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PAGE 19 | THEATER
Jim Mattis
and the gift
of character
David Brooks
OPINION
In the first few months of his presidency,
Donald Trump surrounded himself with
a certain sort of ramrod military man:
John Kelly, Michael Flynn, H.R. McMas-
ter and Jim Mattis. These men had or
appeared to have the kind of manly
virtues and bearing that Trump likes to
see in himself: courage, toughness,
combativeness.
But when you look at how someone
like, say, Jim Mattis forged his charac-
ter, you realize that he is actually the
exact opposite of Trump. Mattis built
strengths and virtues
The former through the steady
application of intense
United States effort over decades.
secretary of Trump is a man who
defense has has been progres-
proven that sively hollowed out
he is the man by the acid of his own
Trump wishes self-regard.
to be. Mattis is a man
who is intensely loyal
to others and attracts
loyalty among those
around him. Trump is disloyal to others
and attracts disloyalty in return.
The contrast between how these two
men were forged is so stark that it
throws into relief how character is and
isn’t formed.
Mattis was a mediocre college stu-
dent. He partied too much and was
jailed for underage drinking. But then
he discovered the Marine Corps. His
new book “Call Sign Chaos,” which he
wrote with Bing West and which will be
released in the next few days, is pur-
portedly about leadership but really it is
a portrait of Mattis’s life-defining love
for the Marine Corps. His prose sings
when he describes those times when he
was out on some battlefield exercise
with frontline Marines. When he is stuck
away inside the Pentagon or high up
commanding NATO, you feel his longing
for their presence.
Mattis reads Roman writers like
Marcus Aurelius, but he is no stoic.
BROOKS, PAGE 12
The New York Times publishes opinion
from a wide range of perspectives in
hopes of promoting constructive debate
about consequential questions.
Switched at conception, deliberately
Mothers chose donors,
but some doctors used
their own sperm instead
BY JACQUELINE MROZ
Growing up in Nacogdoches, Tex., Eve
Wiley learned at age 16 that she had
been conceived through artificial insem-
ination with donor sperm.
Her mother, Margo Williams, now 65,
had sought help from Dr. Kim McMor-
ries, telling him that her husband was
infertile. She asked the doctor to locate a
sperm donor. He told Mrs. Williams that
he had found one through a sperm bank
in California.
Mrs. Williams gave birth to a daugh-
ter, Eve. Now 32, Ms. Wiley is a stay-at-
home mother in Dallas. In 2017 and 2018,
like tens of millions of Americans, she
took consumer DNA tests.
The results? Her biological father was
not a sperm donor in California, as she
had been told — Dr. McMorries was. The
news left Ms. Wiley reeling.
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PAGE 7 | WORLD
..
INTERNATIONAL EDITION | SATURDAY-SUNDAY, AUGUST 31-SEPTEMBER 1, 2019
Alarm
in Brussels
over tactics
in Britain
BRUSSELS
Suspension of Parliament
seen as undemocratic and
hardball negotiating tactic
BY STEVEN ERLANGER
AND MATINA STEVIS-GRIDNEFF
The European Union has had its share of
problems with flagging democracy in
member countries, but not so far in a
democratic stronghold like Britain.
So Brussels is looking on with dismay
at the gambit of the British prime min-
ister, Boris Johnson, in suspending Par-
liament, which was widely perceived as
an antidemocratic maneuver, albeit also
a tough negotiating tactic.
Mr. Johnson’s move was designed to
increase pressure, not only on his own
Parliament, but also on his European
negotiating partners. He said as much
at a cabinet meeting Wednesday night,
several British news media outlets re-
ported, saying it would make a “huge
difference,” now that they know “these
guys really are serious” about Brexit.
That remains to be seen. But it has
MAURICIO LIMA FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES definitely raised concerns about what
Yellow Vest demonstrators at a roundabout near Aumetz, France. “You’d think everyone went on vacation,” one demonstrator said, “but many of us don’t. The reality is different.” many in Brussels regard as Mr. John-
son’s undemocratic action.
Brexit is one dimension. “But the far
Vacation at the traffic circle
more significant question for Brussels
now is what this means for democracy
and the strength of our democracies,”
Guntram B. Wolff, the director of
Bruegel, a Brussels research institution,
oli, referring to the gigantic snarls on the said Jérôme Fourquet, a leading pollster months ago, and in many towns and cit- wrote on Twitter. “How can a PM of a
FRANCE DISPATCH
AUMETZ, FRANCE national highways during the peak sum- who recently released a study on vaca- ies they have been barred from their democratic country, elected neither by
mer holidays. “You’d think everyone tions and France’s growing inequality. roundabouts or from protesting alto- parliament nor by citizens, suspend the
went on vacation, but many of us don’t. Even though 60 percent of the popula- gether, after a surge of violence last win- parliament that should hold him ac-
The French view holidays The reality is different.” tion still goes on summer vacation, more ter. countable?”
