-chemistry, given the conscious or "living universe" model, some of the leading scientists of our age have noted the paradoxical nature of the mere existence of conscious and intelligent life in a universe that comes to know itself as "living" and "knowing" only through us. 

Hegel spoke of "Spirit coming to know itself as Spirit": 

"The theory of evolution today describes a process in which individual atoms and molecules are organized into amino acids and proteins. More curiously it describes the development of cells and increasingly complex organisms which, once formed, carefully readjust themselves to pursue their integrity for future growth. How can this be? How can life appear, sustain itself, and display organizational growth" -- creative evolution towards ever higher forms? -- "in the face of the universal march of entropy?"

Looking Glass Universe, pp. 172-173. ("Ronald Dworkin Says: 'The Law Works Itself Pure!'" and "Thomas Nagel's Guilt by Association.")

Albert Camus reminds us that "the last judgment takes place every day." ("Stuart Hampshire and Iris Murdoch On Freedom of Mind.") 

We must live our lives with the knowledge of their precious and fleeting nature even -- or especially -- in coping with suffering and loss (love often includes both painful emotions) since everything and every person we love must die. ("Shakespeare's Black Prince" and "The Soldier and the Ballerina.")

Perhaps this is the universe's way of instructing us to treasure the beauty of the presence of loved-ones, NOW, to cherish and celebrate the vanishing moment in which we live, to struggle for the good in order to create or achieve our fragile and fleeting meanings eternally if not forever. 

Bravo, Nolan brothers and to all of the players and artists who have made this fine movie possible. 

  







  

N.J. Lesbian Sends Nude Photos to Minor.

November 18, 2014 at 2:18 P.M. I have not received the return receipt for the package delivered to Mr. Vance's office in Manhattan on October 30, 2014. According to the post office the stamped certified receipt with tracking number that is in my possession is sufficient for them to establish delivery of the item. 

Probably the return receipt was taken out of my mail box. Nevertheless, if I do not receive this return receipt within a week, I will have no alternative but to mail the entire package, again, by overnight mail this time, where the proof of mailing is also proof of delivery on the next business day unless the item is returned to the sender as a matter of case law. 

Curiously, despite statutory obligations of good faith and oaths by public officials, I have yet to receive any response to the communications to various government officials -- officials who are not at liberty, apparently, to comment on the matters brought to their attention for reasons that are also undisclosed. 

November 12, 2014 at 9:41 P.M. I have tried -- on an hourly basis since 6:00 P.M. -- to access the Internet. I have been prevented from doing so until now by obstructions to my service. 

I may be unable to complete revisions at this time due to illegal blocking of my Internet access. I am never sure of whether my home Internet connection is blocked. This level of criminal censorship must involve government or police participation.  

November 12, 2014 at 2:22 P.M. I am fighting a war to be able to access the Internet from my home due to mysterious interference with my Internet connection. 

I will attempt to move to public and private computers on a regular basis. 

Please do not bother with threats of physical harm. Do what you are going to do. 

I have not heard from Mr. Vance. Mr. Vance looked very impressive on New York 1 last night. I have not received the return receipt indicating that my package (which was not returned to me) was received on October 30, 2014. 

No public official -- federal or state -- has yet responded to communications sent to him or her. 

A list of sources will be added to this essay in the days ahead if I am able to regain access to this blog. 

No new blogs can be added here. I may be able to continue writing at blogger, indefinitely, nevertheless. 

Elizabeth Harris & Colin Moynahan, "Brooklyn Teacher is Accused of Abusing Girls for 3 Years," The New York Times, October 1, 2014, p. A1. (Sean Shayner, teacher, video-taped sexual encounters with underage young women. This will provide police with plenty of evidence to use against him.)

Jessica Silver-Greenberg & Michael Corkery, "Loan Fraud Inquiry Said to Focus on Used-Car Dealers," The New York Times, October 2, 2014, p. B1. (Lawyers assiting car dealers to defraud purchasers and banks. Gilberto Garcia? "Herbert Klitzner, Esq.'s Greed and New Jersey Hypocrisy.")

Adam Liptak, "Supreme Court's Robust New Session Could Define Legacy of Chief Justice," The New York Times, October 5, 2014, p. A21. (Chief Justice Roberts has become shockingly rational on First Amendment values and issues. Will this rationality include Mumia Abu-Jamal's rights as well as those of Senator Rand Paul?)

