NY Philharmonic Opening Night + Sports Roundup

A couple weeks ago I did something I haven't done in a while: I watched a live classical music concert on TV. The occasion was the PBS Live from Lincoln Center's broadcast of the New York Philharmonic Orchestra's season opener, which marked the début of its new Music Director, 42-year-old Alan Gilbert. I'd even made a mental note of the broadcast primarily because I saw that it would include Renee Fleming singing songs not by Schubert, or Strauss, or Faure, all likely opening-night and maestro-début and audience friendly choices, but...Olivier Messiaen.

I almost didn't believe my eyes or ears when I heard and saw this after an episode of The Newshour with Jim Lehrer, but then Gilbert, the son of two NY Philharmonic musicians, has from his earliest appearances with the orchestra shown an adventurousness that marks a change from the musty perspectives of his immediate predecessors, both consummate musicians, Kurt Masur and placeholder Lorin Maazel. Gilbert not only chose Messiaen's Poèmes pour Mi (1934), a serious of deeply religious, dramatic connubial songs written by the composer for his first wife, whose nickname was Mi, but also opened with a newly commissioned composition, EXPO, a continuously developing orchestral piece in a tonal idiom by the Philharmonic's composer in residence, Magnus Lindberg, and, after a break, concluded with...not Mozart, not Beethoven, not Brahms, Bruckner, Mahler, or Schumann, but...Berlioz's Symphonie fantastique.

The Lindberg piece, with its echoes of Sibelius and Americana riffs, was pleasant enough to listen to, and Gilbert and the orchestra played it with assurance and verve, as if they were enjoying themselves. This was also the first time in over 45 years that the Philharmonic had included a newly commissioned piece on its opening night program. I'm sorry but that's pretty pathetic, so even more props go to Gilbert. But the Messaien riveted me. Not only did Fleming convey the otherwordliness of the nine song's scores, capturing both their highest and lowest registers and the churning colors between, but Gilbert pushed the orchestra to fully evoke all of Messaien's shadings without ever overshadowing the singer. Perhaps the most striking moment came when Fleming sang the grim "Éprouvante," a wrenching vision of hell that the music did not stint in reflecting. It was also exhilarating to hear work by Messaien, a highly regarded canonical composer whose music nevertheless remains on the other side of the symphonic mainstream, on TV, in prime time. This bodes well, I hope, for future NYPO and other orchestral concert broadcasts, though sometimes tells me they'll still be dominated by the late baroque-to-late Romantic German standards.

As Fleming sang, I intermittently wondered what subscribers and critics thought of Gilbert's choices. As a sign of a new vision, they left no doubt. To people used to a mostly late baroque-to-late Romantic German repertoire with a few outliers (19th century French and Russian, early 20th century European late-Romantic and tonal modernist, a few American composers, and commissioned pieces, never to be played again), was probably upsetting. To end with Berlioz's vast, forward-looking 1830 symphony must have felt like a shockwave. Gilbert and the orchestra showed that they knew the score and in most of its sections, went below the surface to portray the richness of the moods Berlioz was aiming for. I'm no expert on Berlioz's work nor an authority on how other orchestras have played it, but I could hear both Gilbert's and the players' skill and precision, but also passion. It was never mechanical, as Maazel's performances often were.

Anthony Tommasini raved about Gilbert in his New York Times review of the concert the following day. He praised the Lindberg for not writing a "gnarly, intimidating modern piece"--Mr. Tommasini, it's 2009, and there are so many contemporary composers who do not write "intimidating modern" or "post-modern" or "post-post-modern" or whatever pieces that also are not treacly, neo-Romantic, ersatz movie music outtakes--and rained down kudos for Gilbert's choice of the Messiaen and Berlioz, though he was less fulsome when he described Gilbert's conducting of the latter work, saying that some listeners probably liked to hear it conducted with more of a"sumptuous feeling for color or more fantastical freedom" than on display in this concert. He nevertheless lauded Gilbert's assured and effective conducting, which not only brought the symphony to life but worked well with the two prior pieces, both in French idioms, broadly construed. The article's comment section, however, reflected more displeasure than happiness: lots of complaints not about Gilbert's music-making, which seems unimpeachable, but about his program choices.

