Political Damnation

Political life is perhaps the ultimate example of "damned if you do, damned if you don't". Any elected official who's accomplished enough to run for higher office probably had to make compromises to get to that point. On the other end of the spectrum, those who haven't accomplished much run the risk of being defined by others because they've done so little to define themselves. You don't have to look any further than the two current GOP presidential front-runners to see this principle in action.

Though certain portions of his resume are causing him political grief, there's no doubt that Mitt Romney has accomplished a lot in his public life. How one feels about those accomplishments will almost certainly reflect their political leanings. This is demonstrated most obviously by the ongoing debate about how much the health-care law Romney signed into law as the governor of Massachusetts resembles the national law signed by President Obama.

Within conservative circles (i.e. the so-called base of the Republican party), the Massachusetts law and its mandate that nearly all citizens maintain a certain level of health insurance coverage is a mammoth affront to conservative principles that no amount of equivocating by the former governor will address. Consequently, Romney is being forced to run away from one of the key things that shows his worthiness for the presidency and in the process, displaying a lack of conviction that marks him as decidedly unworthy of the office.

Rick Santorum, on the other hand, is as stark a contrast to Mitt Romney as you'll find for another candidate nominally in the same political party. Though the former US Senator's record may be light on concrete accomplishments, no one could plausibly suggest that he lacks conviction or the initiative to speak his mind. This is never more true than when it comes to expressing the most alarming of social views. While other GOP candidates, especially Romney, have faced criticism for shifting views on various social and moral issues, you always know where Santorum stands. This combination of a relatively thin resume and views that felt outdated decades ago, let alone today, has made him something of an easy target for anyone to his political left (i.e. anyone more moderate than Mike Huckabee).

At the most extreme, in terms of both political leaning and poor taste, is the infamous "Google problem". It's telling that, despite the large-scale mainstream coverage of his campaign, Santorum still can't disassociate himself from the scatological use of his name that his insensitive comments about homosexuality provoked. Even putting the "Google problem" aside, there are currently as many top search results about him cursing at a New York Times reporter as there are about his policies and achievements. You don't have to go too much further down the list to read about his time in congress and connection to the infamous "Bridge to Nowhere".

What's left is a candidate who brings to mind the story of how Oliver Wendell Holmes characterized one of the Roosevelts (sources differ on whether it was TR or FDR) having a second-class intellect but a first-rate temperament. Even his fiercest supporters would be hard-pressed to claim that he rise above (or even reaches) second-class in either field. In short, he's Rick Perry with better debate skills and is perhaps the first plausible presidential candidate in the nuclear era who you could believe would press the red button to fulfill a prophecy. Damned if you do, damned if you don't.

Nothing Bleak But the Title

One of the surest signs of loving something, whether it’s a type of music or genre of literature, is being able to laugh at its eccentricities and conventions and clichés. This is why the best parodies, for example A Mighty Wind and Christopher Guest's other faux-documentaries, tend to be the ones that display an obvious affection for their sources of inspiration. When done right, the end result is a piece of work that goes beyond just being a laugh to being a strong example of the genre itself.

Period drama is ripe for this sort of treatment, but there are surprisingly few examples outside of sketch comedy programs with an occasional Downton Abbey send-up. Aside from Blackadder very few shows have really run with this approach for a full-length series. Among the exceptions, perhaps the best recent example isn't a TV series but rather the product of BBC Radio.

If you've ever wondered what kind of story Charles Dickens would have come up with if he’d written sitcoms instead of serialized novels, the BBC Radio series Bleak Expectations is the show for you. As written by Cambridge Footlights alumnus Mark Evans, the adventures of Sir Philip Bin (who goes by the very Dickensian nickname Pip to his friends, families and enemies) is not just laugh-out-loud funny but also a compelling tale of good versus evil in the finest tradition of Dickens.

Aided by a cast that includes Buffy the Vampire Slayer’s Anthony Head as Pip’s evil guardian Mr. Gently Benevolent and veteran actor Geoffrey Whitehead (who recently appeared in the Martin Clunes remake of Reggie Perrin) as numerous members of the sadistic Hardthrasher family, Evans’ scripts have great fun with the Dickensian settings and plots. What really makes Bleak Expectations worth seeking out, though, is that underneath the sly and knowing remarks from the characters and the outrageous twists of fortune is an engaging enjoyable story where you want to find out what happens in the next episode. In this respect, it’s like so many of the Dickens works that inspired it, just a bit funnier.

