catch-22

Deepti Gupta, a 2022 Audie best female narrator winner for “The Parted Earth” by Anjali Enjeti and a recurring actor on the medical drama “The Pitt,” says casting can be a “weird Catch-22. On one hand we want specificity, but that can make actors feel stereotyped.”

Small wonder that scientists are reluctant to take a public stand against anti-science claptrap — apart from the risk that by fighting back against partisan interference, scientists could fall into what the Atlantic’s Katherine J. Wu identifies as a Catch-22: running the risk of “advancing the narrative they want to fight — that science in the U.S. is a political endeavor.”

Then there are the Hollywood unions, which present a catch-22 to anyone trying to join their ranks — they have to do a certain number of hours in jobs covered by union contracts, but union members get first crack at all those gigs.

“Doctor Strangelove,” “Catch-22,” and “M*A*S*H” collide in British journalist Phoebe Greenwood’s blistering debut novel, “Vulture,” a darkly comic, searing satire grounded in historic politics, suffused with incipient journalism and imbued with self-aggrandizement.

But by not requiring knowledge that the person is a federal officer, Section 111 erodes that principle, creating a chilling catch-22: Lawfully defend yourself against someone who looks like an attacker, and you could still spend months or years in jail before you are acquitted.