Reddit cofounder Alexis Ohanian. Photo: Emilee Chinn/Athlos/Getty Images

Dear Commons Community,

Alexis Ohanian, who helped build Reddit, says he’s not thrilled with the state of the internet.

On Monday’s episode of TBPN, Ohanian took a moment to express his admiration for hosts John Coogan and Jordi Hays — and express his frustration with the state of the internet. What once was a point of connectivity, he said, has become inhuman.  As reported by Business Insider.

“You all prove the point that so much of the internet is now dead,” he told the hosts.

Ohanian said that much of the internet was “botted” or “quasi-AI,” referencing the proliferation of “LinkedIn slop.”

The Reddit cofounder referenced “dead internet theory,” which asserts that there is more bot activity than human activity on the web.

In September, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman posted on X that he “never took the dead internet theory that seriously,” but that now he sees “a lot of LLM-run twitter accounts.”

Ohanian said that the internet needed to be the opposite of dead, with “live viewers and live content.” He said that holding attention required “proof of life.”

“I think we’ll see a next generation of social media emerge that’s verifiably human, because it’s all going down in the group chats now,” he said.

Group chats have boomed in recent years. That’s not just via text; users are also turning to apps like Signal and Discord for a human-to-human connection. In 2024, some frequent group chatters told Business Insider that they’d started sharing their thoughts there instead of on Twitter.

Even your group chat isn’t safe, though. Some texters have begun using AI to generate and edit their messages, bringing another level of bots to the forum.

Ohanian said these group chats were the golden standard — but they weren’t “novel tech.”

“There’s got to be some next iteration of that, because that’s where all of us are getting our really best info now,” he said.

Interesting take on where we are with the internet!

Tony

Falling vaccination rates are contributing to measles outbreaks nationwide. (Lindsey Wasson / AP file)

Dear Commons Community,

A measles outbreak in upstate South Carolina has forced 153 unvaccinated children out of the classroom and into quarantine for a minimum of 21 days.

In Minnesota, where a small outbreak has been growing for the last month, 118 students are also under quarantine in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area after being exposed to the highly contagious virus, health officials said Friday.

The restrictions mean three weeks of remote learning as parents monitor for fever, rash and other symptoms.  As reported by NBC News.

“Communities are having to bear the price of quarantining so many children,” said Michael Osterholm, an infectious disease expert and the director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota. “Expect more of the same. This is going to happen more and more frequently.”

Active, ongoing transmissions

On Thursday, the South Carolina Department of Public Health said that a measles case had been diagnosed in Greenville County, without any known link to seven other cases in neighboring Spartanburg County.

“What this new case tells us is that there is active, unrecognized community transmission of measles occurring,” Dr. Linda Bell, state epidemiologist for the South Carolina Department of Public Health, said during a press briefing Thursday.

The South Carolina cases have been identified in two schools (one elementary school and one charter school with students from kindergarten through 12th grade).

Unvaccinated children who were exposed to the virus will be “excluded” from school for three weeks, the length of time it could take for a measles exposure to cause symptoms, Bell said.

“Those measures will help us be effective in preventing the spread of measles virus in those schools and in our communities,” she said.

According to NBC News data, the K-12 vaccination rate for measles-mumps-rubella (MMR) in Spartanburg County was 90% for the 2024-25 school year, below the 95% level doctors say is needed to protect against an outbreak. In neighboring Greenville County, the MMR vaccination rate was 90.5%.

The Minnesota health department said 20 cases have been confirmed so far this year.

Along the Arizona-Utah border, 103 people have been diagnosed with measles in one of the largest multistate outbreaks of 2025. Utah health authorities have also reported 14 cases in other parts of the state.

School district leaders in affected areas of southwest Utah sent letters to parents about the outbreak, said David Heaton, public information officer for the Southwest Utah Public Health Department.

But it was up to families, Heaton said, to determine whether their kids should stay home from school.

As childhood vaccination rates drop in the U.S., measles, which had been eliminated domestically for the last 25 years, is increasingly finding pockets of people vulnerable to infection.

An NBC News investigation found notable declines in childhood vaccination rates in more than three-quarters of counties and jurisdictions since 2019. And among states with data on kids who get the MMR vaccine, 67% don’t have enough coverage for herd immunity.

