Associate Justice (retired) David Souter has died at the age of 85. Appointed to the Supreme Court by the first President Bush in 1990, he retired in 2009.
He was often understated in his opinions. In a 2009 concurrence in a case involving Navajo Nation mineral rights, Souter put down only two sentences.
“I am not through regretting that my position” in an early case “did not carry the day,” he wrote. “But it did not, and I agree that the precedent of that case calls for the result reached here.”
That comment is resonating with me because of an internal Mensa discussion we’re currently experiencing. Several people in the discussion seem to have difficulty understanding the fact that leaving an office does not absolve one of promises made when taking that office. Specifically, that a promise to respect the confidentiality of certain discussions must survive beyond the end of one’s term of office.
In that quote, Souter is saying that joining the Court obligated him to follow the precedents set by the Court before and during his tenure. Just as any other board of directors may debate an issue, with strong proponents on both sides, but once the body reaches a decision, it is the duty of all the members of that body to support it, or at the very least not publicly disagree with it.
I find it ironic that two of the news channels both quoted the same Harvard Youth Poll, which was taken by the Institute of Politics at the Harvard Kennedy School (see it here: https://iop.harvard.edu/youth-poll/50th-edition-spring-2025), this afternoon. On CNN, they touted the finding that—among young adults—President Trump’s approval rating is 31%. On Fox, they touted the finding that—among young adults—the approval rating of Democrats in Congress is 23%. Neither one (at least, while I was watching) mentioned the approval rating of Republicans in Congress (for the record: 29%).
A little more color on those numbers. Previous iterations of the poll were run in Spring 2017 and Fall 2020. Those numbers (in order) were: Trump: 32%, 29%, 31%. So he’s been remarkably steady, and the only one to improve since the previous poll. Republicans: 28%, 31%, 29%. Again, steady. Democrats: 42%, 48%, 23%. The biggest drop of the three. They should be embarrassed.
Both used the poll to show that those on the other side of the political aisle are in trouble, by quoting one or two specific numbers. But hearing them both within minutes of each other made me wonder: just what do those young people approve of? So I went dug out the poll itself. The answer, at least among the top ten issues this report is talking about, is “not much.” This group of young people is not happy with pretty much anything having to do with the government, world, or social issues.
They have very little sense of community, almost none of them think the country is heading in the right direction, their life goals are not the same as their forebears’, and very few of them trust the federal government to do the right thing.
Both CNN and Fox used the survey to make political hay, though only briefly and in passing. But neither, it seems, took the time to realize the survey says something far more important: it doesn’t matter which political party you support, your party is not doing a good job of serving the people, and the next generation is noticing. Bloviating and blaming the other side is easy, but it’s not enthusing anyone who isn’t already a dyed-in-the-wool supporter of the bloviators and the blamers.
Taking questions in the Oval Office with the prime minister of Norway sitting next to him, President Trump just responded to a question of what concessions Russia is willing to offer to end the war in Ukraine. His response? “Stopping the war, not taking the whole country.” That’s a concession? That’s something Russia would give up to end the war? Do we blame this answer on speaking off-the-cuff, or on President Trump’s Russian patriotism?
In response to Publishers Weekly’s new policy, which they announced in a letter stating:
“Publishers Weekly’s reviews editors handle a huge number of submissions and produce roughly 7,000 editorially chosen, prepublication reviews each year. Rest assured that our process and standards for how titles are selected for review is not changing.
“We are making a change in the submission process. In order to effectively manage the growing number of submissions we receive, as of March 24, 2025, titles submitted for PW review consideration incur a $25 fee.”
I’ve just sent the following letter to the editor of PW:
I’m disappointed to learn of Publishers Weekly‘s new pay-for-reviews policy. Reading the FAQ on the web page, I see
“Does the $25 submission fee apply to BookLife Reviews, which are different than PW reviews?
“No, the submission fee does not apply to BookLife Reviews. BookLife Reviews are an entirely different process; BookLife Reviews are paid reviews.”
As a publisher, I find this disingenuous. And as a reader, I don’t see the difference. Pay for a guaranteed paid review, or pay for a chance for a regular review. Either way, it’s paying for a review, whether you call it a submission fee or a paid review.
How long will it be before PW goes to a free distribution model, just to keep your circulation numbers up to justify the review fees?
