☆ Opp Now commentators' favorite books/etc. are powerful, passionate, piercing (3/5)
Pietro Liberi: Time Being Overcome by Truth, 1665. Image by Wikimedia Commons.
Some media we consume is pure brightness, lilting and inviolate joy amidst an oft-downtrodden world (did you know Chat GPT's more optimistic about DTSJ than some local pols?). Other pieces of media, as Kafka poignantly remarks, are more of an “axe for the frozen sea within us.” In this Opp Now exclusive, Irene Smith, Sheridan Swanson, Pat Waite, Lance Christensen, Elizabeth Weiss, and Tom Rubin chime in with their most impactful reads/watches of 2023.
Irene Smith, former San Jose City Council candidate:
Always interested in South American history, I watched “Argentina, 1985,” a horror/drama movie about real life heroes who prosecuted Argentina’s military junta for crimes against humanity. It's a true David & Goliath story that drove me to complete hopelessness as the witnesses testified to the cruelty and torture by men against women, children, and other men. But the story doesn't end there: our heroes held the military politicians criminally responsible for allowing, encouraging, and turning a blind eye to the devastation caused by the military. Then, the movie ends with high hopes of further prosecutions and life sentences.
So… when we look in our own backyard, what will future generations see as our crimes against humanity? Will it be that we left people on the sidewalks, on the creekside, and in our parks?
Sheridan Swanson, California Policy Center research manager:
"Beyond Utopia" was an intensely powerful experience in theater, and it's now available for streaming. It follows a Christian pastor's efforts to help people escape the evil North Korean regime. I wasn't aware that once someone escapes North Korea, they still have a long and treacherous journey through many countries ahead of them.
The documentary serves as a reminder of how much we have to be grateful for in the West and how important it is to fight for freedom and resist oppressive regimes. It also speaks to the resilience of the human spirit.
Pat Waite, Citizens for Fiscal Responsibility president:
No particular media content influenced me significantly this year, but I recently watched a movie that gives me some hope for our future.
“Nyad” is about a former Olympic marathon swimmer three decades past her prime (dare I call her an old lady?). It chronicles her attempts to accomplish the seemingly impossible… an open water swim of 103 miles from Cuba to Key West, Florida. She failed her first attempt 30 years ago yet is determined to succeed despite her advancing age. Annette Benning does a very good job as Diana Nyad; Jodie Foster is exquisite as her best friend and coach Bonnie Stoll.
In the movie, pig-headedness masquerades as persistence. In the end, the old lady achieves her goal only after letting go of her ego and accepting the counsel and help of her team.
This story gives me hope. Our community faces a seemingly insurmountable goal with respect to our unhoused population. While the numerous failures of our past may have us believe otherwise, we will ultimately prevail, once we help the old lady recognize that it takes trusting the entire team to do so.
Lance Christensen, California Policy Center’s Education Policy & Government Affairs vice president:
Alfred Lansing’s classic, “Endurance,” transformed my understanding of the tribulations a willing man with courage can endure as I followed Sir Earnest Shackleton’s harrowing 1914 Antarctic misadventure. I was not prepared for the depredations Shackleton and his crew of 27 encountered in the most extreme of circumstances at the rim of the South Pole. Unable to break through an ever-shifting sea of deadly ice to begin their coast-to-coast expedition, they demonstrated tenacity on a level I can only imagine surviving two years in the most hostile environment known to man. I hope to have their fortitude to fully live and explore.
Elizabeth Weiss, San Jose State University anthropology professor:
At the start of my visiting faculty fellowship in New York City at Heterodox Academy’s Center for Academic Pluralism, I was asked to give a talk for the Center’s opening night, which fell on September 21st. At this event, I spoke of my love for the study of skeletal remains, the cancel culture attack that I had endured over my anti-reburial perspective, and how I think that Heterodox Academy can help to open up dialogues on campuses across the nation to save anthropology.
After my talk, I mingled with attendees, one of whom suggested that I listen to the podcast “The Witch Trials of J.K. Rowling,” put out by Bari Weiss’s The Free Press. It’s an eight-part podcast that delves into the attempted cancelation of Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling. Her cancelation revolved around her support of biological women. She argued that males who identify as women should not be able to erase safeguards for women. Rowling was also concerned with the erasure of women through language, such as using terms like “people who menstruate” instead of “women.”
Tom Rubin, former SoCal Rapid Transit District chief financial officer:
I was inspired by the “Barbie” movie, hoping that, in the real world of the Bay Area, the government transportation decision-making process could reach a similar level of logic and rationality.
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