Atlanta season 3 episode 4, which I just watched, is brilliant. There's one point in the episode when a white man explains slavery from the point of view of today's blacks, and you realize as it makes sense, the words were probably from a black writer. The power of being able to have the ideas you want white people to understand come from the mouth of a white actor. They get to insert their truth into the script the way Woody Allen inserts Marshall McLuhan into the script of Annie Hall. #

VMWare question. Running on Mac, inside Ubuntu 20.04.3, the mouse is off by a few pixels. When I point at something, if I click on it, nothing registers. Move the mouse a couple of pixels to the left and click, and it works. I've tried rebooting VMWare and Ubuntu, no help.#

The first game of the NBA Finals totally lived up to the promise of this series. The first part of the game was dominated by the team with championship experience, but the newcomers eventually sorted it all out, and proved that the experienced team would not coast to victory on their existing skills. They're going to have to develop some new ones to make it through this contest. The second game is Sunday night. I'm rooting for the newcomers, but not by a lot. I love both teams, they both have a lot to recommend them, and they are teams that were formed out of the draft, so there's continuity, and a victory in either case will have meaning to the the fans of both. #

Caste is a perspective-altering book. We have a caste system in the US. It gives roles to each of us based on appearance. Gender, race, age are big signals. I think the concept of caste is basic to who we are. We all experience it to some extent. As a man, I'm supposed to be unable to cook, pay the bills, shop for food, I'm expected to be helpless in a home. As an older person, I can't be active creatively, I must be retired. It's also not possible that I understand the new technology. Not complaining (that much) just to say that it's there, and I recognize it in myself, when I judge other people based on appearance. If I see a black person demonstrating the positive traits that I was raised to associate with being white, it's notable, i.e. I note it. I have to be careful not to act on it, though I'm sure I do. I am 3/4 Jewish, and somehow got in my head as a kid that Jews were dirty and ugly and sad. That's a judgment of myself, and I've always known it. Self-hatred. Again, aware of this, I try not to act on it, and to balance it with a commitment to being kind to and loving of myself. I don't know what to do about all this as a society, it seems impossible to overcome, almost as this kind of judgment is part of being human, at the same time, intellectually I know it's wrong. #

When I bought my new house in the country I hired a painter to do over the inside of the house. I talked with him on the phone and arranged a meeting at the house. When I arrived he was already there. He was a black man. I had no idea. When we spoke on the phone I thought he was white. In the first few minutes of the conversation I told him this, because I was absolutely sure that I couldn't have hidden my surprise. It happened again, more recently, when my new Tesla was delivered. The man they sent was black, very nice, we had a polite conversation, but I felt awkward. One time, there was a group of white men working in my house, and I was sure one of them had said something antisemitic, and guessed he didn't know I was Jewish. I didn't say anything. And of course when I was a kid, I remember the antisemitic hatred of fellow school kids, who blamed Jews for the deaths of their uncles in the war. I was born ten years after the end of WW II, a war they felt wouldn't have happened if it weren't for Jews. I expect that's what they were told by the adults in their family, around the kitchen table. It's all those adults and their kitchen tables that perpetuate the caste system. #