I've been wondering about this as I've followed Greg Sandow's blog on classical music for several years. Sandow is a composer and professor at Juillard, and is writing a book about the present state of the US classical music world. One persistent element in his blog commenters' responses is a denial that the US classical music world is any trouble; another is that its audience is aging; a third is that the standard repertoire is just fine. Keeping these frequent threads in mind, I wondered to myself how much outrage there would have been had Gilbert gone farther, and in addition to the Lindberg, programmed all new music to launch his tenure. What if instead of Messiaen (whose career spanned the early to late 20th century) and the 19th century Berlioz, he had played two contemporary, living American composers, like John Corigliano and Ellen Taaffe Zwillich? Or two contemporary non-US composers, like Toru Takemitsu and Thomas Adès? Or two 20th century American composers who weren't exactly mainstream any more, like Roy Harris and William Schuman? Or truly avant-garde 20th century, post-Second Viennese school American composers, like Morton Feldman, Terry Riley, and John Cage? Or a composition in a jazz or rock-inflected idiom by the likes of Elvis Costello, or Wynton Marsalis? Would people have walked out of and lustily booed the concert as occurred at the Metropolitan Opera's premiere last week of the warhorse Tosca, based on Luc Bondy's new staging and direction?

Perhaps a better question is, would it ever happen, even under someone as open to the new as Gilbert? (When the extraordinary conductor James Levine, who heads the Met Opera's orchestra, took over the Boston Symphony Orchestra, which long been moribund under his predecessor, he jumpstarted its formerly progressive repertoire under Fritz Reiner by performing a slew of "difficult" 20th century works. I don't think, however, that he touched the likes of Daugherty, say, or Todd Machover, or Tania León.) It remains to be seen. I should note that Gilbert's second concert as Musical Director was conducting Mahler's Third Symphony, about as standard as things can get. This week he conducted Brahms's Violin Concerto, another standard piece, but paired it with Arnold Schoenberg's less frequently heard Pelleas und Melisande, which Tommasini described in his Friday review, typically, as "formidable" and "demanding," despite it's having been superseded by far more formidable and demanding Schoenberg scores (Chamber Symphony? Fantasie? Violin Concerto?), as well as innumerable more complicated soundworlds including many in rock, jazz, ambient, etc. I take the slotting in of even a fairly old-style (for) Schoenberg piece as a good sign, though. And he spoke to the audience about it! Looking through the upcoming concerts--and Gilbert will be taking the Philharmonic on the road to Japan, South Korea, Vietnam, and Singapore for a chunk of October--through December, it appears as though there will be lots of Mozart, Beethoven and Brahms, unsurprisingly, but throughout the 2009-2010 season Gilbert has slated a range of post-Romantic fare into the main concerts, including performances of Ligeti's Le Grand Macabre (semi-staged), Ives's Second Symphony, Anton von Zemlinsky's Lyric Suite, and, as part of the end of 2009 concerts, Webern's Symphony. Additionally, such very up-to-date works as Christopher Rouse's new commission, Zhizn ("life" in Russian), H.K. Gruber's Aerea, and pieces by Nico Muhly, Matthias Pintscher, Lindberg, and others, will be in both the main and Contact: The New Music series concerts.

To me, this programming in Gilbert's first year is a clear sign that the NYPO is moving into both the present and future, much as Baltimore's symphony has done under Marin Alsop, and Los Angeles's will under Gustavo Dudamel. Since I spend a chunk of each year in Chicago, I'm curious to know which directions new Musical Director Riccardo Muti will take the Chicago Symphony Orchestra for the five years of his contract. He is known as a strong conductor of Giuseppi Verdi, late baroque and early Romantic music, and of the standard repertoire, in a lean, recording-friendly idiom, and not so much of anything that new. At least since Mahler's time.

(I am skipping the Lyric Opera of Chicago's offerings this year; they aren't staging a single opera written since 1921--Leos Janacek's Kát'a Kabanová--while the Metropolitan Opera's tiny steps outside its narrow conventional doors are Alban Berg's Lulu, Dmitri Shostakovich's The Nose, and Janacek's From the House of the Dead. The unparalleled season Gérard Mortier had planned for the New York City Opera is now nothing but a phantom, like that opera company itself.)

