Meet the New Boss, Same as the Old Boss

The Democrats' first act after taking control of the Senate is to hold a bipartisan closed-door meeting.

Oh dear God.

Just when you think the Democrats can't be more muddled....oh, who am I kidding--don't we always know that they can be more muddled?

But damn, Dems. You've outdone yourself.

One of the reasons the Democrats took so many Congressional seats in the recent election was that people were sick of the government acting without any accountability to the people. Holding secret meetings isn't precisely the best way to earn back the people's trust.

Once again: you can't increase freedom by curtailing civil liberties. You can't protect human rights by mistreating prisoners. And you can't achieve transparency through secrecy.

I'm not wrong, am I? Maybe this is fuzzy logic or the new math or something.

Peyton Place Redux

Ok, I hate gossip. It's toxic at worst, time-wasting at best.

BUT...you wouldn't believe what's going on at work. Over lunch, I just got filled in on 18 months' worth of dirt. Since only one person at work has penetrated my veil of anonymity (is that a mixed metaphor?) and he was the one who told me most of these developments, I think it's safe to share this with all of you. I've to tell SOMEONE.

The department's premier lesbian power couple has broken up. I was devasted by this news, because if there's one thing Feemus likes, it's a lesbian power couple. Rowr (hey--I TRY to be liberated, but there's only so much I can do...)!

BUT--there is a NEW lesbian power couple who is EVEN HOTTER than the now defunct one. Whew (I guess it's true what I learned in physics class--nature abhors a power-lesbian-couple vacuum). Apparently, they've been a couple for several years now, but I knew nothing about it.

SPJ's controversial tenure appointment has led to all kinds of (almost assuredly untrue) rumors about sexual liaisons with both students and faculty members. These rumors have made SPJ both a hero and a martyr--due to their transparent flaseness--and have actually bolstered his reputation in the department.

SD and PM are totally having an affair, which is made even stickier by the fact that everyone seems to know, except for SD's husband who is good friends with PM. Plus, everyone thought that PM was gay.

No one likes DK. Which surprised me. I mean, I don't like him either, but I'd been under the impression that other people did.

Wow--gossiping is kind of a rush. But promise me you won't tell anyone....

Hey, Netherlands--You Used to Be Cool

The logic of "The War on Terror" is contagious, apparently. The logic that goes something like this: To fight brutality, we must become torturers; to protect our freedom, we must relinquish it. Hence the Patriot Act, the wiretaps, the suspension of habeas corpus, Guantanamo Bay.

It's not very good logic. And it's spreading.

The Hague ruled today that hunger-striking accused war criminal, Vojislav Seselj, may be intravenously force-fed if he does not voluntarily begin to eat.

This isn't the way to protect human rights.

Mr. Seselj is a terrible man (allegedly terrible--he rather implausibly denies the chrages against him). The thought of him escaping legal justice sickens me.

His ploy to martyr himself sickens me. His cynical use of the hunger-strike, the tool of non-violence, also sickens me. I do not think that we should give in to his demands (although his demand for the counsel of his choice should perhaps be reconsidered), but to force a needle into his arms and deny him the very basic right of what goes into his body seems like a terrible way of impressing upon the world the importance of protecting human rights.

Especially now, after the last election and Rumsfeld's resignation, when the US's treatment of prisoners is as susceptible to world pressure as it has been since the war began. Especially now, when the world needs to take action to prevent "extraordinary renditions." It's now more important than ever to acknowledge that behaving ethically is costly. It prevents us from beating the answer out of a suspect--even if we really really want the answer. And sometimes it means that a monster gets to cheat justice. It's still the right thing to do.

I Just Fell Off the Wagon--Right Onto the Ass Which I am Now Laughing Off

Sigh. That didn't take long.

As I mentioned in my last post, I have been on a strict no-news regime. It had lasted for several days. But apparently old habits are hard to break. I clicked "publish post" on my last and some Pavlovian trigger caused me to go to washingtonpost.com. Really, I didn't mean to.