Christopher Jensen, "Ignition Defect Again Prompts Recall From GM," The New York Times, October 5, 2014, p. A25. (Lawyers at GM, again, may have lied by failing to make full disclosures: "New Jersey's 'Ethical' Legal System" and "John McGill, Esq., the OAE, and New Jersey Corruption" then "'Michael Clayton': A Movie Review.")

Jonathan Martin, "Plagiarism Costs Degree for Senator," The New York Times, October 11, 2014, p. A14. (Senator John E. Walsh, Democrat from Montana -- lawyer? -- plagiarized a final paper in 2007: "'Brideshead Revisited': A Movie Review" and "What is it like to be plagiarized?")

Colin Moynahan, "An Activist Is Cleared Of Impeding An Arrest: This Time, Victory for Occupy Protester," The New York Times, October 11, 2014, p. A21. (Cecily McMillan prevails on appeal and may leave the country. Someone does not like Ms. McMillan and that person will make Cecily's life hell if she stays in America. I don't know why I can relate to this so well.)

Nicole Mulvaney, "Princeton Makes Deal With Feds On Sex Assaults," The Star Ledger, November 6, 2014, p. 15. (U.S. government finds that Princeton University failed to "promptly and equitably" respond to sexual assaults reported by students. Muffy and Buffy are, like, totally shocked.)

AP, "N.J. Man Convicted of Duping Investors in $1 MILLION Pizza Scam," The Star Ledger, November 6, 2014, p. 17. (N.J. law firms assisted GIOVANNI ARENA of Laurel Springs to scam $1,219,200. No ethics actions are contemplated against these attorneys. "N.J. Lawyers' Ethics Farce" and "Corrupt Law Firms, Senator Bob, and N.J. Ethics.")

"Teacher [in N.J.] Suspended Over Emails, Nude Photos," (Editorial) The Star Ledger, November 6, 2014, p. 18. (GLEN CIRIMPONA, teacher, sent nude photos of himself on a New Jersey-provided laptop to minors and others, allegedly. These are your tax dollars, New Jersey.)

Bill Wichert, "Alleged Rapist Kissed 13-Year-Old Boy and Declared, 'You're Mine,' Prosecutor Says," The Star Ledger, November 6, 2014, p. 18. (ANTHONY BARNHAM allegedly abducted a 13-year-old boy off a Newark street, kissed him on the forehead, and said: "You're mine." This kiss provided the DNA that led to the man's capture. The boy was raped in Irvington, New Jersey, allegedly, by this defendant.) 

Ashley Peshkar, "Freehold: Psychologist Charged With Insurance Fraud," The Star Ledger, November 6, 2014, p. 18. (Did "Terry Tuchin," a.k.a. David Levine and/or David Cohen, bill fraudulently for his services as a "psychologist" even though he has no advanced degrees and may have a criminal record? Is this person currently "protected" in New Jersey? Mr. Rabner, can you shed some light on this mystery? "Have you no shame, Mr. Rabner?" and "No More Cover-Ups and Lies, Chief Justice Rabner!")

Ashley Peskar, "Police: Woman Sent Nude Pictures to Boy, 15, Via Facebook," The Star Ledger, October 7, 2014, p. 17.

Christopher Baxter, "Trenton: 3 Admit to Conspiring in Insurance Scam," The Star Ledger, October 7, 2014, p. 17. 

"Jill Trainor, 31, was arrested Sunday night after the victim's mother reported to police that she found the [woman's nude] photos on her son's Facebook page, Deputy Chief Michael Pigott said."

Ms. Trainer claims to be a "lesbian," allegedly, despite her fondness for young boys. This sexual tendency, evidently, makes things O.K. in her mind. She denies, allegedly, having met Diana Lisa Riccioli and/or Estela De La Cruz, ladies who may share her charming proclivities. ("New Jersey's Nasty Lesbian Love-Fest!" and "New Jersey Female Professor Rapes a Disabled Man" then "Jennifer Velez is a Dyke Magnet!" and "Deborah T. Poritz and Conduct Unbecoming to the Judiciary in New Jersey.")

