BOOK REVIEW: On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong

On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous is a famous book that has received substantial acclaim and recognition, especially for the beauty and emotional resonance of its prose. The book is written primarily in the first person as a letter to the author's mother, from an openly gay man who has been nicknamed Little Dog. The two have a complicated relationship, and the book documents the difficult life the two spent together as well as the how the war-torn country of Vietnam has impacted the author's mother as well as her mother (Little Dog's grandmother). 

I finally read this book because it was under consideration to be selected as a community read. Very early in the book it becomes clear that the themes of the book are very adult and that it includes scenes and depictions of events that might be triggering to some readers who have experienced various kinds of trauma. For example, the son describes multiple times that he is physically assaulted by his mother, and punished in multiple ways that seem disproportionate for the infraction he may have committed. Little Dog also describes racist incidents that happen to him and his family members in Hartford, Connecticut where they live when he was young. It becomes clear that the traumas that his mother (Rose) and grandmother (Lan) have had a deleterious effect on their mental health.

One key plot thread of the book involves Little Dog's relationship with a local white kid named Trevor. When Little Dog is 15 and Trevor is 17 they meet working on a tobacco farm in rural Connecticut. They are the two youngest employees and thus they start hanging out together. Eventually they both realize that there's an attraction to each other, and though Trevor never articulates being gay, but the two boys have intimate sexual contact multiple times for the next several years. This section of the book was one of the highlights for me, but this is primarily because it depicts a realistic and rarely-viewed slice of gay life. Soon after they meet it becomes clear that Trevor is a fan of using various drugs, from alcohol, pot, cocaine and eventually heroin. Drug use was not a stranger to Little Dog, as several of his neighbors in his rough Hartford neighborhood had died of overdoses. So after Little Dog leaves Hartford and goes to New York for college it's sad but not surprising that we learn that Trevor has died as well.

Overall, On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous is an engaging, troubling and memorable book. It's true that the writing is incredibly evocative (this is Vuong's first  book of fiction after becoming celebrated as a poet). The intersection(s) between the identities of Little Dog and of Ocean Vuong make it seem like the book is thinly-veiled biography, and this gives the work an extra frisson as well. In the end, though, I can't say I particularly enjoyed the book, although I am glad that I did read it.

Title: On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous.
Author: Ocean Vuong.
Format: Kindle.
Format: 256 pages.
Publisher: Penguin Press.
Date Published: June 4, 2019.
Date Read: April 20, 2021.

GOODREADS RATING: ★★★½☆  (3.5/5.0).

OVERALL GRADE: A (4.0/4.0).

PLOT: A-.
IMAGERY: A.
IMPACT: A+.
WRITING: A.

TENNIS TUESDAY: Sharapova Stuns Tennis World With Admission Of Failed WADA Test

5-time major champion Maria Sharapova piqued the attention of the world press when she announced over the weekend that she would be giving a press conference in Los Angeles on Monday, just hours after football legend Peyton Manning was scheduled to confirm his retirement from the world's most lucrative sport. This led to speculation that perhaps the 28-year-old Russian would announce her own retirement from tennis on Monday.

Instead, the highest paid female athlete in the world announced that she had recently received a letter from the World Anti-Doping Authority (WADA) that she had failed a drug test at the 2016 Australian Open. Apparently she had tested positive for the substance meldonium from a sample provided to WADA on January 26 (during the Australian Open), which had been added to list of banned substances on January 1, 2016.

Sharapova gave a press conference where she took full responsibility for the failed drug test and said that she had been taking meldonium since 2006 and that although she had received an email with a link to the new list of unapproved substances she did not personally look at the new list. Meldonium is not a drug that is approved by the United States Food and Drug Administration (it is manufactured in Latvia).