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The Saint Louis Cardinals are now officially in the playoffs, after defeating the Colorado Rockies 6-3 last night. They joined the Los Angeles Dodgers, who have also made the playoffs and currently have the best record in the NL. In the AL, the Yankees are now in the playoffs, having defeated their arch-nemeses, the Boston Red Sox tonight at the new Yankee Stadium 4-2. The Philadelphia Phillies and Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim both seem bound for the playoffs with dwindling magic numbers and the Red Sox are well ahead in the AL Wild Card Race, but the AL Central-leading Detroit Tigers are hanging on for all their lives, and the NL Wild Card race is increasingly a toss up, as Atlanta surges and Colorado falters. I'm just glad the Cardinals and Yankees are in. Now they have to keep winning.

EAST RUTHERFORD, NJ - SEPTEMBER 27: Mark Sanchez #6 of The New York Jets runs upfield after catching a pass against The Tennessee Titans during their game on September 27, 2009 at Giants Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey. (Photo by Al Bello/Getty Images)

As of tonight, the New York Jets are 3-0; rookie QB Mark Sanchez's 3 straight wins are a league first, and the defense allowed more than 10 points for the first time this season in today's 24-17 victory over the Tennessee Titans. The Saint Louis Rams, however, are 0-3 after another uninspired, sloppy loss, this time to the Green Bay Packers. With the Detroit Lions' victory over the Washington Snyders, the Rams have the longest losing streak, at 13 games dating back to last season. They look awful enough to make it 29 if they maintain this abysmal level of play. But they're in good--or bad--company so far: Miami, Cleveland, Kansas City, Tennessee, and Tampa Bay have also lost 3 games without a win and Carolina has 2 losses without having won one. Which of this sorry group will turn things around first? I say Tennessee or Tampa Bay, but don't hold me to that.

October Equality March + Carter's Comments + Sports Roundup

A while back I believed I'd mentioned that I'd heard there'd be a march in Washington for Marriage Equality this fall. One of my former students, sailor and author Miriam (of the bread recipes, who also introduced me to "fan fic"!), asked that I post a more definitive link to the event, Equality Across America, which is set to take place on October 10-11. I don't think I'll be able to attend, because I'll be returning from a black LGBTQ lit conference in Austin, but everyone who supports true and real equality should attend if they can.

As you also may know, earlier this week Congressman Jerrold Nadler proposed repealing the abominable Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA). If this is an issue that matters to you, please do call or email your Congressperson to urge her or him to consider cosponsoring and supporting this bill (along with the public option, investigations into the Bush-Cheney torture regime, repeal of the Patriot Act and Big Oil subsidies, ending the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and anything else you believe is pertinent).

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The right-wing and mainstream corporate media's (MCM) hyperventilating reactions to President Jimmy Carter's statement that racism underlines a great deal of the conservative outrage towards President Barack Obama and his policies do not surprise me at all. Any thoughtful or considered discussion of race, let alone racism, in the wider media always dissipates like iron steam. What frustrates me, however, is the MCM's continual conflation of "race" with "racism," and their focus on the former, rather than the latter. The MCM cannot seem to untangle the two, willfully I often think, because speaking about the former allows them a way out of addressing the pervasiveness of the latter. Speaking about the latter might also force them to register several premises, which include that those in the MCM also belong to certain races and have experiences shaped by this fact, and that in regular social and political discourse, some people are raced and some are not, and that doing so often occurs through the prism of racism. What's I also find frustrating is the way that the MCM reduces every issue to numbing simplicity, especially when "race" is broached, and in doing so attempts to attribute it to a single cause, as if truly complex economic, political and social phenomena were as easily diagnosed as the mumps.

Bob Somerby, for many years now, and Glenn Greenwald and others more recently have been pointing out that the right wing, with tremendous MCM help, fomented extreme hatred against our last Democratic president, Bill Clinton. (One could go further back, of course; shortly before Kennedy's assassination, "Wanted" posters went up in parts of Dallas.) Almost immediately upon Clinton's election, the nutcases, often funded by extremely wealthy individual and corporate interests, some of the same ones behind the Teabaggers, did everything they could to ruin Clinton's presidency, often in conjunction with the Republican opposition. If anyone thinks it's possible to minimize the craziness Clinton faced, culminating the multiyear, multimillion-dollar investigation, aided eagerly by The New York Times, and for which both President Clinton and Hillary Clinton were exonerated, just recall the ultimate GOP-led act, the attempted impeachment in 1998. I can vividly remember when the uproar among Democrats from that insane spectacle seemed so great as to ever prevent anyone from the GOP ever winning the presidency again, and yet a year later, the GOP and MCM (reporters and columnists at the NY Times and Washington Post, figures from NBC, Fox, etc.) began their "War on Gore," and we ended up with the Supreme Court coup that installed the disaster known as George W. Bush on us.