I’ve mentioned that this weekend is another convention weekend for me. I’ll be in Glen Allen (Richmond), Virginia, for RavenCon, and I’m hoping to see you there!
If you’re looking for me, I’ll be (as usual) at the Fantastic Books table in the dealers’ room (which is open Friday 3–9pm, Saturday 10am–6pm, and Sunday 10am–2pm).
I’ll also be on programming. They’ve front-loaded my schedule to Friday evening, so make sure you get to the con early.
Friday at 6pm in the Henry room (in the Jefferson building): “Editors Are Not the Enemy” with Debbie Manber Kupfer, Bishop O’Connell, and Evan Ratke.
Friday at 8pm in Henry (Jefferson): “Short Stories as a Marketing Tool” with JM Lee, Pamela K. Kinney, and Mike Jack Stoumbos.
Friday at 9pm in Buckingham (Jefferson): “The Finances of Running a Small Press” with JM Beal, Jason T. Graves, and Shane Gries.
Saturday at 10am in Dinwiddie (Jefferson): “How to Write Realistic Dialogue” with R.S. Belcher, David Godwin, and Cass Morris.
Saturday at 8pm in Henry (Jefferson): “Grammar Goodies (Ask an Editor)” with JM Lee, Cass Morris, and Gray Rinehart.
I’ll be hitting the road before dawn on Friday, so it’s going to be a very long day for me; be gentle.
I moved inside from my first day sitting on the deck because the sun was in my eyes. Turned on the television, and stumbled across a movie that was just starting: The Prize, from 1964, starring Paul Newman, Edward G. Robinson, and Elke Sommer.
It caught and held my attention. It’s a combination of a mystery and a romantic comedy.
It’s set in Stockholm, Sweden. Newman, Robinson, and a few others have all come to town as this year’s Nobel laureates. Paul Clark (Newman), winning the prize for literature (though his career has turned from important books to detective novels) is a misanthropic alcoholic who is only there for the money. He meets Max Stratman (Robinson), physics, who was one of the scientists brought to the US in Operation Paperclip). The next day, however, Stratman doesn’t know Clark, and then at a press conference, Clark makes up a plot for a mystery novel in which a Nobel laureate is kidnapped. (Remember, this is 1964; not everyone has their photo available on the internet.) Inge Lisa Andersen (Sommer) is the official delegated to watch over Clark, make sure he gets to his appointments on time.
Interactions with the other laureates provide some of the comic relief, along with some drama, but the main thrust is Clark’s investigation of the mystery he thought he’d created on the spot. That, and the meet-cute romcom of Clark and Andersen’s relationship.
Overall, it’s an enjoyable and engaging movie from an era when car chases and battle scenes weren’t ubiquitous.
While I’m glad President Trump wised up and paused the tariffs, I’d have been much happier if he’d canceled them outright. But the whole activity—indeed, the past week’s worth of financial news coming out of the White House—points out that we don’t have a thoughtful, considerate person sitting in the Oval Office. We have a capricious, egotistical fool. And while such a person is not normally dangerous, the fact that he’s the president of the United States gives his every utterance global import.
I have to wonder how much of his decision process was driven by a recognition of the global pain he’d caused, and how much of it was yet another misuse of governmental power for his own financial benefit. A week ago, he started a global trade war all on his own (on the flimsiest of reasons and with absolutely execrable math to justify it). He continued harping on his attacks for a week. Last night, he told us he was thrilled with how other countries were “kissing his ass” to negotiate lower tariff rates (all class, that president of ours, just not high class). And just after 9:30 this morning, he apparently truthed out [is “truthed” the word for tweeting on his proprietary Twitter competitor?] “THIS IS A GREAT TIME TO BUY!!! DJT.” He followed it up with “BE COOL! Everything is going to work out well. The USA will be bigger and better than ever before!”
Remember, this is the only presidential candidate in a generation to not release his tax returns, and the only president in memory to not divest himself of his non-presidential businesses. Will we ever know how well he and his super-wealthy buddies did today after he “paused” the tariffs and popped the stock markets more than we’ve ever seen before?
I don’t think he knuckled under, and I don’t think he’s stupid. I think he’s an excellent grifter, and he’s just pulled off a brilliant scam for himself and his friends. For those of you not seeing it: he depressed the price of almost every stock in the US by fifteen or twenty percent, in one week, giving his cronies a great chance to buy. And today, he popped those prices back up ten percent.
