Miss Witherspoon

Thanks to some free tickets Seattle Dramatists scored for me, Bitterspice and I saw Christopher Durang's Miss Witherspoon at ACT last night. It was the second preview, so it had a few kinks still. I don't think they're finished tweaking the light cues yet (in the early scenes the lead actress vanished unexpectedly a few times); the wig lines were really obvious; and something about the pace of the final scene seemed rushed. Still, we had a good time (any play that even attempts to juggle the spiritual insights of Christianity, Camus, Hinduism, and Gandalf the Grey(!) has my vote), and it looks like the show will have a successful run. I hope so for ACT's sake. They need the money.

International Workers Day

In honor of both the workers who assembled in Haymarket Square in 1886 and the students who mobilized against their oppressors in Tiananmen Square 103 years later (singing a version of this song as their anthem), I link to Billy Bragg's version of The Internationale

Curbing My Enthusiasm

And with the first selection of the 2006 NFL Draft, the Oakland Raiders select Michael Huff, DS, Texas.

With Leinart still on the board, this was the way we went. It's hard not to feel underwhelmed. A DB has been our first pick in four of the last five years. We also selected a DB in the second round last year and in the third round the year before. It's becoming, I must say, a bit of a fetish with Oakland, and sadly, it's not one that's paid off handsomely on the field. I was hoping for Leinart not only because he's Leinart and should have a great career--especially if he manages to escape the abyss that is the Arizona Cardinals, but also because it would have meant that the Raiders had kicked what looks more and more like a bad habit.

Let's lay things out. It's helpful to have a talented, athletic secondary. There's no question there. But considering the rule changes and the emphasis on enforcing the illegal contact rules, shutdown corners aren't what they once were. The days of Lester Hayes and Michael Haynes (or Deion Sanders, for that matter) are over. Defensively, it's more important now to get a good rush with your front four and force the opposing QB to make bad decisions. (We ought to know. Teams did it to Kerry Collins for two nightmarish years.) This to some degree explains the popularity of two gap defenses, where speedy linebackers shoot the gap a half second faster than a 4-3 DE would.

Consider the 2002 Oakland Raiders, as I like to do when times are hard. Charles Woodson didn't last long that season, breaking his leg against Pittsburgh in Week 2. Philip Buchanon, the Raiders 1st round pick that year, busted out against the Chargers in Week 5. A lot of people saw disaster looming. Beneath Buchanon and Woodson were, well, some guys. We still had Rod Woodson to keep heads together and Tory James was a solid-but-not-spectacular RCB (both, it should be noted came to us as free agents), but perpetual backup Anthony Dorsett lined up on the strong side for most of the year, and our other corners were practice squad guys like Clarence Love. Did disaster happen?

Well, almost. We lost four consecutive games. But we rebounded in Denver and won nine of our next eleven with a beat up secondary. How? Trace Armstrong, Rod Coleman, John Parella, Sam Adams, Bill Romanowski, and Eric Barton. They shut down the run (3rd overall vs. the run), combined for 43 sacks, kept the passer in danger, and had among them four interceptions (the 2005 Raiders, with all those first-day picks in the secondary, had five). True, the offense scored loads of points (which to some degree kept running backs from getting started), but the Raiders defense was able, in 2002, to keep teams like the Steelers from employing their hand-it-to-Bettis-hold-the-ball-for-ten-minutes tactic. Our ability to stop the run with the front seven allowed the safeties and corners to keep the receivers in front of them and watch the QBs eyes. Rod Woodson in particular feasted because of this, intercepting eight passes that year, including a 98-yarder that started us off against Denver during the Monday night game. We seldom had anything to fear from play action. We could run the ball, we could stop the run, and once we discovered that Rich Gannon really could throw the ball sixty times in a game that was it.

Would we have done even better with a healthy C-wood on the field all year? We might have, but as it turned out he wasn't needed. (Indeed, by trying to come back too soon, he was actually a liability in the playoffs.)

Calling the defensive backs on a team by the collective name of secondary is appropriate, not just because they're behind the front seven, but because in relative importance they are, well, secondary. With this year's 7th overall pick, there were no front-seven players worthy of that high a selection, but there was one offensive player who was: Leinart. And QB trumps DB. Don't believe me? Think of it. We lost two first round corners in 2002 and went to the Super Bowl. How close would we have gotten to the big day if Rich Gannon had broken his leg during that game in Pittsburgh? Perhaps two good follow up questions would be, how high a draft pick would we have gotten in 2003, and would Al Davis have spent it on a DB?