Nationwide, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention confirmed 1,563 measles cases in 2025 as of Oct. 7, with the majority linked to outbreaks within the U.S. rather than from international travel.

Symptoms of measles can include:

• Headache, fever that may spike to over 104 degrees
• Cough, runny nose
• Red, watery eyes
• Tiny white spots inside the mouth
• Rash that begins on the scalp and travels down to the neck, trunk, arms and legs.

If outbreaks continue until the end of January — coinciding with the anniversary of the start of the West Texas’ massive outbreak — the United States will lose its status of measles elimination.

Have your children vaccinated!

Tony

U.S. military senior leadership listen as President Donald Trump speaks at Marine Corps Base Quantico, Va. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci).

Dear Commons Community,

News organizations including The New York Times, The Associated Press and the conservative Newsmax television network said yesterday they will not sign a Defense Department document about its new press rules, making it likely the Trump administration will evict their reporters from the Pentagon.  

Those outlets say the policy threatens to punish them for routine news gathering protected by the First Amendment. The Washington Post, The Atlantic and Reuters on Monday also publicly joined the group that says it will not be signing. AP confirmed Monday afternoon that it would not sign. As reported by The Associated Press and other news media.

“Reuters is bound by its commitment to accurate, impartial and independent news,” the agency said in a statement. “We also steadfastly believe in the press protections afforded by the U.S. Constitution, the unrestricted flow of information and journalism that serves the public interest without fear or favor. The Pentagon’s new restrictions erode these fundamental values.”

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth reacted by posting the Times’ statement on X and adding a hand-waving emoji. His team has said that reporters who don’t acknowledge the policy in writing by Tuesday must turn in badges admitting them to the Pentagon and clear out their workspaces the next day.

The new rules bar journalist access to large swaths of the Pentagon without an escort and say Hegseth can revoke press access to reporters who ask anyone in the Defense Department for information — classified or otherwise — that he has not approved for release.

Newsmax, whose on-air journalists are generally supportive of President Donald Trump’s administration, said that “we believe the requirements are unnecessary and onerous and hope that the Pentagon will review the matter further.”

Chief Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell said the rules establish “common sense media procedures.”

“The policy does not ask for them to agree, just to acknowledge that they understand what our policy is,” Parnell said. “This has caused reporters to have a full blown meltdown, crying victim online. We stand by our policy because it’s what’s best for our troops and the national security of this country.”

Hegseth also reposted a question from a follower who asked, “Is this because they can’t roam the Pentagon freely? Do they believe they deserve unrestricted access to a highly classified military installation under the First Amendment?”

Hegseth answered, “yes.” Reporters say neither of those assertions is true.

Pentagon reporters say signing the statement amounts to admitting that reporting any information that hasn’t been government-approved is harming national security. “That’s simply not true,” said David Schulz, director of Yale University’s Media Freedom & Information Access Clinic.

Journalists have said they’ve long worn badges and don’t access classified areas, nor do they report information that risks putting any Americans in harm’s way.

“The Pentagon certainly has the right to make its own policies, within the constraints of the law,” the Pentagon Press Association said in a statement on Monday. “There is no need or justification, however, for it to require reporters to affirm their understanding of vague, likely unconstitutional policies as a precondition to reporting from Pentagon facilities.”

Noting that taxpayers pay nearly $1 trillion annually to the U.S. military, Times Washington bureau chief Richard Stevenson said “the public has a right to know how the government and military are operating.”

Is someone afraid of free speech and a free press?

Tony

Kristi Noem

Dear Commons Community,

Some US airports are refusing to play a video of Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem blaming Democrats for the federal government shutdown.  As reported by CNN.

The video, first obtained by Fox News, is intended to play at security lines, with Noem stating, “It is TSA’s top priority to make sure that you have the most pleasant and efficient airport experience as possible while we keep you safe.”

She also says, “However, Democrats in Congress refuse to fund the federal government, and because of this, many of our operations are impacted, and most of our TSA employees are working without pay.”

In an email to CNN, a spokesperson for the Port of Portland, which operates Portland International Airport, Hillsboro Airport and Troutdale Airport, confirmed a request came from the Transportation Security Administration to display the video message.

“We did not consent to playing the video in its current form, as we believe the Hatch Act clearly prohibits use of public assets for political purposes and messaging,” said Molly Prescott, spokesperson for the Port of Portland.