Ms. Trainer seemingly admits to sending nude photos of herself to a young man she knew to be 15-years-old and whose mother was not pleased. I wonder what she does to little girls:

"Trainor was charged with lewdness and endangering the welfare of a child. She was taken to the Monmouth County Correctional Institution in Freehold in lieu of $2,500 bail with no 10 percent option, police said." ("Diana's Friend Goes to Prison!" and New Jersey Welcomes Child Molesters" then "Sybil R. Moses and Conduct Unbecoming to the Judiciary in New Jersey" and "Marilyn Straus Was Right!")

This is an old and very sad story in New Jersey. Judges and influential politicians have "procurers" among their acolytes who get children for them to rape, unless they can travel to other countries to engage in this activity with even greater protection than is purchased in the Garden State. This greater level of protection is something which is hard to imagine. ("Menendez Consorts With Underage Prostitutes" and "Senator Bob, the Babe, and the Big Bucks" and "New Jersey Superior Court Judge is a Child Molester" then "Neil M. Cohen, Esq. and Conduct Unbecoming to the Legislature in New Jersey" and "Edward M. De Sear, Esq. and New Jersey's Filth.")

New Jersey's climate of child sexual exploitation is accompanied by the highest percentage of fraud in the courts of any state in America, victimizing insurance companies as well as banks, usually due to the efforts of lawyers. 

Many of the guilty lawyers control the ethics establishment and target whistle blowers and reformers rather than culprits. ("New Jersey's Office of Attorney Ethics" and "Sexual Favors For New Jersey Judges.")

"Passaic County residents admitted Monday to conspiring in a scheme to stage an automobile accident in order to defraud two insurance companies of approximately $78,000, state authorities said." ("Lawyers Have No Ethics!" and "Law and Ethics in the Soprano State" then "Corrupt Law Firms, Senator Bob, and New Jersey Ethics" and "New Jersey's Politically-Connected Lawyers On the Tit.")

Mr. Ginarte and Mr. Navarrete, Jr. were said to "indulge" in this type of "creative" lawyering and to have many accident cases settling, mysteriously, as a result of these tactics. 

I refuse to play these games which makes me "unethical" in New Jersey. ("New Jersey's Office of Attorney Ethics.")

How much did you steal from my office Jose Ginarte and Edgar Navarrete? "Lulu," is that Kim Guardagno's operation? ("2 New Jersey Lawyers in School Lunch Scam!" and "New Jersey Lawyers' Ethics Farce.")

"The trio -- Harold Gross, 29, of Passaic; Huysan Encarnacion, 35, and his wife, Jenny Encarnacion, 33, both of Paterson -- was recruited in 2009 for the accident, authorities said, and afterwards, the Encarnacions, sought medical care, triggering insurance reimbursement."  

Who were the lawyers representing them?

Judges were always said to be sharing in the proceeds from such bogus accidents in exchange for pressuring insurance companies to settle their pet lawyers' cases. The same judges did not like me because I do not "tip" for judicial functions. I do not like them. You decide who is "ethical." ("New Jersey is the Home of the Living Dead" and "Is Union City, New Jersey Meyer Lansky's Whore House?" then "New Jersey's Feces-Covered Supreme Court" and "New Jersey's Judges Disgrace America.")

Do you speak to me of "ethics," Mr. Rabner? ("Stuart Rabner's Selective Sense of Justice" and "Have you no shame, Mr. Rabner?" then "John McGill, Esq., the OAE, and New Jersey Corruption" and "New Jersey's 'Ethical' Legal System.")

Republicans Reborn, Mumia Abu-Jamal, and Free Speech.

March 31, 2015 at 2:00 P.M. Mumia Abu-Jamal was taken to the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) at a local hospital in Pennsylvania from his prison cell. 

Allegedly, today's hospitalization is necessary because of "dangerously high blood sugar levels" since Mumia Abu-Jamal is a diabetic. 

No member of Abu-Jamal's family (nor his attorneys) were informed of this decision and action by prison authorities in violation of federal laws. 

No one has been permitted to see Abu-Jamal, nor will doctors explain to family members (or the media) the exact state of Abu-Jamal's health, but the internationally celebrated writer and thinker is effectively prevented from commenting concerning arguments over his rights before the federal courts today.  