France is famous for its long summer and more can no longer afford to, Mr. But they survive as a social organiza- The European Union, which has seen
as sacred, but Yellow Vest vacations. In Paris, handwritten notes Fourquet found. And in keeping with tion in depressed areas like Aumetz, a the rise of illiberal governments in
protesters can’t afford them pop up on the doors of the local bakery, larger shifts in the country’s consumer small former mining town in the dein- member states like Hungary and Po-
brasserie or locksmith indicating that economy, traditional popular vacation dustrialized north. land, is somewhat aghast at seeing even
BY NORIMITSU ONISHI the owners are away and that you spots like camping grounds now cater to Among the regulars was Aurélie a hint of those trends reinforced in a re-
should be, too. Streets, at least those higher-income clients by offering lux- Mery, one of the first to occupy the spected system like Britain’s.
It wasn’t supposed to turn out this way, without tourists, turn deathly quiet. ury bungalows. roundabout in what has become the “This has wider repercussions,” Mr.
spending summer vacation by a traffic Vacations are sacred in a way that The erosion of a cherished tradition near-mythic retelling of its foundation. Wolff said in a subsequent interview.
circle. would seem strange in the United reflects an increasingly inegalitarian so- There was “Casse-cou,” the daredevil “Brussels and the European Union are
But even as much of the rest of France States, partly because they are re- ciety, one of the many changes that are who delighted in having been kicked, always bashed for being undemocratic,
spent August at the beach, Yellow Vest garded as an intrinsic part of France’s tearing at France’s unspoken social con- punched and generally abused during but now London makes us ask whether
demonstrators gathered near their ha- democracy. As children learn in the tract. protests in Paris. “Le Corse,” a sullen we have a larger problem with democra-
bitual roundabout on a Friday evening. classroom, it is the right of every French It helped give rise to the Yellow Vest type. cy.”
They shared drinks, sitting on mis- person to join the seasonal human mi- movement, whose complaints included An inseparable couple, Danièle and Whatever Mr. Johnson’s action means
matched chairs and lounging on castoff gration in August and get stuck in horri- the inability to afford pastimes — and Clément, worried about their dogs. And BRITAIN, PAGE 4
couches inside their wooden shack. ble traffic — unless you’re chilling on a whose earliest issues included, symboli- there was Mr. Gambioli, who was known
“You’re in the right place,” read a sign roundabout. cally, making the parking free at Disney- affectionately as “Papi,” or Grandpa, be- 6 TURNS ON THE ROAD TO BREXIT
hanging in the entrance. “In France, if you’re not going away land Paris. cause he was the oldest of the bunch, As Britain’s crisis deepens, the prime
“On television, they keep showing all on summer vacation when everybody is, The Yellow Vests no longer pose the and who kept a fire burning at the site — minister could be ousted. Or, just may-
these traffic jams,” said Rolland Gambi- it means you’re no longer in the game,” political threat they did just a few FRANCE, PAGE 4 be, he could get his way. PAGE 4
“You build your whole life on your ge-
netic identity, and that’s the foundation,”
Ms. Wiley said. “But when those bottom
bricks have been removed or altered, it
can be devastating.”
Through his attorney and the staff at
his office, Dr. McMorries declined to
comment.
With the advent of widespread con-
sumer DNA testing, instances in which
fertility specialists decades ago secretly
used their own sperm for artificial in-
semination have begun to surface with
some regularity. Three states have now
passed laws criminalizing this conduct,
including Texas, which now defines it as
a form of sexual assault.
Dr. Jody Madeira, a law professor at
Indiana University, is following more
than 20 cases in the United States and
abroad. They have occurred in a dozen
states, including Connecticut, Idaho,
Nevada, Utah and Vermont, she said, as
well as in England, Germany, the
Netherlands and South Africa.
ALLISON V. SMITH FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES According to the Dutch Donor Child
Eve Wiley learned after taking a DNA test that her biological father was not a sperm Foundation, DNA testing has confirmed
donor, as she had been told, but instead was her mother’s fertility doctor. DOCTORS, PAGE 2
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