for March 20, 2025
Hi, friends! How are you doing this week? I’m sitting here listening to the “Best of Bond” playlist on Spotify and it has me thinking about recently trying to re-read the first James Bond novel, Casino Royale, by Ian Fleming. I was really taken aback by the misogyny. I didn’t notice it as a teen in the 1980s. I guess we still just accepted it then. I had to stop reading. Does this mean I am woke?
Donald Trump declared that “our country will be woke no longer” when he addressed Congress in early March. I’m not even sure what to write after quoting that. I’m halfway through The Dead Are Arising: The Life of Malcolm X. As in the Autobiography of Malcolm X and The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America’s Great Migration, this telling of life for Black Americans during the period between World War I and the early 1970s spotlights the two economies—the two separate worlds—that existed side-by-side throughout America (not just in the Southern states). Will we slip back into a life where non-whites will not get to take part in the main economy and will have to create whatever hustles will put money in their pockets, legal or not?
It’s fascinating that I had to relocate from downtown Portland to the suburb of Hillsboro to discover a more diverse population. I attribute this to the Intel corporation. They are the major employer here, and they have a clear DEI policy. Although that policy quotes a goal they set in 2015, to be achieved by 2020, articles since 2020 praise the success of their policies. I see it on the street and in stores and restaurants.
I think DEI is still needed. I do not think it is “reverse-discrimination.” It is vital to have everyone be a part of our American culture and our economy.
Split Personality: Changes for The Independent Scholar
I have been giving this newsletter/blog some thought, and I think I want to split things up a little. First, I want to create a monthly newsletter that I will call The Philomath.
philomath
[ fil–uh-math ]
— a person who enjoys learning new facts and acquiring new knowledge
When I created my account on Substack, my first username search was “philomath.” It was already taken. That is why I settled wtih The Independent Scholar. I still want to pursue that focus of writing an informative article about something I’ve learned or find interesting. I don’t want to promise anything more often than a monthly edition for The Philomath. If I find it easy to write it more often, I will reduce the period to every other week.
The other section or newsletter I want to write is Page & Screen. This will be every two weeks. This will be about things I read or watched, want to read or watch, or have heard a lot of people talking about. A great example of the latter is all the buzz I’ve been hearing about a Netflix show called Adolescence.
If you search Google for “what to watch on Netflix,” Adolescence will pop up in most of the latest articles. It is a four-episode limited series co-created and starring Stephen Graham. (I watch a lot of British crime dramas, and he is top-shelf in my opinion.) The second thing that caught my attention when I first heard about the show is that each episode is one continuous shot. I don’t know if it is really one continuous shot, or if there is some editing trickery like Alfred Hitchcock used to make the movie Rope seem like one long take.
There are discussions about it everywhere, the latest being from fellow writer Courtney Misener who writes The Misener Crew here on Substack. She recently said in a chat to her subscribers how much the show has been churning in her and her husband’s minds since they have two boys about the age of the accused in the show. I hope to see a good write-up from her about this in her newsletter, and if not, maybe she’ll be willing to answer some questions for an issue of Page & Screen when I start putting that together.
And that’s all folks. Keep an eye out for The Philomath and Page & Screen.
+++ MPR +++
The Philomath 
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