The Long and the Short of It

Earlier today, I made a joke about how if Tchaikovsky was living today and composing the 2012 Overture he’d have to make it 140 notes or less. Thinking about it a little more, it struck me as funny that we embrace epic-length novels (even for literature supposedly aimed at children) and DVD sets of TV shows containing literally says worth of viewing, however, when it comes time to express our gratitude to someone the best a lot of us can manage is to text “thx”. I don’t claim to have any great insights here, but it's an interesting example of how our culture is out of balance. Our current political climate would have us believe that moderation is a dirty word, but, as anyone who's ever engineered a productive compromise knows, it shouldn’t be.

Caravan of Morrison

I’ve been trying to get to the root of my current fascination with the music of Van Morrison. My first reaction was to attribute it to one of two things. The first possibility was that as he's gotten older, Morrison's music appeals more to his contemplative side. The second is that the increased prominence of said contemplative side has led to an increase in girth (and jowl) that mirrors that of Morrison himself.

An old Borders friend of mine responded to this by noting that he’s always argued that people like the idea of Van Morrison more than the man himself. His thinking was such boring music done with so much sincerity must be meaningful and artistic. Now that strikes me as a little harsh and I don’t particularly agree with the assessment, however much the title track to Morrison’s 1991 album Hymns to the Silence wanders over the course of nine minutes, but it’s not entirely without merit.

Thinking about the Morrison songs I’ve been listening to the most, it struck me that many of them are from a 1998 compilation called The Philosopher's Stone which collects 30 songs that were either never released or released in different (and generally less enjoyable) versions. For example, the song “The Street Only Knew Your Name” has been around since the mid-70s and the version Morrison recorded then but kept in the vault until 1998 is transcendent whereas the one he released in 1983 is just pretty good. This tells me that like Bob Dylan, whose Bootleg Series collections tend to be as good or better than the albums from the same periods, Morrison is perhaps the worst judge of all of the artistic merits of his work.

 

It’s worth noting at this point that another friend pointed out hearing loss as a possible explanation. I wasn’t sure if he meant me or Morrison so, rather than pursue it further, I found “Dweller on the Threshold” on my iPod and allowed it to envelop me as my thoughts turned to…

Hot Dog!

I know hot dogs are bad for me. I know that I can make them myself less expensively than I can buy them from the hot dog vendor in downtown Silver Spring. I also know that none of that made me one bit less happy to see him back in his usual spot in front of Discovery Channel's headquarters building today. The chance to give him my two dollars for a hot dog with mustard is as tangible a reminder I need that spring is here and that a year that's been more down than up so far has every chance of improving. Anyone who doesn't appreciate the value of simple pleasures should have their head examined.

Schrödinger's Lamb

Though I'd known about C-SPAN for many years, I had never really thought of the channel having a founder until I met Brian Lamb while I was helping to get a Borders in Virginia ready to open. At the time, Lamb was a member of Borders' board of directors, and as the many years he hosted Booknotes on the channel indicate he was very much a book lover. In contrast to many of his fellow Cable TV pioneers in the late 1970s, Lamb stands out for his embrace of the value of cable TV to the public than for any personal financial value gained in the process.

In that light, the news that Lamb is stepping down as C-SPAN's chief executive seems all the more the end of an era in today's highly consolidated profits-above-all media environment. There's a case to be made that the advent of C-SPAN and the opportunities for self-promotional speeches it's given legislators has contributed to the poisoning of political speech, but that's very unfair to Lamb whose motives by all indications were entirely noble.

As anyone who's ever seen a reality show knows, people tend to act differently when they know the camera is on them, and in theory our legislators should know better than to overindulge themselves. That they frequently don't is hardly Lamb's fault. Moreover, it ignores the very fundamental premise on which C-SPAN is founded.As he himself put it, “Those meetings are paid for by we, the taxpayers. People should be able to see what [the elected officials] look like, what the buildings look like, what language they’re using.” Whatever impact observation might have on our experiments in democracy, Lamb is absolutely right about that.

Kony Island

What's most amazing about the Kony 2012 campaign is not the speed with which it's burst into national discussion but how quickly it seems to be crashing into a brick wall. Even if you weren't put off by Invisible Children's manipulative propaganda film or the questions about how they spend people's donations, the news that the group's spokesman (or, is it, mastermind) Jason Russell was detained by police on March 15th for public drunkenness and unspecified sexual behavior is probably making you think twice about the group.