There are many more questions raised by Sharapova's press conference. Here are just a few:

1. How long will she be banned from tennis for this infraction? (She has already been officially banned from professional tennis starting March 12, 2016.)
2. How did the most highly paid female athlete in tennis not have someone on her staff who regularly checks the list of substances the athlete takes and compares it to the current list of banned substances maintained by WADA?
3. Does Sharapova take the drug every day? What is the half-life of meldonium? Depending on how long meldonium remains in the system, perhaps 25 days after she stopped taking it, she tested positive for it. After all, if she had smoked marijuana on December 31st, it's very possible she could have tested positive for THC 3-4 weeks later.
4. Why has Sharapova been taking this drug for the last 10 years, and what effect does this have on her legacy as a player if she used a now-banned substance to (presumably enjoy an) advantage in tennis competitions for the vast majority of her professional career?
5. Will she be able to play in the Rio Olympics?

Sharapova is 28 (turns 29 next month) and an extensive ban at this time could push her into announcing her retirement for real this time, a reality she herself acknowledged when she said "I don't want to end my career this way, and I really hope I will be given another chance to play this game."

FILM REVIEW: Sicario

I've been a big fan of director Denis Villeneuve since I saw Incendies and the emotionally complex film became one of my favorites of 2011. I also saw his 2013 film Prisoners (starring Hugh Jackman, Jake Gyllenhaal, Viola Davis, Paul Dano, Terrence Howard and Maria Bello) which is a taut thriller about suspicion and kidnapping. Both Incendies and Prisoners have very good ratings from rottentomatoes.com (92% and 81%, respectively).

Villeneuve is back this year with Sicario, (starring Emily Blunt, Benicio Del Toro, and Josh Brolin) a thriller about the drug war. Sicario is also critically acclaimed, with a rottentomatoes.com rating of 93%.

The film revolves around Blunt's character who is an FBI agent who is pressured into volunteering for an inter-agency Task Force to work with characters played by Brolin and Del Toro after she discovers a house in a Phoenix suburb with dozens of corpses that are directly linked to a Mexican drug cartel.

The story (written by Taylor Sheridan) proceeds at breakneck pace, as both we and Blunt's character are swept along by events, crossing the border from the United States to Mexico and back again to retrieve a person we are old is a person of interest in the ongoing investigation, without much more of an explanation as to what is going on and why. Eventually we are told that Brolin's character is ostensibly trying to cause a big enough of a ruckus so that the head of the cartel that was responsible for the bodies found in the Phoenix area will take notice and make a move that would expose him to capture by law enforcement.

However things are not what they seem and eventually it becomes clear that the motives of the characters played by Brolin and Del Toro are not completely aligned with those of the FBI and Blunt's character. This is exposed in a harrowing sequence where all of the main characters go into a long drug-running tunnel where some surprising (and very violent) events occur and Blunt's suspicions are confirmed.

Overall, Sicario is suspenseful, adrenaline-pumping ride which depicts the realities and ethical dilemmas of the drug war with compelling verisimilitude.

Title: Sicario.
Director: Denis Villeneuve.
Running Time: 121 minutes.
MPAA Rating: Rated R for strong violence, grisly images, and language.
Release Date: October 2, 2015.
Viewing Date: November 27, 2015.

Writing: A-.
Acting: A-.
Visuals: A+.
Impact: B+.

Overall Grade: A/A- (3.75/4.0)

US Applies Crack Sentencing Reform Retroactively

News you might have missed over the weekend: The U.S. Sentencing Commission has decided (unanimously!) to follow the lead of Congressional action in reducing the penalty disparity between powder cocaine and crack cocaine from 100:1 to 18:1 (still not what it should be which is 1:1) and apply these lesser penalties retroactively to (primarily Black and Brown) people who are currently serving excessive time in jail for crimes involving crack:

The Los Angeles Times has the story:

About 12,000 federal prisoners nationwide may soon be going home, some as much as three years early, under a U.S. Sentencing Commission decision to allow retroactive reductions in prison terms for inmates convicted of crack cocaine offenses.
The commission voted unanimously Thursday to bring "unfairly long sentences" for crack offenders, mostly African Americans, more in line with the shorter terms given to powder cocaine offenders, often white and sometimes affluent.