Mr. Abu-Jamal may have been beaten by guards -- or otherwise injured, or harmed, deliberately -- in order to prevent him from speaking to the media about the specific arguments before the Third Circuit concerning First Amendment issues raised by numerous attempts to silence him. Hence, oral arguments in this matter before the Circuit Court have become a performance of Hamlet without the prince. ("Justice For Mumia Abu-Jamal" and "Freedom For Mumia Abu-Jamal.")

As set forth below, the latest efforts to prevent persons from accessing Abu-Jamal's ideas resulted from a speech delivered to graduates of a community college to which law enforcement persons -- who were not invited or present as the speech was read -- took exception. 

November 11, 2014 at 4:09 P.M. My access to the Internet has been denied for several days from my home computer. I will continue to struggle to write from public and private computers, every day. ("How censorship works in America" and "Censorship and Cruelty in New Jersey.")

I wrote an essay on the Mumia Abu-Jamal situation in Pennsylvania. I call it a "situation" because I cannot think of what else to call it. 

A sitting governor in that state has "generated" legislation aimed at prohibiting further speeches being given by Mr. Abu-Jamal to students, or other persons interested in hearing what he has to say. I am one such person.

Presumably, Abu-Jamal will also be prohibited from writing and reading any speeches or books. Evidently, this may include his own books, which he is not going to be allowed to read. (Again: "How censorship works in America" and "Censorship and Cruelty in New Jersey.") 

I have chosen not to type my entire text on to this blog today. If I am able to return here and continue writing -- a questionable proposition, at any time, even though I have never been charged with a crime -- I will attach the full essay to this post, including some references to case law that readers may deem relevant to this "controversy" or political-legal conundrum. 

Much of the reality in Mumia Abu-Jamal's life is jurisprudentially unique to the point of being surreal, or absurd. 

After his conviction and sentence was overturned by the Circuit Court, he should have received a new trial if the state were able to proceed with such a trial. 

Only if he were convicted, again -- at a second trial -- should he have received a new sentence following upon consideration of timely sentencing reports and/or testimony or submissions from experts on both sides. 

The federal appeals court specifically stated that racism had "pervaded all of the proceedings" against Abu-Jamal. Strangely, only the death sentence was overturned and not the conviction. 

The prosecutor's office then unilaterally announced a sentence of "life imprisonment without parole" based on ex post facto considerations, including laws not in effect at the time that the alleged incident occurred. 

Sentencing is normally a judicial responsibility. It is not the role of judges to "rubber stamp" the decisions of prosecutors concerning a sentence for any defendant.  

All of this information is found in public media accounts of this trial and its aftermath. 

Assuming this information is accurate, the only plausible conclusion is that, regardless of the law and procedures normally followed, the state of Pennsylvania has decided that they will not allow Abu-Jamal to leave prison or to speak and express his opinions on public issues as he is entitled to do under international human rights laws and the U.S. Constitution. ("John McGill, Esq., the OAE, and New Jersey Corruption.")

Mr. Abu-Jamal's factual innocence may be irrelevant to the issue. 

Pennsylvania's cops and politicians, seemingly, HATE Mumia Abu-Jamal because he refuses to legitimate or accept what he, rightly, believes are violations of his legal and moral rights together with an unjust conviction of a criminal offense. 

Mr. Abu-Jamal cannot express contrition about crimes he has not committed, even if he is more than ready to express regret at the loss of a police officer's life. And Abu-Jamal cannot accept the status of a "non-legal subject" or "prisoner of conscience" in America because this would make him a slave in a society that makes such a status for anyone unconstitutional. ("Freedom For Mumia Abu-Jamal.")

When a court system comes to disregard the rights of some persons because they -- these disfavored persons -- hold opinions and/or express views and/or behave or dress in a manner that is "offensive" to powerful officials, the integrity of the legal system (indeed, legality) is simply lost or discarded. ("So Black and So Blue in Prison.") 

A system of vendettas and revenge is dangerous in a heterogeneous society where the same tactics may be used against their proponents when victims acquire political or legal power. ("New Jersey's 'Ethical' Legal System" and, again, "John McGill, Esq., the OAE, and New Jersey Corruption.") 

This brings me to the current election results. Republican multiple orgasms at the interim election results should be tempered by the realization that: 1). minorities did not turn out for this election (boredom) and are more likely to do so for national presidential elections; 2). far from endorsing Republican proposals ("let's cut social security and taxes for the rich!"), this vote was a referendum on Obama's presidency. The media onslaught and grid-lock effort to make Obama a "failed president" in the perception of the voters ("he just makes nice speeches!") finally paid-off; and 3). hostilities and tensions along the fault-line of race are no longer under the surface, they are on the surface and quite ugly, which will motivate minorities to vote and that is the last thing Republicans want. 