Update 4/30: Thanks for the link Raider Take. Here's hoping you're right and Huff makes an impact, but when you brought up the way Roethlisberger slipped past us two years ago, it hurt me. It really hurt me. That guy is playing excellent football and still has lots room to grow. Oh, the pain! The pain of it all!

Someone Broke Into My Car

Actually, broke is a little strong. During last week's car repairs, the repairmen opened the back door to vacuum the interior. They didn't lock it afterwards, and I didn't check. Someone else did. They moved a lot of things around looking for, I guess, my iPod or my in-trunk CD player. Little did they know that the iPod stays with me and I don't have an in-trunk CD player. Well, I guess they know now.

Whoever it was didn't do any damage, so far as I can tell. I wish he would have shut the doors. He could have run my car battery down. Come on, thieves, be kind. Some of us have jobs to drive to.

Remember, you can't rip it off if I can't buy it.

New To the Blogroll

Joe Bob's Week In Review

Tax Day

Today I said goodbye to flipping great wodges of cash--the price I pay for not having a boss. But, as Martin Sheen's character in Wall Street said, money's only something you need if you don't die tomorrow. With Bush in office, the odds of that happening are fairly good.

Muriel Spark Died

Sigh.

Yeesh

Sometimes it bears repeating that the Reverend Moon, who has billions of bucks and more influence on our national discourse than we would like to imagine, is one weird fucking dude.

"The Simpsons" Cures What Ails Me

One of the lessons of Mitch Albom's schmalzy book (and now, schmalzy play is, (drum roll please) "Live every day as if it were your last".

Irritation at the appearance of that old chestnut seized me until I remembered this bit from "The Simpsons" where Homer is going through the steps that will lead him to Successmanship:

Homer: Step One: live every day as if it were your last.

(next scene: Homer sits on the curb, sobbing inconsolably)

Homer: No! I don't want to die! It's not fair! I'm so young! (stops crying, opens book) Step Two...

Ah, Homer Simpson, you've got the cure for the mid-day kitsch-induced blues.

The Phrase Rhymes With Clucking Bell

Had a rougher night than I needed. My windshield wipers conked out on me on the freeway tonight. I was able to limp to an exit, where I spent the next hour waiting for a tow truck. It's a small drag, but a drag nonetheless.

From the Land of Wish and Dream

Someday, the Bull Moose really must visit the planet Earth. In a blog post running down the left for their continued partisan hatred of the President (here is the link to Jon Chait's excellent Case For Bush Hatred), the Moose calls upon the President to do the following when it comes to Iran:

For the sake of the country and the ongoing war on terror, the President should form a genuine government of national unity. A thorough house-cleaning should be followed by appointments of Democrats and Independents for important cabinet and sub-cabinet positions. Far more is at stake here than the fates of political parties - the security of the country is in the balance and it demands credible, bi-partisan leadership.

This is a dangerous world and our enemies will not wait until we put our political house in order. A confrontation with Iraq is not inevitable, but petty and irresponsible partisanship will tell the Iranians that they have nothing to fear from the threats from the U.S. The President should engage and involve and inform the Democratic leadership about any plans about the Iranian threat.

Okay, let's see how many impossible things the Bull Moose believed before breakfast this time.

"The President should form a genuine government of national unity."

At no point has George W. Bush ever shown the slightest interest in national unity. Firing up his political base while alienating the center and left has been his method of governance from the beginning, and, as we've discovered, the only ways Bush ever changes his mind are if a billionaire needs a new stone lion for his villa or if Jack and Rexella Van Impe tell him it'll bring him one step closer to fighting the Dark One in the desert. His idea of comprimise is to say, "Okay, I get what I want, and you get to stand next to me and look happy about it." No Democrat with two good eyes and a pulse would trust George W. Bush enough to form a unity government with him. This doesn't exclude Joe Lieberman, of course.

"A thorough house-cleaning should be followed by appointments of Democrats and Independents for important cabinet and sub-cabinet positions."

Not only would no Democrat consent to form a government with Bush, but Bush would never consent to a political house cleaning. The people who would need to be cleaned out to change the direction of our foreign policy--Rumsfeld, Cheney, et. al.--know where all the bodies are buried. Bush can't afford to alienate them. They're too closely hardwired to the GOP power structure. Besides, Democrats and Independents might ask all kinds of inconvenient questions, and we all know what Bush does to people who do that.

