Skip to main content

Redemption

Our daughter loves the TV show Leverage, and I've enjoyed it when I've seen it; we were just talking about it over breakfast. It's a redemption tale (about a talented group of lawbreakers who decide to stop powerful people from hurting powerless people), and I've always been fond of those---LA Confidential is probably my favorite. In any event, one of the principles of Leverage is that redemption is ongoing. One of the characters discusses that as a key part of Judaism; as an ignorant Christian I can't speak to that but it resonates with me. 

Many folk think of redemption in terms of an apology, which is an instant in time and often does not involve much sacrifice or in any way make right the injury caused by the sin. Easy things don't really count for much in the big scheme.

Redemption attempts to make right the injured party or parties' damage but it also attempts to make right the sinner. That in particular is why it is ongoing, because people don't change in meaningful ways in a single moment.

So: why is Andrew Cuomo back in politics? Is there an answer that bodes well for the state of his soul or that of New York City? I am unaware of efforts on his part to repair the damage his widespread sexual harassment has caused, leading him to resign in disgrace from being New York governor. It certainly is not ongoing redemption, which would involve him not being in power over others, because time and time again that is what enables men to harass women.

Redemption on the part of Cuomo would involve abstaining from power over others and working to support women in the workforce. That is a different path.

I like Mamdani a lot, from a distance, but that is for another post, as his appeal to me is not that he is not Cuomo. 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Betrayal

I caught a student cheating on a final exam this morning. I had a line of sight on them and watched for ten minutes as they took their cellphone out of their pocket, kept it below their table, typed into it, read it, put it away, then wrote on the exam, repeating this cycle over and over again.  I was a bit surprised as the exam was open notes but this student had not attended many of our classes, just stopping by for exams, and I conjecture that they had no notes to open. I confronted the student who admitted that they had done wrong in an inarticulate non-confessional way. By the afternoon they had signed off on the honor code violation report to avoid further investigation and possible sanctions beyond failing the exam.  Is anger the right emotion to feel now? I had a working relationship with the student, although they had not contributed much to it. They had deceived me in order to gain unwarranted advantage over their peers in the class and that is not right. I don't wan...
1 comment
Read more

Standing Your Corner

I'm a long-term David Simon fan ever since I read his book "Homicide", detailing a year-long embedding with Baltimore homicide detectives. It was clear-eyed about all of the strengths and weaknesses, good reflexes and prejudices of everyone that he met.  I enjoyed the television show that followed that he wrote for, and then of course "The Wire" on HBO and a number of his other shows---only limited by my access to streaming services.  There was a histrionic moment in a later season of "Homicide" where he just let a character vent; a homicide detective who was part-owner of a bar frequented by cops watched a particularly violent drug criminal, responsible for many unsolved homicides, come into his bar with his associates, violating the detective's territory. The detective came around the bar holding a billy club in his hand and loudly discussed his first year as a patrol officer walking a beat. His supervising officer told him that he had a corner a...
Post a Comment
Read more

Car Accident

I was in a car accident a few days ago. There was a stopped car in the interstate and I didn't see it in advance; the car in front of me swerved into another lane and then there it was in front of me. I also swerved but damaged my commuter car, which is old and had many miles on it. The insurance company declared it a total loss.  The damage was where I scraped along the passenger side of my car (and the driver side of the stopped car). I had no deployment of airbags and no damage from my seat belt; no glass on either car broke, so it was a glancing blow if that makes sense. The front passenger wheel was damaged and I could not drive the car very far.  I pulled over to the shoulder and dialed 911. A state trooper made sure I was alright and proceeded to take care of the situation. I was moving slowly, aware that I had had a shock to my system and trying not to do anything to worsen the situation (stepping into traffic when I exited my vehicle, etc.) The trooper took my informa...
2 comments
Read more