Certainly, no Democrat -- Hillary Rodham-Clinton included -- can win without enthusiastic minority support. No Democrat (at this time) has a lock on that support. The right Republican could steal a huge chunk of the minority vote, but not if the G.O.P. is perceived as racist or conspiring with foreign leaders to humiliate and undermine the American president. ("Politics Makes For Strange Bedfellows!")

The message in celebrations among the "angry white men" were unmistakable. ("America's Banana Republicans.") 

Many Republicans simply do not want and still cannot accept an African-American president and will never come to terms with this affable and well-meaning, brilliant -- recently exceptionally fine president! -- who is correct to suggest that both parties must govern the nation as it faces serious crises in its history. 

A Republican capable of agreeing on that issue -- it is time to do what is right for the country -- could well win some of the minority vote. 

People are tired of the grid-lock in Washington, D.C. and disgusted by the egotism and petty squabbling of politicians from both parties. 

Someday, our Republican friends delighting in the beauties of money, may be forced to contemplate the face of Mr. Obama on a two hundred dollar bill. I will never face this dilemma as I am unlikely ever to see two hundred dollars. 

My full essay on this interesting story in Pennsylvania that reminds me of my adventures in New Jersey will appear below soon -- unless I am shipped off to Guantanamo or prevented from creating new blogs.

The usual games with bold script and size of text may deform this text. A list of sources will be added to this essay in the days ahead. 

I have received return receipts from the U.S. Attorney's office, stamped with the date of receipt (November 7, 2014), and from the Bronx District Attorney and New York Attorney General, but not yet from Mr. Vance's office which received the full package much earlier on October 30, 2014, as confirmed by the post office. 

No prosecutor or law enforcement officer is able to respond or comment on evidence of serious criminality provided by a citizen -- whose life may be in danger -- even as an international audience of many thousands of persons witnesses these singular events. ("Menendez to be Indicted; Christie's Self-Destruction.") 

Naturally, in Manhattan, "pressures" from political figures -- or from Mr. Bloomberg or Mr. Morgenthau perhaps? -- may "delay" matters. It may be that Mr. Vance will have a conflict of interest as a result of his predecessor's possible "arrangements" with Mr. Rabner or Ms. Poritz, Mr. Netanyahu or "others." ("Have you no shame, Mr. Rabner?" and "No More Cover-Ups and Lies, Chief Justice Rabner!") 

AP, "New Jersey Teacher Is Charged With Sex Assault of 5 Students," The New York Times, September 20, 2014, p. A21. (Keep in mind the events of this story as other items in October and November are listed. Ms. Nicole "Default," 35, [sic.] of Maplewood, New Jersey faces new charges after more students claim they were sexually assaulted.)

Liz Robbins, "Sports Betting In New Jersey is Challenged: Major League Asking U.S. Court For Injunction," The New York Times, October 21, 2014, p. A23. (Mr. Christie is determined to provide assistance to wealthy contributors by lowering their taxes and expanding gaming to sports betting. The risks of increased organized crime in the state have been discounted: "Mafia Influence in New Jersey Courts and Politics" and "Law and Ethics in the Soprano State.")

Michael Paulson, "Voyeur Case Spurs Rabbi to Add Post for Women," The New York Times, October 21, 2014, p. A18. (A rabbi who is fond of spying on women disrobing has generated a movement to "control" this temptation among his colleagues, including in Mr. Rabner's neighborhood in Millburn, New Jersey.)

Jodi Rudoren, "Amnesty International Says Israel Showed Callous Indifference to Human Life in Gaza," The New York Times, November 5, 2014, p. A19. (Israel deemed a "violator of human rights" for disregarding of the lives of Palestinians and others in Gaza. Policies against Palestinians are deemed "genocidal." Despite overwhelming evidence of "crimes against humanity," according to Amnesty International, the International Court of Human Rights has not yet decided whether to prosecute any individuals. "The Audacity of Hope" and "Israel Heightens Gaza Crisis.")