"Far more is at stake here than the fates of political parties - the security of the country is in the balance and it demands credible, bi-partisan leadership."

The security of the country is in the balance? Because Iran managed to employ 180 centrifuges to slightly enrich a quantity of uranium far too small to put together even a tiny nuclear weapon? Wake me when they have 10,000 centrifuges and I might make a note to be scared.

In reality, we could help along our national security a lot more if we spent our energies securing Russia's loosely guarded nuclear arsenal, spending money on port inspections, and making sure no one puts a bullet in our friend, Pakistani dictator Pervez Musharraf. Not that Bush is doing all that much about any of these things.

As for credible bi-partisan leadership, please spare me. Some people continue to succumb to the myth that there are magical leaders out there who will transform America from a screaming match to a singalong. George Bush tried that, but, like every other "uniter not divider" in history, his idea of unity is that everyone agrees to do whatever George W. Bush wants. Those who don't hate America, don't take its security seriously, are objectively pro-terrorist, or whatever. That held the public imagination for a while, but the smears seem less potent now that we've lost a few thousand troops and the city of New Orleans.

The history of democracy has been the history of one long angry fight about who can do what to whom and under what circumstances. And I like it that way. When I see a group of MPs in some parliament insulting each other and hurling fists, I know that country is okay. What's scary is when the argument stops. Singalongs are bad, bad things. I'm sure that Russian citizens felt a need to brace themselves when, in 1929, all the votes of the Politburo starting coming out unanimous. (Ah, Stalin, the ultimate in unity government.)

A little something about me. I don't even like to feel united with people I agree with. I may go to the protest march to support a cause, but I won't chant the slogans and I won't hold anyone's hand. I'll even go so far as to make sure I'm walking at my own pace, because I don't do lockstep. I reserve the right to conclude, at any time, that anyone is completely full of shit.

Boxers touch gloves before and after the game as a sign of sportsmanship; but during the game, I want haymakers and blood. Members of congress should be the same.

"This is a dangerous world and our enemies will not wait until we put our political house in order."

Actually, Iran will have to wait until they can actually do something with their uranium. In the meantime, we can expect them to release a lot of scary sounding reports in an attempt to expand their influence. Our best response would be to stay cool. Even in our enfeebled state--thanks, George--we're still tougher and more widely admired than the Iranians. They're the molehill; we're the mountain. The only way we can blow this is if we lose our heads and start doing stupid stuff. Will Bush do something stupid in the next three years? Gee, what are the odds?

"A confrontation with Iraq is not inevitable, but petty and irresponsible partisanship will tell the Iranians that they have nothing to fear from the threats from the U.S."

Actually, the lion's share of our military forces being stuck in Iraq tells the Iranians they have nothing to fear from our threats. The Iranian regime surely knows that our military has recruiting problems. They know that their terrain makes it much harder for U.S. troops to invade Iran than it was to invade Iraq. The Iranians know that they can conceal their facilities from air strikes. And they know that any U.S. attack on Iran would drive the rest of the Muslim world insane and jeaprodize U.S. troops still in Iraq. And don't forget how helpful this little dick fight is to the Iranian regime. It busies giddy Iranian minds with a massive foreign quarrel, and it allows the regime to blame all of Iran's problems on the west generally and on the U.S. in particular. How do they know this? TV.

"The President should engage and involve and inform the Democratic leadership about any plans about the Iranian threat."

And when he does, magic pixies will crawl out of my butt.

The Italian Election is frighteningly close but...

...at least it gives me a chance to learn the names of the people involved in Italian politics and what all their abbreviations mean. For the first time my reading of Italian news isn't confined to the entertainment section--which used to be the only place where I knew most of the names and could figure out the meanings of words from context.

Prodi has declared victory. I can only hope he's right and my prediction was wrong.

Update: Interetingly, the legislation Berlusconi passed to help the right wing parties in future elections appears to have backfired. Next time, he might want to consult Tom Delay on rigging elections and gerrymandering districts. I hear the bugman's looking for work.

Bush Has Said There are No Plans To Attack Iran

So I guess we're attacking Iran.

The Leaker

We now know that the leaker who disclosed that Valarie Plame was a CIA agent was the President of the United States. What's next? George W. Bush will, in a prime time news conference, promise to find out who the President of the United States is and punish him to the fullest extent of the law.

Kaboom

I'm sorry to be an agent--albiet a minor one--in spreading this story around, but I thought things like this only happened to Wile E. Coyote and Scratchy.