The Hatch Act is a 1939 law which prohibits political activities of federal employees to ensure government programs are administered in a nonpartisan fashion.

Prescott added Oregon law states no public employee can promote or oppose any political committee, party or affiliation.

TSA checkpoints often include videos featuring government officials welcoming travelers and explanations of procedures, but they usually do not contain political messages.

A Port of Seattle spokesperson also told CNN Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, will not play the video “due to the political nature of the content.”

“We continue to urge bipartisan efforts to end the government shutdown and are working to find ways to support federal employees working without pay at SEA during the shutdown,” the spokesperson said.

In Westchester County, just north of New York City, the airport will not display the video either.

“The PSA politicizes the impacts of a federal government shutdown on TSA Operations, and the County finds the tone to be unnecessarily alarmist,” County Executive Ken Jenkins said in a statement. “It is inappropriate, unacceptable, and inconsistent with the values we expect from our nation’s top public officials.”

It is not clear if any airport has agreed to display the video message.

Slimeball anyone!

Tony

MIT President Sally Kornbluth seen here testifying before the House Education and Workforce Committee in December of 2023. Kevin Dietsch, Getty Images.

Dear Commons Community,

The Chronicle of Higher Education has an article this morning entitled, “What Could MIT’s Rejection of Trump’s Proposed ‘Compact’ Mean for the Rest of Higher Ed?” It quotes MIT President Sally Kornbluth on MIT’s decision to reject Trump’s intimidation of higher education by requiring colleges to sign a compact in order to receive federal funding. Here is an excerpt:

“The compact “includes principles with which we disagree, including those that would restrict freedom of expression and our independence as an institution,” Kornbluth wrote in a public letter explaining her decision. “And fundamentally, the premise of the document is inconsistent with our core belief that scientific funding should be based on scientific merit alone.” An MIT spokesperson said the institute would not comment further.

Some MIT faculty members had feared that agreeing with the compact would affect their ability to conduct research, as well. “Anybody who followed the scientific method, followed the facts where they led us, might find ourselves reaching conclusions that were not what the administration wanted to hear, and this compact would give them a means to clamp down,” White said. She gave examples: What if MIT economists came to unflattering conclusions about the U.S. economy? Or if engineers at the university invented something that threatened the businesses of those close to President Trump?”

Despite some of the strong support for Kornbluth’s decision within and outside of MIT, at least one stakeholder offered a more tepid reaction. “I hope that the letter that President Kornbluth has sent will not be interpreted as a blanket rejection of any possible response to government preferences with respect to funding of research,” said Ian H. Hutchinson, a professor emeritus of nuclear science and engineering at MIT. “I think there are parts of many universities that have become captured to ideological positions. I think MIT can and will reform some of these areas and encouragement from the government is not entirely inappropriate.”

Hold your ground, Sally!

Tony

Dear Commons Community,

Maureen Dowd’s column yesterday entitled, “Peace in Trump’s Time — Except Here”, took direct aim at Trump and why he will never get a Noblel Peace Prize.  Here main argument as the title implies is that he has declared war on his own country. Here is one excerpt:

“While Trump may have sparked dancing in the streets in the Middle East, he’s sparked danger in the streets in America. He is siccing American troops on blue cities, distorting the National Guard’s largely humanitarian mission and turning it into, as The Times’s John Ismay put it, “a partisan strike force at the whim of the president.”

Her conclusion:

“Trump seems oblivious to the paradox of enforcing peace abroad and disrupting it badly at home, of soothing violence overseas and inflaming it here.

While he’s rechristened the Pentagon the chesty “Department of War,” he’s bragging about forming a Board of Peace — with himself, of course, the chief peacenik — to oversee Gaza’s new governing body.

The contradiction is hard to square. It’s not going to win our president a peace prize.”

Her entire column is below.

Tony

—————————————————————–

The New York Times

Peace in Trump’s Time — Except Here

Oct. 11, 202

By Maureen Dowd

Opinion Columnist, reporting from Washington

This is one piece of gold that President Trump is never going to get his short, stubby fingers on: an 18-karat gold medal with three naked men embracing, awarded to those who promote peace, democracy and human rights.

The Nobel Peace Prize has been given to some beauts — like Henry Kissinger, for helping end the Vietnam War he perpetuated to aid Richard Nixon’s re-election.