Marc Santora, "Falling Tape Measure at Construction Site Kills a Man in Jersey City," The New York Times, November 4, 2014, p. A17. (A man was killed as a one pound weight measure that fell 400 feet struck him in the head. Several more injuries occurred as twenty-five lawyers collided with each other in trying to reach the man's relatives offering to represent the deceased person's heirs in a law suit. The authorities in Jersey City are suing the man's estate claiming that the accident was his fault because he chose to walk under this tape measure. The dead individual is still drawing a public salary and voted -- at least once -- in the recent elections and he may have won the lottery from beyond the grave. "New Jersey is the Home of the Living Dead.")

"A Prisoner Swap With Cuba," (Editorial) The New York Times, November 3, 2014, p. A30. (Negotiations are under way, allegedly, for the release of Alan Gross -- an American and/or Israeli spy held in Cuba -- in exchange for the release of the remaining members of the Cuban Five group of prisoners in U.S. facilities. "Restoring Ties With Cuba.")

Monica Davey & Alan Blinde, "Ferguson Protests Take New Edge, Months After Killing," The New York Times, October 14, 2014, p. A10. (Cornel West is among the persons arrested. As General De Gaulle cautioned: "One does not arrest Voltaire.")

Dan Bilefsky, et als., "2 Nobels Fail to Quiet Talk of France's Malaise," The New York Times, October 14, 2014, p. A4. (Patrick Modiano's novels are being reissued in November, 2014.)

"Fixes For the Port Authority," (Editorial) The New York Times, September 19, 2014, p. A28. (Developments in PA matters are likely to appear very soon. "David Samson, Esq. Resigns!")   

Abby Ohlheiser, "Pennsylvania Governor Signs Victim's [sic.] Rights Law Following Mumia Abu-Jamal's Commencement Address," Baltimore Sun, October 21, 2014, online. 

"Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Corbett signed a new law Tuesday which will allow prosecutors and victims of a violent crime to sue the offender for 'conduct which perpetuates the continuing effect of the crime on the victim.' ..."

To understand the sources and motivations for this law is crucial:

"The law was fast-tracked through the state legislature after Mumia Abu-Jamal gave a commencement address to a small college in Vermont. Abu-Jamal was convicted [in proceedings tainted by racism] of first-degree murder [all murders are first-degree crimes] in the 1981 shooting death of a police officer."

This legislation, despite the denials by Mr. Corbett and others, is clearly a "bill of attainder" prohibited under the American Constitution. 

Laws cannot target a specific person "disliked" and therefore made exceptional under due process constraints because laws must apply, equally, to every citizen. 

It is a well-known legal maxim that "hard cases make bad laws." Mumia Abu-Jamal's speech to graduates places severe strains on First Amendment values for many Pennsylvanians.   

The new law, ostensibly applying to all citizens of the state, is actually aimed at hurting a single disfavored individual -- or, more accurately, a detested and tortured political dissident -- whose advocacy for unpopular views is found "irritating" by hateful or incompetent persons criticized in his writings, usually quite properly. ("John McGill, Esq., the OAE, and New Jersey Corruption.")

To read Abu-Jamal's book Live From Death Row is to come away with a depressing sense of the human capacity to inflict suffering on fellow human beings in prison settings, seemingly for no rational reason, where all conditions for maximum sadism and ensuing hatreds as well as opportunities for revenge are bound to come up. The result is a vicious cycle of cruelty and violence all around that should concern us because most inmates, eventually, will be returned to society. ("Foucault, Rose, Davis, and the Meaning(s) of Prison.")

Mumia Abu-Jamal's true subject is not any particular individual political or judicial figure, but a system generating injustices and human rights violations, routinely, as a result of structural failures or features of that system. ("So Black and So Blue in Prison.")

Abu-Jamal's writings are considered "dangerous" by defenders of the flawed system under attack in his writings and speaking opportunities. Some of us are both defenders and critics of that legal system. ("Justice For Mumia Abu-Jamal.") 

It is also asserted that "crime victims are victimized again" by allowing convicted felons to disseminate their writings or other forms of speech from behind prison walls. 

Persons convicted of crimes in civilized societies do not lose all human rights in their prison cells. 