Another Eager Slave

Let's see. Ted Stevens let Mike McGavick take credit for his withdrawl of a bill allowing huge oil tankers into Puget Sound, even though McGavick had little to do with it. He's now raising bags of money for him. What, I wonder, will the old bridge-to-nowhere sod get for his pains? Washington voters might want to ask.

The Worst Sequels 3: The Dregs of the Dregs

At last this exegesis on bad movies reaches its climax, and, as is usually the case when you've reached the third installment of a series, the worst is yet to come. You can read the previous entries here and here.

So here are the final four:

4. Outlaw of Gor: Jack Palance has frequently crapped bigger than this movie, which tells the story of Tarl Cabot. Cabot has a special power. By his very presence he can induce others to compulsively repeat his name. (Imdb reports that the name Cabot is invoked fifty-five times in the movie's first ten minutes.) Palance plays the high priest Xenos, who poisons geriatrics on behalf of the evil Queen Lara and whose hats are taller and more fashion-forward than those of the Pope. Anyway, Cabot gets caught up in Lara and Xenos's machinations to gain power over this papier-mache empire, and Cabot's forced to wander the desert in a leather thong with his trusty midget friend by his side. Many hinders, buffalo shots, and oiled-up catfights ensue. This film features Watney Smith, the second most grating character in film history.

3. Damien: Omen II: Actually, I should move this one back before both Amityville II and The Exorcist II, but that would involve editing. There is one ground on which I can defend its placement here. This is a sequel that's not only bad on its merits, but it also raises questions that end up spoiling its predecessor. By contrast The Exorcist escaped unscathed and the reputation of The Amityville Horror stands where it always stood. But the plot of Damien: Omen II can be summed up in the form of shampoo instructions: 1) Victim learns Damien is the antichrist 2) Victim tells someone (and enhances credibility by acting like a raving nutjob) 3) Victim gets killed in a bizarre fashion 4) Repeat. I have a huge question for this movie. If Damien's identity as the antichrist is supposed to be this big-ass secret, why are there so many clues lying around for people to find? In this movie, there's this wall supposedly painted in the 13th century that depicts the antichrist at four ages. (People didn't paint in photo-realistic styles in the 13th century, but never mind.) If Satan can sucessfully arrange the deaths of all these people, isn't it within his diabolical power to deface an inconvenient mural? And why is it always necessary for Satan to wait until after people have spread the word about his evil sprog before he kills the poor fools? If Satan knows what they know, why not simply bump them off from the start? Eventually, you start wondering why certain people got an opportunity to spill their guts before they-um-spilled their guts in the first movie as well. It's sad.

2. Batman and Robin: Throw any three random "Batman" comics in a blender and you'll come up with a better story than this one--a mess in which Mr. Freeze, Poison Ivy, Bane, and Dr. Joyce Brothers plan to freeze people, poison them, and, oh, who cares? The good news is that George Clooney's career recovered from this. I guess that mask really can be an asset.

1. Superman IV: The Quest for Peace: I said Watley Smith was the second most grating character in movies. The holder of the title is here, in the body of Jon Cryer. His Lenny combines the annoying chattiness of Watley Smith with the superfluity of Jar Jar Binks to create a storm of itchiness unmatched in human experience. And he's not the only bad thing in the movie. Part of the film is occupied with a hostile corporate takeover of The Daily Planet. There's no reason to care about this, because most of action takes place off-stage and Superman can do nothing about it (and if he could, would we really want to watch Superman filing injunctions and arranging poison pills), but it keeps popping up in the movie, insisting on its share of the attention. The nuclear disarmament story, which starts with a letter from a cute child (not the slightest bit maniuplative), seems like a remarkably unilateral decision for an alien to make. Wouldn't the nations of the world start placing their supplies of kryptonite around key nuclear facilities? While I can see Superman speaking out on the subject or exercising moral leadership, I can't figure him putting all the world's nuclear weapons in a big bag and throwing them at the sun. What seems even less likely is that Lex Luthor would take the opportunity to create a dimwitted Superman clone (who, curiously, did not turn out to be Bizarro) as part of a scheme to re-arm the world. (Unless Superman got rid of all the world's uranium and tritium, the world could re-arm on its own, but, well, never mind.) As clones often do, this one rebels against his master and fights Superman in front of unconvincing rear-projection images. Eventually, Superman defeats Nuclear Man by locking him in an elevator (perhaps the least interesting means of victory ever conceived in a comic book franchise.) The movie hurts, hurts, hurts. I hate every frame of it. I hate, hate, hate, hate it.