But the prize was not designed for someone like Trump. The Norwegian Nobel Committee would no doubt discontinue the award before it would give it to him.

His longing is partly inspired by his jealousy of Barack Obama, who absurdly got a Nobel Peace Prize after only eight months in office for just being a cool dude. Our 79-year-old president admitted recently that he also envies Obama for the way he airily bopped down the stairs of Air Force One, while he himself has to slowly creep down, grasping the railing, worried that he’ll fall and look as unsteady as Joe Biden.

I’ve always thought we were lucky that Trump was not more prone to invasions, à la his fellow draft dodger Dick Cheney, given his belligerent persona, vengeful nature, fascination with military trappings and U.F.C. macho bluster. He insisted on having a military parade here in June and he’s planning a U.F.C. fight next June on the White House South Lawn for the country’s 250th birthday.

Even though most liberals have tried to paint Trump as a deranged hawk at heart, the former real estate developer always seemed, blessedly, more drawn to the art of the deal than shock and awe. While he bombed Iran’s nuclear facilities, threatens Venezuela and strikes alleged drug boats off its coast, he more often seems to consider war a waste of time and money that could be better spent building a beachfront property in North Korea or Gaza.

“Unlike other candidates for the presidency, war and aggression will not be my first instinct,” he said in his first foreign policy speech in Washington during the 2016 race. He added, “A superpower understands that caution and restraint are really truly signs of strength.”

Even though he tepidly supported the invasion of Iraq, amid the rah-rah patriotic push to punish somebody, anybody, for 9/11, he would later call it “the single worst decision ever made.”

In May, he denounced the debacles of “neocons” and “interventionists,” vowing a future “where people of different nations, religions and creeds are building cities together, not bombing each other out of existence.”

If Trump can untie the Gordian knot of the Middle East, it will be a spectacular feat — although it will have been accomplished by accommodating Bibi’s brutal annihilation and starvation of Gaza. And, of course, there’s probably some money in it for him and his family somewhere.

But the region is a graveyard of peace deals. As David Sanger wrote in The Times: “Much could go wrong in coming days, and in the Middle East it often does. The ‘peace’ deal Mr. Trump heralded on Truth Social on Wednesday evening may look more like another temporary pause in a war that started long before Israel’s founding in 1948, and has never ended.”

As Tom Friedman pointed out, it is Trump’s moral indifference to the human rights transgressions of his partners in the peace plan that allows him to break through old paradigms.

That is the same moral indifference that will prevent him from ever getting a Nobel. You can’t get a medal for promoting democracy when you tried to overthrow the democracy you were running.

He has shown utter disdain for our Constitution and the laws that have made us the greatest democracy in the world.

Once in 2016, I asked him about the violence that was breaking out at his rallies. He said he thought it added some excitement to the proceedings.

Trump is constantly posting cruel, nasty images on Truth Social. He loves gladiatorial combat, the scenes of masked ICE officers roughing up people, even if they have their American passports in their pockets.

What sort of person — much less a president — does not object to headlines like this in The Hill: “Top DHS Official Defends ICE Officer Who Shot Pastor With Pepper Ball”?

The Rev. David Black was protesting peacefully at an ICE facility in a Chicago suburb, hands out, offering to pray with officers, when an ICE officer on a roof shot him in the head with a pepper ball.

While Trump may have sparked dancing in the streets in the Middle East, he’s sparked danger in the streets in America. He is siccing American troops on blue cities, distorting the National Guard’s largely humanitarian mission and turning it into, as The Times’s John Ismay put it, “a partisan strike force at the whim of the president.”

Trump expressed another chilling whim to the generals recently when he said he had told Pete Hegseth: “We should use some of these dangerous cities as training grounds for our military.”

Even as he says he should have won the Nobel five times over for his work solving foreign conflicts, he is creating conflicts in America, concocting perilous crises in American cities.

Gov. Kevin Stitt of Oklahoma, the Republican chairman of the National Governors Association, told The Times that the president was violating states’ rights: “Oklahomans would lose their mind if Pritzker in Illinois sent troops down to Oklahoma during the Biden administration.”

While he’s freeing hostages in Gaza, Trump is seizing some here. He’s forcing Pam Bondi to play the tortured servant Renfield to his dark, narcissistic Dracula. She is scurrying around eating insects, doing the president’s dirty work of indicting his foes and purging anyone who worked with them. The Department of Vengeance, nee Department of Justice, has indicted James Comey, the former F.B.I. director, and Letitia James, the attorney general of New York, and more Trumped-up vindictive indictments are surely coming.