Patti B. Saris, the panel's chairwoman, said that when Congress passed the Fair Sentencing Act last year, it "recognized the fundamental unfairness of federal cocaine sentencing policy," and the commission sought to bridge the disparity between the two prison sentences.
"Justice demands this result," added Ketanji Brown Jackson, the commission's vice chairman.
When the reductions go into effect in November, the average crack sentence will be cut by about 37 months, and the federal Bureau of Prisoners said the reductions could save more than $200 million in the next five years. Nearly 6% of the federal inmate population would be released.
The reductions are not automatic. Prisoners must file a petition, and will be required to show they are no longer a risk to society. Inmates who used weapons in their crimes or have lengthy criminal histories may not be eligible.
The commission's mail, about 43,500 letters and emails, ran overwhelmingly in favor of the reductions. The Sentencing Project, a Washington group that pushes for reform in sentencing laws, also strongly encouraged approval of the reductions.
Kara Gotsch, director of advocacy for the Sentencing Project, said the panel's vote "confirms that fairness and equal treatment under the law are fundamental principles of our criminal justice system."
But Republicans, most notably Rep. Lamar Smith of Texas, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, opposed the reductions. He had lobbied the commission not to grant the early releases, warning it "merely gets criminals back into action faster."

Good ol' boy Lamar Smith of Texas, always willing to stand up and demonstrate why people should never vote for Republicans. Thanks!

The main take-away is that this move is a move in the right direction towards adding some sanity to what is our insane "War on drugs" public policy.

Proposition 19 Looking Less Likely To Pass

Nate Silver has analyzed the polls on  California's marijuana legalization initiative, Proposition 19, and it is looking less and less likely to pass. A new Los Angeles Times/USC poll confirms that a majority of likely voters say they will vote against the measure.

The poll indicated that opposition has surged since September, when 52% of likely voters backed Proposition 19, which would allow Californians to grow and possess pot, and they split evenly over Proposition 23.

The earlier poll's Proposition 19 result had encouraged supporters and attracted some high-dollar donations. The measure would allow Californians who are 21 and older to grow and possess marijuana, while cities and counties could authorize commercial cultivation, sales and taxation.

The latest poll found support had eroded significantly across all demographic groups, but most steeply among Latino voters. In September, 63% backed it. Now, 51% oppose it.

[...]

Much of the reversal appears to be driven by evaporating support in Southern California. In September, 56% of likely voters in Los Angeles County and 52% in other Southern California counties supported the measure. This month, those percentages slipped to 41% and 42%.

Congress Passes Act Reducing Cocaine Disparity

Finally! The disparity between criminal sentences for possession of two different forms of the same illegal substance has long been a bitter pill for progressives like myself to swallow. Happily, this week, Congress passed legislation t reduce the disparity in sentences for powder versus crack cocaine from 100-to-1 to 18-to-1. As I put it before, they made the war on drugs 82% less racist.

From The New York Times:

Under the current law, adopted in 1986 after a surge in crack cocaine smoking and drug-related killings, someone convicted in federal court of possession of five grams of crack must be sentenced to at least five years in prison, and possession of 10 grams requires a 10-year minimum sentence. With powder cocaine, the threshold amounts for those mandatory sentences are 100 times as high.

In the bill passed Wednesday, the amount of crack that would invoke a five-year minimum sentence is raised to 28 grams, said to be roughly the amount a dealer might carry, and for a 10-year sentence, 280 grams.

While crack use has declined since the 1980s, arrests remain common, and some 80 percent of those convicted on crack charges in recent years have been black. A growing number of criminologists have concluded that the sentencing disparity is unjustified and has subjected tens of thousands of blacks to lengthy prison terms while offering more lenient punishment to users and sellers of powder cocaine, who are more often white.

Of course, many people are unhappy with the compromise legislation that has passed, since the new law is still racially discriminatory, as James Rucker of the online activist group Color of Change argues in The Root:

The Senate's compromise is still racially discriminatory and morally wrong, and we have yet to hear anyone explain why a disparity is necessary. It's time for those of us who care about this issue to force Sen. Sessions and Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill.,--the architects of the compromise--to offer an explanation that actually holds water. If Jeff Sessions really wants to argue that 18:1 is better for our country, we should create a media stir that requires him to defend that position in public. And if the explanation doesn't pass muster, if it doesn't appear to be in line with our communities' interests, we have to say so.