I'm glad I got all that off my chest. I feel better. I feel...like...saying...Cabot, hey Cabot, what's going on Cabot? Cabot, speak to me. Cabot. Cabot. Why aren't you saying anything Cabot? Cabot. Cabot

V and Totalitarianism

In reading the discussion of the movie V for Vendetta I found a thread in the argument over its merits, or lack thereof, that I wanted to linger over for a moment. Those who disliked the film maintain that it paints an inaccurate portrait of totalitarian societies. They claim that such societies are animated less by the personalities at the top than by the behavior of the bureaucracies underneath. A sample from The American Prospect

Naturally, his [V's] society’s sickness emerges from a single source -- the film unravels to reveal a sleek and tidy conspiracy. This is gratifying but also deeply off as a portrait of totalitarian societies, which are more often characterized by their interlocking weird bureaucracies, half-truths, and quixotic and opaque decision-making processes than a coherent plan created by one cabal of evildoers.

While it is true that totalitarian states tend to build large bureaucracies to carry out policy, and that these bureaucracies try to develop policies that please their political masters, it seems to me that the character of these regimes, and their worst crimes reflect more the interests of those at the top than those of the mid-level apparatus. The bureaucracy in Stalinist Russia, for example, did not simply run on its own, crushing Kulaks and conducting midnight arrests and political murders; it did those things because Stalin wished those things done. The population lived in fear of the bureaucracy, but the bureaucracy lived in fear of Stalin, Beria, and the secret police. According to Robert Service's biography of Stalin, survival in the bureaucracy, or in the Communist Party, required a close network of friends who could keep you safe, and the skill of knowing when and how to disassociate yourself from that network if it seemed likely that Stalin's ax would fall on it (which it sometimes did for no other reason than to demonstrate Stalin's power). The whole point of Stalinism was to destroy all competing centers of power in the country (the Communist Party included) and to assure that the only one left, the bureaucracy, was firmly in the control of Stalin.

Indeed, sometimes the regime slips right past the bureaucracy in its attempt to reconstruct society. The Cultural Revolution was not, primarily, conducted by bureaucrats. The bureaucrats were among those pushing Mao to the sidelines of power (after the catastrophic failures of the Great Leap Forward). Mao by-passed them with an appeal to the Red Guards to attack intellectuals, teachers, artists, and educated types generally (including any bureaucrats, military, or civllian law enforcement officials who stood against him). This was the Cultural Revolution, orchestrated by a cabal of vicious people who had a more or less coherent plan. Mao may not have orchestrated every action of every Red Guard organization, but without Mao's direction, the Red Guards would never have done what they did.

Now I should say that totalitarian societies that survive these sorts of upheavals with their institutions intact do tend to become a kind of dictatorship of the bureaucracy, if for no other reason than large numbers of politically active people outside bureaucratic institutions have been either killed or reduced to a state where it's unfair to expect much political bravery from them. The leadership of such nations, who were often either victims or potential victims of the previous dictator, usually try to dismantle the personality cults that enabled their predecessor to rule by fiat and restore their nation to a healthier state (without, of course, legalizing opposition political parties which might someday prove threatening to their own power and the stability of the regime). This, however, is a development that takes a long time (autocrats are amazingly long lived figures, for the most part), and the transition can be very hard to make. Deng Xiopeng navigated his way through China's transition. Khrushchev, after Stalin's death, wasn't as lucky with Russia's.

If V for Vendetta has a failing, it is not in its depiction of what looked like a very young, personality-cult-centered totalitarian regime. It was that the movie fails to acknowledge that such regimes, violent and cruel as they are, do represent the feelings of a sizeable percentage of their populations. They depend on the willingness, even eagerness, of people to turn in their neighbors and surrender their freedoms for a sense of security. Such people usually share their leaders' hatred of whatever groups are meant to be oppressed, and they generally see their victims' ruin as a means of bringing them closer to happiness. When I saw all those demonstrators in V masks who'd come to watch Parliament explode, I wondered where the counter-demonstrators were. We like to think that when a regime's lies are exposed that everyone will simply turn against it out of reflex. It's a lovely fantasy, and I thank the Wachowski brothers for making me believe it; but ultimately they underestimate the ability of people to rationalize the behavior of those they prefer to support.