Richard Nixon had an enemies list, but he didn’t do much with it. He could only dream of doing the kind of stuff Trump has gotten away with.

Trump seems oblivious to the paradox of enforcing peace abroad and disrupting it badly at home, of soothing violence overseas and inflaming it here.

While he’s rechristened the Pentagon the chesty “Department of War,” he’s bragging about forming a Board of Peace — with himself, of course, the chief peacenik — to oversee Gaza’s new governing body.

The contradiction is hard to square. It’s not going to win our president a peace prize.

Diane Keaton:  Photo: Amy Sussman/Getty Images

Dear Commons Community,

PEOPLE is reporting that Diane Keaton has died. She was 79.

Keaton died in California yesterday. “There are no further details available at this time, and her family has asked for privacy in this moment of great sadness,” a spokesperson told PEOPLE.

The Los Angeles Fire Department (LAFD) confirms that they responded to Keaton’s home at 8:08 a.m. local time and transported a 79-year-old woman to a local hospital.

Keaton rose to fame in the 1970s thanks to her role in The Godfather films and her collaborations with director Woody Allen. She won an Oscar for Best Actress for 1977’s Annie Hall. Her long career included movies like The First Wives Club, multiple collaborations with director Nancy Meyers and the Book Club franchise.

The actress was born in Los Angeles in 1946 as Diane Hall, and was the oldest of four children. Her father was a civil engineer, while her mom stayed at home.

Still, Keaton thought her mother dreamed of something bigger. “Secretly in her heart of hearts she probably wanted to be an entertainer of some kind,” the actress told PEOPLE in 2004. “She sang. She played the piano. She was beautiful. She was my advocate.”

Keaton performed in plays in high school, and after graduating in 1964, she pursued drama in college. But she soon dropped out and moved to New York to try to make her way in theater. She took her mother’s maiden name, Keaton, for her professional name, because there was already a Diane Hall registered with Actors’ Equity.

In 1968, Keaton was cast in Broadway’s Hair as the understudy for Sheila. In 2017, Keaton said that she struggled with bulimia during this time after the director of the show told her she needed to lose weight, though she didn’t blame him for her illness. “Believe me, it had to do with an overabundant need for more. Too much. It was a mental illness,” she said.

“I became a master at hiding. Hiding any evidence — how do you make sure no one knows? You live a lifestyle that is very strange. You’re living a lie,” she explained about her illness. She eventually recovered thanks to therapy, but said bulimia also robbed her of the ability to enjoy her time on Broadway.

Next, Keaton starred in Allen’s Broadway show Play It Again, Sam, which premiered in 1969. She received a Tony nomination for the role.

Her film debut was in 1970’s Lovers and Other Strangers, but her big break came when Francis Ford Coppola cast her as Kay Adams, the girlfriend of Al Pacino’s Michael Corleone, in The Godfather, released in 1972. The movie was based on the novel by Mario Puzo but Keaton didn’t read the bestseller before her audition and didn’t really know what the film was about.

“I think the kindest thing that someone’s ever done for me … is that I got cast to be in The Godfather and I didn’t even read it. I didn’t know a single thing”. “I just was going around auditioning. I think that was amazing for me. And then I had to kind of read the book.”

The film was a massive success and won Best Picture at the Oscars. Keaton reprised her role in 1974’s The Godfather Part II, which was also a triumph and won Best Picture. She returned for 1990’s The Godfather Part III, the last film.

Keaton also continued to collaborate with Allen, appearing in the film version of Play It Again, Sam, released in 1972, 1973’s Sleeper and 1975’s Love and Death. Despite her early success, Keaton’s insecurities still plagued her, and she would never watch her own films. “I just don’t like the way I look and sound.” 

In 1977, Keaton starred in Allen’s Annie Hall as the title character. She won the Oscar for Best Actress for the role. Annie’s wardrobe mimicked Keaton’s own, full of menswear, vests, and structured trousers, and the film cemented the actress’s place as a style icon.

Many speculated that the movie was based on Keaton and Allen’s relationship. She told The New York Times in 1977, “It’s not true, but there are elements of truth in it.”