We understand that compromise is sometimes necessary, and we agree with our allies that some level of sentencing relief is better than none. But we can't afford to fold before the final hand has been played, and we shouldn't be negotiating from a position of weakness. That's how we ended up with an 18:1 compromise in the first place versus 10:1 or a 5:1. Real change--on ending this sentencing disparity and on other policy issues important to our communities--depends on our willingness to shine a light on backroom deals and apply grassroots energy to hold our elected officials accountable. That's the way democracy is supposed to work, and our responsibility to raise our voices in protest is not something we should ever compromise.

My position is that one can both argue for a 1:1 bill and still celebrate the progress inherent in the reduction of the previous draconian sentencing disparity. Compromise does not have to be a dirty word, as long as everyone involved realizes this is just one stage, not the end, of a long struggle for change.

War On Drugs: Now 82% Less Racist?

The Los Angeles Times editorializes about a compromise in the U.S. Senate to modify the patently racist policy of treating possession of crack cocaine 100 times more aggressively than powder cocaine. Unfortunately, the Senate voted to make the new ratio 18-to-1, so it is now just 82% less racist:

Panic over a crack epidemic in the nation's cities in the 1980s led to draconian laws that ultimately would be as devastating to entire communities as the drug itself. According to a 2006 report by the American Civil Liberties Union, 1 in 14 black children has a parent in prison because of felony drug convictions. That's why a bipartisan bill to reduce the 100-1 sentencing disparity, approved unanimously by the Senate Judiciary Committee, is at once welcome and disheartening. The committee voted to reduce the disparity to 18 to 1, but the ratio should be 1 to 1, as proposed by Sen. Richard J. Durbin (D-Ill.). Under the bill, possession of 28 grams of crack, instead of 5 grams, would trigger the five-year mandatory minimum sentence. The bill also would stiffen penalties for bribing a peace officer and violence attendant to a crack-related offense.

It has taken more than a decade of determined advocacy to reach this point, and although it's not perfect, the Senate's reform measure, which is not retroactive, would mitigate the sentences of an estimated 3,000 people a year. So we reluctantly urge the House to forgo its rational, reasonable and more just approach -- because insisting on a 1-1 ratio, as approved by the House Judiciary Committee in the Fairness in Cocaine Sentencing Act of 2009, would by most accounts destroy any chance of passage. This is one issue on which there is cross-aisle cowardice: Few members of either party are willing to appear "soft on crime."

So 18 to 1 appears to be the best we can get. Republicans are insisting that bipartisanship is over and that there will be little, if any, cooperation for the rest of this year. But this agreement has already been struck. Before year's end, we hope to see the biased sentencing disparity on its way out.

The War on Drugs. Now 82% less racist. Sheeesh.

Obama DOJ Supports Cocaine Sentencing Reform

Elections have (good) consequences! The Washington Post is reporting that the Department of Justice has decided to (finally) support legislation to reform the drastic inequities in sentencing for possession and trafficking of different forms of cocaine.

"Now is the time for us to reexamine federal cocaine sentencing policy, from the perspective of both fundamental fairness and safety," Breuer told the subcommittee on crime and drugs. He said the issues would be among those considered by a Justice Department panel that within six months is to develop recommendations on an array of topics related to charging, sentencing and prisoner treatment.

Bipartisan groups of lawmakers in the House and Senate have introduced measures to equalize sentences, but the proposals have stalled in the past.

The sentencing inequality has come to be known as the "100 to 1" ratio, in which possession of five grams of crack, the weight of two small sugar cubes, triggers a mandatory five-year prison term, while a person carrying 500 grams of powder cocaine would receive the same sentence.

Senate Majority Whip Richard J. Durbin (D-Ill.), who chairs the subcommittee, noted that more than half of federal inmates are locked up for drug-related crimes, including high ratios of African American offenders. In 2007, Durbin said, 82 percent of people convicted on crack possession charges were black, and 9 percent were white. (emphasis added)

This is another good sign that the "War on Drugs" is losing saliency as a political football. In New York, the Rockefeller drug laws have recently been repealed under Governor David Paterson.

Mexican President Promises Universal Free Anti-HIV Drugs

Felipe Calderon, the President of Mexico, opened the XVII International AIDS Conference in Mexico City on Sunday by making two big announcements: Mexican citizens will now have access to universal anti-retroviral drugs and he is lifting restrictions on foreign manufacturers making generic anti-retroviral drugs in his country. "All absolutely, all, antiretroviral drugs will be provided for free," President Calderon said (in Spanish).