He’s in the Oval Office to steal as much as he can, and he’s doing a pretty good job of it.
Outsiders. Rebels. Free-Thinkers. Who doesn’t love an underdog? Deep inside, most of us identify with those who are a little—or a lot—different. Those who choose their own path, or for whom fate chooses for them. Sometime in our lives, we’ve felt like we didn’t quite fit in.
This doesn’t have to be a bad thing.
Forging your own way builds strength, and makes for a damn good story!
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I want to comment on President Trump’s long “announcement” of a global tariff agenda just now in the Rose Garden, but what the hell was he talking about? He rambled from “my predecessors were stupid” to “there were shenanigans during the 2020 election” to “the United States is broke because every other country has been taking advantage of us forever.” The one specific that did catch my ear is that, in the world according to Trump, the Great Depression was caused by the Sixteenth Amendment (which introduced the income tax, in 1913), and that it did not end until sometime in the 1950s or 1960s (he said it was a long time after Franklin Roosevelt left office).
The one thing I can say is that he’s gotten away from claiming all those other countries will be the ones paying the United States for the tariffs. Apparently, somebody finally got to him to point out that the United States doesn’t pay “tariffs” to any other country.
After I posted the above on April 2, I saw what happened to the world’s stock markets, and late on April 3, I emailed President Trump the following:
I just looked at my accounts: I’m not happy with you, President Trump.
The economy was good, despite your campaign rhetoric saying otherwise. And then I watched your Rose Garden bloviating yesterday, and I looked at your chart of tariffs being charged against the US. And then I looked to see just where you got those numbers. We know where they came from, we know those aren’t actual tariffs charged on us, and we know you’re destroying the country (and quite possibly the global economy).
I also notice you never did bother releasing you tax returns. Are you, indeed, working for a foreign country?
And then this morning (April 4), I found this video from CNN, in which Phil Mattingly explains where the “tariff” numbers on that chart came from.
And then I found this other CNN video, in which Jim Cramer explains just how wrong these tariff over-reactions are.
What is the value of intellectual freedom? of academic integrity? of political independence? The story just now on MSNBC was about the forthcoming meeting and negotiations between Harvard University and the Trump administration; that the government is demanding… well, I’m not entirely sure, other than the Trumpians are angry with the “liberal agenda supported by colleges and universities.”
I’m wondering what will happen if the leadership at Harvard can bring themselves to say “Our intellectual freedom, our academic integrity, is more important to the Harvard community than our federal funding. We have this massive endowment, so we’re going to draw on it to make up for the shortfall in federal funding. President Trump: you can shove your ideology.” Such a move, I think, would lead to an alumni fund-raising windfall. While the Trumpians might tout it as cutting needless federal spending, it could be viewed as a win by both sides. And who better to take that hit to show that Trumpism is not forever and ever than a university which was founded more than a century before the country in which it stands?
Mind you, I am emphatically in favor of rooting out the antisemitism poisoning college campuses. But it doesn’t seem to me that Harvard is dragging their feet on this issue.
And I’m going to throw in a few numbers which caught my ear. According to that MSNBC story, Harvard receives “$9 billion in federal grants and contracts.” Though the same report did also say that Columbia, after having theoretically acquiesced to similar demands, is still waiting for the $400 million in federal funds it receives to be restored.
I question that $9 billion, which may actually be an aggregate of many universities. This Washington Times piece from 2023 said Harvard had $3.3 billion in grants and contracts over the 2018–2022 period.
And in January, the Harvard Crimson said “In fiscal year 2024, the University received $686 million from federal agencies, accounting for two-thirds of its total sponsored research expenditures and eleven percent of the University’s operating revenue.”
But the point remains: can—should—a university bow to political whims, and change its policies to suit a presidential administration, which is by design temporary?
Yes, there is no place on college campuses—or anywhere else in the country—for supporters of kidnappers, rapists, and murderers. But on the other side of the discussion: is this what we have a government for? Isn’t this rather an issue to which a true Republican would have a laissez-faire attitude? Let the market decide, such a Republican would say. If people disagree with the university’s policies, they’ll stop donating to it, stop applying to be students there, stop respecting it. Apparently, the Trumpians are not so secure in their own beliefs to think they’ll win out in the marketplace of ideas, so they have to put the government’s financial thumb on the scale.
Ian Randal Strock 