Keaton would collaborate with Allen again in 1978’s Interiors, 1979’s Manhattan and 1993’s Manhattan Murder Mystery. She also defended Allen in the wake of sexual abuse allegations from his stepdaughter Dylan Farrow. “I love him,” she told The Guardian in 2014.

Keaton’s other film roles included 1977’s Looking for Mr. Goodbar, 1981’s Reds, 1982’s Shoot the Moon and 1984’s The Little Drummer Girl. She worked with Meyers for the first time on 1987’s Baby Boom. They would reunite three more times: in 1991’s Father of the Bride, 1995’s Father of the Bride Part II and 2003’s Something’s Gotta Give, which garnered another Oscar nom for Keaton. Asked which of these projects she loved the most, Keaton told Vulture in 2020, “Honestly, you can think it’s sappy, but I love the Father of the Bride movies. They were so touching.”

Keaton starred with Goldie Hawn and Bette Midler in 1996’s The First Wives Club, about three women whose husbands had left them for younger women. The comedy famously ended with all three singing Lesley Gore’s “You Don’t Own Me.” Keaton told The Hollywood Reporter in 2023 that she was “always kind of anxious and a little worried” while filming it because Hawn and Midler were “really amazing actresses.”

Later roles for Keaton included The Family Stone, Because I Said So, Finding Dory, Book Club (and its sequel) and Poms. She made a rare TV appearance with a starring role in HBO’s 2016 miniseries The Young Pope. Keaton also worked as a director, helming the 1987 documentary Heaven, 2000’s Hanging Up and an episode of Twin Peaks.

In 2021 Keaton starred in Justin Bieber’s music video “Ghost.” She also was a prolific Instagram user, posting updates on her life, reflections on her career and friendships and praising those she loved.

Looking back on her career, Keaton told PEOPLE in 2019, “I don’t know anything, and I haven’t learned. Getting older hasn’t made me wiser. Without acting I would have been a misfit.”

Keaton never married. “Today I was thinking, I’m the only one in my generation of actresses who has been a single woman all her life,” she explained to PEOPLE in 2019. “I’m really glad I didn’t get married. I’m an oddball. I remember in high school, this guy came up to me and said, ‘One day you’re going to make a good wife.’ And I thought, ‘I don’t want to be a wife. No.’”

She was romantically linked to Allen, Pacino and Warren Beatty over the years. “Talent is so damn attractive.”  

Keaton had two children, daughter Dexter and son Duke, whom she adopted in 1996 and 2001, respectively. “Motherhood was not an urge I couldn’t resist, it was more like a thought I’d been thinking for a very long time. So I plunged in,” she told Ladies’ Home Journal in 2008.

Keaton is survived by her children.

She was one of my favorite actresses.  May she rest in peace!

Tony

Dear Commons Community,

My wife, Elaine, has me on a reading fiction kick.  Having recently finished The Neopolitan Novels by Elena Ferrante, she suggested I try Bel Canto by the best-selling author Ann Patchett. Bel Canto is a thriller that takes place in South America (the country is not named). The plot involves the imprisonment of a group of movers and shakers celebrating a Japanese magnate’s birthday on an estate. There is the magnate, a world-class opera soprano, the vice president of the country, and a host of others being held captive.  Their captivity goes on for months and a major aspect of the plot is the relationships that evolve among the captives, the revolutionary leaders, and the young insurgents who guard the prisoners.  Patchett kept the story interesting as I tried to anticipate what would happen next. I will not give away the ending.

 All in all I found it a good read!

Tony

————————————————————————————–

Bel Canto was published in 2002. This review was Posted in Contemporary Literature and Fiction in 2020.

Book Review: Bel Canto by Ann Patchett

A dinner party in the capital city of a South American country takes an unfortunate turn when guerrillas storm the Vice President’s mansion and take everyone hostage. Bel Canto explores what happens when these captors and captives spend months together in close quarters.

I’ve never read any of Ann Patchett’s novels and I heard Bel Canto was one of her best, so I started here. It was published in 2001. I’ve been reading some older books lately, with great results, but I promise I’ll review some recent releases very soon. I have my eye on a couple of thrillers that look really good!