I think that blogging is a "gateway medium." It leads to harder news.

But I can't say that I am entirely sorry to have slipped. Because in the Washington Post I read this:

[Hair] Stylist Paves says the stigma against wearing hair you weren't born with has lessened over the past few years. "Women were afraid to admit they were wearing extensions," he says. "It meant that their hair wasn't perfect. There are women that still don't talk about it. I think that's silly."

Paves gives credit for the mass-market trend to [Jessica] Simpson for her openness. "She's never been afraid of it. Jessica has taken the taboo out of wearing hair extensions."

Thank God! Thank God we have Jessica Simpson to take the cruel social stigma out of white girls wearing fake hair. She's like a modern-day Marie Curie. Or Frederick Douglass. Or Ryan White. Blazing trails and speaking truth to power. Standing up for the dignity of all glued-on-Barbie-hair wearing women (or should I say womyn?) everwhere.

You go, girl.

Man, I Hate Those Pinkertons

I quit reading the newspaper. No more online news. No more tv news. Magazines are out, too. NPR? Buh-bye. I am in an information-free zone. My ignorance of world events is downright Presidential in scope.

And apart from a gnawing anxiety that we might be at war with Canada now, I'm pretty happy.

The only problem with my little info-hiatus is a slight case of wonk-withdrawal. Not to mention self-satisfied indignation withdrawal. Luckily, I have Deadwood. I am getting so worked up about Deadwood politics that I almost sat down to write a lengthy denouncement of the Pinkertons' strike-busting. Not to mention the monopolist machinations of Hearst. And don't even get me started on those cocksuckers in Yankton.

God, I love this show. It has taken me 13 months to watch 18 episodes (thanks Netflix and your no-late-fees policy!). I sometimes take a disc to work and eat lunch in my office and watch 15 minutes or so.

Before I started watching, people kept telling me that it was "Shakespearean," which of course made me hate the show. I hate things that are described as Shakespearean. Because they inevitably aren't. And they're usually pretentious to boot.

But Deadwood really is. Not only does the dialogue make vertiginous dips in register (often in the same conversation; sometimes in the same monologue), but it manages the incredibly rare feat of being non-naturalistic but still feeling authentic.

Deadwood also manages a kind of Shakespearean meta-fiction without lapsing into the dull and cliched "hey look, this is art that is calling attention to the fact that it's art." Yawn. If it's just done for cleverness, this inevitably falls flat. But in David Milch's drama, as in Shakespeare, the meta-fiction is organic--it has ethical, as well as aesthetic implications. Al Swearengen is the new Duke of Dark Corners, acting his part and trying to stage manage the rest of the community for his own private ends.

It is in the opacity of the characters that Milch achieves his greatest (and most Shakespearean) effects. "The motive-hunting of motiveless malignity" was how Coleridge described Iago in the margin of Othello. But it's not just Shakespeare's villains whose motives remain mysterious. Hamlet is perhaps the most obvious example, but no Shakespeare character is fully transparent. Ditto Deadwood.

There's scarcely an ounce of backstory. Nothing's telegraphed and nothing's explained. Very little judgment is explicit.

I think that's why I am so into Deadwood's politics (that, and apparently a need to get pissed off at politicians, even if they're fictional). The issues are complicated and the characters are short-sighted. Just as we are all short-sighted in our own moment. And this short-sightedness is also wonderfully akin to Shakespeare.

Like Shakespeare's history plays, and especially the Roman plays, there is a sense of irony about the whole Deadwood enterprise: the characters don't know how things will play out but the audience does. They are acting a part in a historical narrative they misunderstand. But there's something heroic about trying to shape a narrative, even if it doesn't turn out the way we expect.

If I keep on pace, I'll finish watching the series in January 2008. I wonder if I can hold out on reading a newspaper that long.