I mention this history because while I am--as are, I'm sure, quite a few people around the US--quite aware that racism and white supremacy are always in operation in this society, I do believe that attributing the current derangements of the right solely or even primarily to racism denies this prior history, which was still firmly in place when Clinton left office. Racism, while a major source, is still only one of many behind the behavior on display at the town hall rallies, the recent Teabagger rally in Washington, and above all, on the right-wing/corporate propaganda headquarters-channel, Fox News. Had Hillary Clinton won, we wouldn't be seeing the same sort of direct racist and racialist animus (the Curious George T-shirts, the "birther" push, the signs of Obama as a witch doctor, etc.), though racism would be in the mix, as it was during the Clinton years (remember the obsessive push to end welfare, even though corporate welfare reached insane heights under Bush, and affirmative action, which, studies in the late 1990s showed, primarily benefited white women?). With a President Hillary in office, we probably would be seing even more and outlandish displays of sexism and misogyny, and not just from the right, but from the MCM, whose members (Chris Matthews is notorious) have long been among the worst offenders. But attacks on undocumented immigrants and "producerist" arguments, prettified by the likes of David Brooks, wouldn't be unthinkable.

Let me be clear: my aim is not to minimize the particular foci of some of the worst attacks on Obama, but to note that we had the militias, the anti-government nuts, the millenialists, and so on in full force from 1992-2000, alongside a GOP Congressional caucus that took political and personal destruction of the sitting president and complete repeal of the New Deal legacy as its organizing principle. Newt Gingrich did not simply want to stop Clinton's presidency in its tracks, he wanted to shred Clinton personally. Think of some of the most outspoken figures on the right during the impeachment drama and the revelation of Clinton's affair. When their efforts failed repeatedly, this led, as we now see, to even more thuggish tactics, such as installing a president and Congress, by hook or crook (or voting machine) who could just dynamite the government entirely. According to a recent Census report, according to almost every economic indicator the vast majority of Americans finished the 8 years of Bush's presidency worse off than before. The wealthiest .1 percent and many corporate interests--or at least the people running them, if not the shareholders--were the economic losers.

To quote The Atlantic on this topic:

On every major measurement, the Census Bureau report shows that the country lost ground during Bush's two terms. While Bush was in office, the median household income declined, poverty increased, childhood poverty increased even more, and the number of Americans without health insurance spiked. By contrast, the country's condition improved on each of those measures during Bill Clinton's two terms, often substantially.

The Census' final report card on Bush's record presents an intriguing backdrop to today's economic debate. Bush built his economic strategy around tax cuts, passing large reductions both in 2001 and 2003. Congressional Republicans are insisting that a similar agenda focused on tax cuts offers better prospects of reviving the economy than President Obama's combination of some tax cuts with heavy government spending. But the bleak economic results from Bush's two terms, tarnish, to put it mildly, the idea that tax cuts represent an economic silver bullet.

I'm hardly saying anything that most J's Theater readers don't already know, but I mention this record, all but buried by the MCM (tell me, when have you seen any of the major "liberal" or "progressive" MCM reporters or columnists discuss this record at any length, to inform the majority of people out there what's going on) to say that one of the great sources of the rage on display at last weekend's rally, is ignorance, which the MCM have only helped to deepen rather than dispel.

The reasons behind this are numerous, but one central one is that corporate interests (just like our Congress, which willingly works hand in glove with them) benefit by keeping people as misinformed as possible. There is also, as this telling clip of CNBC's scandal-plagued anchor Maria Bartiromo demonstrates, the fact of media personalities' own gross ignorance (again, cf. Chris Matthews). But rather than go on, I'll post the clip below, which has been making its rounds on the Net. It illustrates perhaps more powerfully than anything I might say here what I'm talking about. Please watch it till the end, because it shows, for a rare change, a reporter breaking the supposedly objective, journalistic frame and politely stating and clarifying facts for some of these people. Unfortunately, this happens so very rarely that it's hard not to be cynical. Whatever the source of the MCM's ongoing silence, it's a major problem and will continue to be for the rest of Obama's (or any Democrat's) terms. What's even more unfortunate is that I don't get the sense that he or many in his team, like many in Congress, have any clue or, worse, care at all about this. The results, however, could be something worse than the Bush administration. Mike Huckabee, Sarah Palin, Jim DeMint, Rick Santorum, and any number of other very dangerous characters are lurking out there, and with a heavily corporated-funded campaign with pseudo-populist aspects, we'd all be in very serious trouble. 2001-2008 might end up looking like the Coolidge years.