Personally, I don't care what Mr. Russell does as long as he's not hurting other people, but it is amusing that the same media environment that enabled the campaign to become so ubiquitous is the same one that ensured his behavior couldn't possibly go under the radar. And while both Invisible Children and Russell's wife attribute his actions to exhaustion rather than any kind of substance abuse problem, it makes me wonder about the timing of the group's major event on April 20th, which is a bit of an unofficial holiday for aficionados of cannabis.

All kidding aside, I'm sure Mr. Russell's intentions are intentions that he believes are good intentions. Given the chance, there are only two things I would say to him. The first is that the footage of Hitler in the Kony 2012 film was ridiculous - the only person who deserves to be compared to Adolf Hitler is Joseph Stalin. The second is a small piece of advice that always served me well - to each their own, just remember where you put your underwear.

Passion Is No Ordinary Word

Sometimes I just get a line from a song stuck in my head. Fortunately, they tend to be good lines from good songs, so it's generally not a bad thing. Today's comes from a song by Graham Parker Ambiguous and goes, "the meek shall inherit the Earth from their friends the scum." Though I've liked that turn of phrase since I first heard the album the song comes from, Don't Tell Columbus, it initially struck me as almost a throwaway shot from Parker, whose jabs may not be quite as cleverly worded as his contemporary Elvis Costello but frequently bite just as hard. However, when I think about the tone that the Republican nomination campaign has taken and the undercurrent of self-righteous Bible-thumping that's infused it, especially from Rick Santorum, those words from five years ago feel a little sharper and a bit less funny, which is probably why they're sticking in my head now. As skilled as Parker is at envisioning the most dishonest and hypocritical of human behavior, I have no idea if he envisioned anything like the current climate when he wrote those words, but their continued relevance is just another reminder for fans like me of how enduring his songs are.

What Liberal Media Bias?

In a just and rational world, Rush Limbaugh's so-called "apology" for his slanderous comments about Georgetown law student Sandra Fluke would be Exhibit A in the case to disprove all that prattling about alleged liberal bias in the mainstream media. If major media outlets were even half as liberal as certain right-wing elements claim, they would not be referring to Limbaugh's statement as an "apology". Apology implies a level of regret regarding the actual sentiments expressed, but that's not what Limbaugh did. Limbaugh apologized only for "the insulting word choices." If your statement raises the possibility that the only thing you regret was using the term "prostitute" or "slut" rather than " harlot" or "woman of loose morals", it's fair to say that it isn't much of an apology. In a just and rational world, Limbaugh's "apology" would instead be described by the media as a cynical attempt to mitigate the economic damage caused by the loss of sponsors for his radio show. Since we don't live in an especially just and rational world, we'll just have to be content with the knowledge that there are at least some limits to how much indecency major corporations will abide before they do the decent thing.

Out on a Limb? Bah!

As offensive as Rush Limbaugh's comments related to Georgetown Law student Sandra Fluke are, I'm not sure they're actually the worst thing to come out of the recent debate regarding mandated coverage of contraception. I believe that dubious distinction is held by the fact that there seems to be little ability (or desire) to discuss the issue in clinical terms rather than emotional ones. Put another way, the focus of the debate is not about the tangible medical benefits of contraception but rather the reactions of people on both sides of the debate who see the other side's position as an attack on their personal values.

Even the people who set out to discuss the issue in more clinical terms have gotten caught up in the tsunami of rhetoric having to respond to vicious personal attacks rather than being able to discuss the medical aspects of the issue. This includes Fluke herself who wanted to testify at last month's congressional hearings about a fellow Georgetown student who had to have an ovary removed because of cysts that could have been prevented by affordable access to contraception. Admittedly, I don't know all the particulars of the case, but I'd have a hard time believing that the cost of that operation was more than what coverage of contraceptives would have cost.

This, of course, points to the larger problem in our health-care system. If people can't afford preventative care, it often leads to far more costly health problems down the line. If there's a moral issue to be debated here, that's where it lies not in a discussion that has no business barging its way into the bedrooms of consenting adults.

As for Limbaugh's suggestion that "the Feminazis" who want to have contraception paid for by their insurance company should make sex videos to justify the cost, there's only one way with which I can in good conscience dignify his comment with a response. I would ask him and the (far too many) people who seem to share his view whether they feel that men who want their insurance to cover Viagra or Cialis (i.e. medicines which truly exist only to enable people to have sex) should also make sex videos. If Limbaugh is truly the advocate of equality and other sacred American values, he should be more than willing to, shall we say, lay it on the line.