Collected Links (06/03/2022)

• "Always Look on the Bright Side of Life (Korean Edition)" -- from John
• Chief Justice Roberts supposedly wrote both the opinion of the Court and dissent in ACA case ultimately upholding "Obamacare." He initially favored the challengers, wrote that as the main opinion, then changed his view, and wrote what then became the main opinion, and his original draft was largely kept by the dissenters. [Note the opinion was split on the several issues it considered; some Justices joined with Roberts on some issues and some on others. Opinion: National Federation of Ind. Business v. Sebelius; See also (Forbes -- different article with essentially same story).]
• Kurt Gödel supposedly discovered a "loophole" in the Constitution while he was studying to be a United States citizen -- the loophole would have allowed the country to become a dictatorship. He told this to the citizenship examiner, who decided to move past it (not that his view would have prevented him from becoming a citizen . . .). Albert Einstein and economist Oskar Morgenstern were apparently present at the citizenship ceremony/examination. Gödel apparently never told anyone what the "loophole" was. [N.B. I can think of perhaps a half dozen ways within the Constitution -- as I think many can -- in which the U.S. could become a dictatorship -- but I also know none of these potential paths are realistic.]
• While many people (including many film critics -- who are, it turns out, a type of people), have tried to excuse the extraordinarily racist and pro-KKK film Birth of a Nation as just how people (meaning white people, I guess) thought at the time, i.e. as a product of its age, Eugene Debs and others called it out for the racist and hateful crap it is. [N.B. Debs was from Terre Haute, Indiana, where I lived from ages c. 11-18; Debs views were not emblematic of the community I knew, but, to the contrary Terre Haute stands out as about the most politically/culturally anti-Debs place I've ever known.]
• Pachelbel's Canon in D, performed on original instruments -- by Voices of Music -- and a equally beautiful version by the Nippon Philharmonic Orchestra.