The dinner party that kicks off Bel Canto is held for a Japanese businessman named Mr. Hosokawa. The unnamed South American country was trying to woo him into building a manufacturing plant there. But the only reason Mr. Hosokawa came to the party was to hear famed opera star, Roxane Coss, sing. The guerrillas, consisting of three aging generals and seventeen mostly underage “soldiers”, expected the President to be there. They just wanted to snatch him and run. But the President wasn’t there and instead it turned into a hostage situation with a couple of hundred captives.

The guerrillas were in over their heads. They were an idealistic and nonviolent lot, and incapable of managing a hostage situation. So they and the hostages settle in for the long haul, never making any progress in negotiations with the government. The generals can’t figure out how to extricate themselves from the situation.

Roxane, the opera singer, begins to sing daily, and holds everyone in her thrall. Friendships form and there are a couple of romances. Some of the hostages begin to feel satisfied with their new lifestyle. A malaise creeps in that causes hostages not to try to escape. For their part, some of the young guerrillas like living in the luxurious mansion – it’s a big improvement over how they usually live. No one is in a hurry to leave, but all things must come to an end, especially hostage situations.

Opera is a major theme of Bel Canto (Bel Canto is an opera term). In fact, Ann Patchett said she set out to create an operatic story, complete with grandeur and drama. She also wove in some absurdist comedy, which I thought was done really well. Like with many operas, there were some implausible elements – a young guerrilla that could sing opera, a hostage who happened to be a talented pianist – but I thought it all worked and made for a really good story.

However, the author fell a bit short with creating the inevitable, tragic, operatic ending for Bel Canto. It was covered quickly and wasn’t the gut wrenching scene that it probably could/should have been. The part of me that doesn’t like to cry was grateful for that, but the rational part of me feels like this was a missed opportunity. And the very final scene didn’t make any sense to me. Maybe the author was having a hard time ending it?

Overall, I liked Bel Canto. The writing is good and it is an interesting concept. The characters are very human and likable and I liked the natures of most of the relationships that developed. I was hoping Ann Patchett would figure out a way to give the story a happy ending, but it ended the only way it could.

Dear Commons Community,

Former President and Nobel Peace Prize winner Barack Obama congratulated the newest Nobel Peace Prize laureate María Corina Machado.  Obama posted on X:

“Congratulations to new Nobel Peace Prize laureate María Corina Machado for her courageous struggle to bring democracy to Venezuela. It should inspire those engaged in similar struggles around the world – and remind those of us lucky enough to live in America that we have a solemn responsibility to constantly preserve and defend our own hard-won democratic traditions.

Congratulations indeed!

Tony

Photograph:  The Boston Globe.

Dear Commons Community,

The New York Times and other media reported yesterday that the Massachusetts Institute of Technology became the first of the nine schools to reject the Trump administration’s offer to grant priority access to congressionally authorized federal funds in exchange for signing a “compact” in which they agree to a host of demands that, according to NBC News, includes “barring transgender people from using restrooms or playing in sports that align with their gender identities and capping international undergraduate student enrollment,” not admitting foreign students who demonstrate “hostility” to the U.S., and eradicating campus institutions that might “punish, belittle, and even spark violence against conservative ideas.”

For the other schools, state officials have raised the stakes of the decision. The University of Southern California was on the list of schools that received the Trump administration’s proposal — alongside the University of Arizona, Brown University, Dartmouth College, the University of Pennsylvania, the University of Texas, Vanderbilt University and the University of Virginia — but California Gov. Gavin Newsom declared last week that any school in his state that takes the deal risks losing its state funding.

Democrats in Virginia’s state Senate issued a similar warning to UVA. In a letter sent to university officials, reported in the Virginia Mercury , the Senate’s Democratic leadership didn’t declared:

‘If the University of Virginia signs this compact, there will be significant consequences in future Virginia budget cycles,’ the letter states. ‘As the leadership of the Senate with responsibility for appropriations affecting higher education, we will work with our colleagues to ensure that the commonwealth does not subsidize an institution that has ceded its independence to federal political control.’

The university’s top officials said in a public statement earlier this week that “it would be difficult for the university to agree to certain provisions in the compact.” In a recent vote by the UVA faculty, 95% said they oppose the university signing the compact.

Forcing schools to weigh the risks of capitulating to the administration’s demands — and putting state funds in the balance — seems like one way for Democrats to discourage schools from surrendering to an administration that continues to muscle in on the ideological independence of America’s college and universities.

Bravo to MIT for putting its values first!

Tony