REVIEW: American Gangster

Saw Ridley Scott's American Gangster starring Oscar winners Denzel Washington (Glory, Training Day) and Russell Crowe (Gladiator, A Beautiful Mind) from a script by Steve Zaillian (Schindler's List) at my favorite second-run theaters in Pasadena (Regency Academy Theaters) this weekend.

Although it is billed as two-star vehicle, it is clearly Denzel's show and he runs away with the film, although I was impressed with Crowe's understatedly effective work. It is unlikely it will bring him his 4th Oscar nomination, although it is likely it will bring Denzel his 6th.

What the most impressive feature of the film to me was Ridley Scott's direction. I was shocked to discover that the creative force behind Alien (1979), Blade Runner (1982), Legend (1985), Thelma & Louise (1991) and Gladiator (2000) has been nominated 3 times (Thelma & Louise, Gladiator, Black Hawk Down) but never won an Oscar or Director's Guild of America Award.

The film is set in the late 1960s and early 1970s in New York City and New Jersey and reproduces this era with amazing precision and verisimilitude. Additionally, the story is pretty complex, recounting the details of how Frank Lucas became the most "dangerous drug dealer in New York City, even bigger than the mafia" in the words of Richie Roberts, the detective who locked him up. However, through clever pacing and non-showy direction, Scott weaves the tale with an ever increasing level of suspense despite the fact the ending is known walking into the theater.

The only caveat to my enthusiasm for the film is its shockingly retrograde depiction of women.
First of all, it is a testosterone-fueled film, with all the central characters depicted by men, from Lucas (Denzel) and Roberts (Russell) as the two main protagonists followed by Denzel's lieutentants played by his brothers and every single cop being male. The female characters are Denzel's wife, Denzel's mother, Russell's estranged wife and Denzel's drug production lieutenant. None of these characters is afforded agency and most of them are depicted one dimensionally. There are several incidental depictions of females as (mainly nude) objects of entertainment for men or as drug-addicted irresponsible caregivers.

Despite this drawback, overall American Gangster is a well-made, suspenseful period crime drama featuring two notable performances from two Oscar-level actors working at the top of their game.

GRADE: B+/A-

Race, Drugs and Sentencing Laws

The Washington Post and Los Angeles Times and other major newspapers are editorializing in favor of the United States Sentencing Commission appplying retroactively a newly issued policy change that eliminates the 100-to-1 sentencing discrepancy between crack and powder cocaine enacted in the Reagan-era. From Los Angeles Times' "Crack sentencing needs another fix":

Regardless of the intention, those guidelines proved not only discriminatory but ineffective -- as well as unjustified by scientific research. More than 80% of those serving time in federal prison on crack charges are African American. This has justifiably fueled distrust and disrespect for the law in black communities. Why should a black crack addict get more time than a white cocaine addict? Especially when research has shown that the two drugs are pharmacologically identical? Moreover, 20 years of harsh crack sentences have done nothing to stem the drug trade.

As of Nov. 1, the sentencing disparity has been eased, and Congress did the right thing by allowing the changes to take effect. Today, the U.S. Sentencing Commission, a panel created by Congress in 1984 to ensure fair terms for those convicted on federal charges, will discuss whether to make the reduction in sentences retroactive -- a move that would shave an average of at least two years off the terms of nearly 20,000 inmates.

The Justice Department argues that returning all those convicts to the streets represents a potential danger to the community. Perhaps, but then the release of any inmate represents a potential danger; anyone eligible for release has already served ample time for his or her crime. Because the Sentencing Commission has already ruled that the crack guidelines were unfair, it would be inconsistent to keep inmates in prison simply because they were sentenced before the rules were changed. What is unfair now was unfair then.

Mad Professah agrees with the calls for retroactivity, and notes that when drug sentences for marijuana and LSD were changed in the early 90s, those changes were applied retroactively. Of course, those changes primarily affected white people, while the current sentences for crack cocaine primarily affect black and brown people. I'm jus' sayin...