Inmates continue to have free speech and other fundamental rights because they remain persons. Fundamental rights cannot be lost by anyone under our Constitution. Mumia Abu-Jamal cannot be forced to work as a slave, nor can he be denied food, or air to breathe. He cannot be tortured, stolen from, assaulted or raped with impunity. ("An Open Letter to My Torturers in New Jersey, Terry Tuchin and Diana Lisa Riccioli.") 

At issue in this situation is the rights not only of Mr. Abu-Jamal, as speaker, but also the right of "access to speech" belonging to students at this college and/or others, like me, who may wish to read and listen to Abu-Jamal's words. 

Those of us who have committed no crimes and are curious about Abu-Jamal's ideas and information will be denied our fundamental Constitutional rights if this law stands. 

This legislation is a great compliment to Mr. Abu-Jamal's fiery intellectualism and passionate advocacy, not only for himself, but also for all prisoners' rights. Abu-Jamal is only one of the many intellectuals arguing against the "prison-industrial-complex." (This entity or phenomenon has become one word in America -- "the prison-industrial-complex.")

The new law would allow crime victims and their relatives to sue felons in prison, or after they have served their time (cruel and unusual punishment?), for lingering effects of crime, including "offense" produced by the speech of inmates who are, possibly falsely, convicted of violent criminal charges. ("Louis C. Taylor Serves 42 Years As An Innocent Man.")

The vague and overbroad language of the proposed and now enacted statute alone may be a sufficient Constitutional "infirmity" for the United States Supreme Court to strike down the law. 

"Offense," as John Stuart-Mill explained in "On Liberty," is not the same as "harm." 

Speech that is concerned with political ideas cannot be harmful even if it is sometimes offensive to some of the recipients of that speech. 

Protecting political speech and ideas is at the core of the First Amendment. This is true not only for Mumia Abu-Jamal, as speaker or writer, but for any of us who are his readers and listeners who are now also injured by Abu-Jamal's silencing. 

Proposals to challenge this law on the part of the local chapter of the ACLU are likely to succeed before the Supreme Court:

"Earlier this month, Abu-Jamal spoke via a pre-recorded video message to a group of 20 students at Goddard College as part of a commencement ceremony. The Vermont college's announcement of Abu-Jamal as speaker prompted outrage in Pennsylvania, where the inmate is serving his sentence."

No member of the family of the alleged victim of Abu-Jamal was invited (or required) to attend this private ceremony in a college located in a different state from the one in which the underlying incident occurred. 

This raises issues of comity and extra-jurisdictional action by Pennsylvania infringing on the rights of Vermont's citizens. Federalism principles may also result in striking down this Pennsylvania law that does not seem very well drafted. The law is vague and overbroad, over- and underinclusive raising due process issues.

"Samantha Kolber," alleged spokesperson for Goddard College, was "surprised" by the new law:

" ... in essence this law is suggesting that people are not capable of making choices about what speech they will listen to and how they will react to that speech. We wonder how libertarians and free speech conservatives feel about this action, and we also speculate about how far this diminishment of free speech rights will go."

The United States Supreme Court has emphasized that "offensiveness" is not grounds for censorship. For example, flag burning is protected First Amendment activity because it is expressive of political opinions even when it takes place in the proximity of a veteran's funeral where persons are likely to find the act especially offensive. 

Justice Harlan recognized in the classic case of Cohen v. California, 403 U.S. 15, 26 (1971) that freedom of expression includes not only "ideas capable of relatively precise, detached explication, but otherwise inexpressible emotions as well." 

The "offense" felt by persons in a courthouse greeted by a young man wearing a jacket that said "fuck the draft!" was held not to preclude this form of expression in Cohen v. California. 

Mr. Abu-Jamal's highly articulate protest at grave and indisputable injustices must be protected political speech, but so are his critics' complaints and statements of offense. 

Perhaps the best rationale for protecting speech of a controversial or "offensive" nature is offered by Justice Brandeis:

"Those who won our independence believed that the final end of the state was to make men [and women] free to develop their faculties. ... They valued liberty both as an end and as a means. They believed liberty to be the secret of happiness and courage to be the secret of liberty. ... [including] freedom to think as you will and to speak as you think [as a] means indispensable to the discovery and spread of political truth [because it is] essential both to state government [and to] political change."

Whitney v. California, 274 U.S. 357, 375 (1927) (Brandeis, J. & Holmes, J. dissenting and expressing what would become the majority view a generation later and still today -- "freedom for the speech we hate.")