(Please watch to the end to see the reporter challenge the protesters' ignorance.)


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On the sports tip, the New York Jets have started the NFL season 2-0, defeating their nemeses, the New England Patriots 16-9 today, preventing a comeback by the media darling Tom Brady. The Big Green have a sharp new coach, Rex Ryan, and one of the most talented young quarterbacks in the league, rookie Mark Sanchez (at right, Nick Laham/Getty Images) of USC. The Jets don't have the toughest schedule this season, so they could conceivably go 12-4 or 13-3. That is, if they can keep playing like they are now, or even improve. Then the playoffs will be more than a mirage.

The Saint Louis Rams, however, are 0-2, losing 9-7 to a shaky Washington squad, and look no better than their 2-14 predecessors of last season. In fact, they look worse. 10 years ago they were known as the league's highest scoring teams, with iffy defense. Now they have middling defense and no scoring capability at all. Their quarterback is sacked at will, they cannot convert drives into runs, and they make countless mistakes game after game. I am starting to think the new ownership may be trying to once again ship a team out of St. Louis towards more financially beneficial (southern California?) climes. Looking at their schedule, they face both pushover and tough teams (though no AFC East teams, nor the Giants or Eagles, thankfully), but they still could conceivably go 0-16. They do meet the Detroit Lions at midseason, so a 1-15 outcome isn't impossible.

In the MLB, the Yankees have the best record in the AL, at 95-55. Perennial All Star Derek Jeter has broken Lou Gehrig's team hit record, CC Sabathia (at right, AP) is powering his way to a Cy Young Award at 18-7, and the team overall, like the finely tuned machine it has been for long stretches over its history, is humming along under manager Joe Girardi. The other top teams in the AL are the Boston Red Sox, who lead the Wild Card race (again), the Detroit Tigers, and the mouthful but ever talented Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim. The Yankees and the Angels are the teams to beat, but the Red Sox are always dangerous.

In the NL, the Saint Louis Cardinals are again atop the NL West, though they don't have the league's best record. That honor goes to the Los Angeles Dodgers. The Cardinals do, however, have the league's best pitching--two starters, Adam Wainwright (18-8, 2.59 ERA), and Chris Carpenter (16-4, 2.43 ERA), are leading contenders for the NL Cy Young--and its best overall hitter in Albert Pujols (47 home runs, 119 runs scored, 127 runs batted in, .328 average), a latter day Stan Musial. He and the pitching have kept the team afloat; the last week the Cardinals have staggered more than swaggered. The Dodgers, however, have more balance across their lineup, and could be dangerous in the playoffs. The other top teams are the East leaders, the Philadelphia Phillies, last year's World Series champions, who look powerful enough to go all the way, and the current Wild Card leading Colorado Rockies, who always have a strong home-field advantage and great batters. I'm rooting for the Cardinals, but this quartet is a toss-up.

The Cardinals vs. the Yankees (which last occurred in 1964, with the Cardinals winning four games to three) would be my preferred World Series matchup. Will it happen? Let's see.

MLB Season Opens (Ho Hum)

The Major League Baseball season is underway, and, perhaps for the first time since the 1994 strike, I'm not particularly excited. I will follow the Saint Louis Cardinals' (and a few other teams on the semi-ups, like the Yankees, Mets, Tigers, etc.) play throughout the season. They look to be as middling as they were in the 1970s and 1990s. I'll probably try to go to some baseball games in Chicago, since I'll be teaching through June, and, if I can get my act together, set foot in either Yankee or Shea Stadium when I'm back in the New York area. But my interest has, to put it mildly, dimmed substantially. Maybe it's just that I'm getting older and increasingly feel I don't have the mental or emotional space to devote to retrograde, monopolistic, social, secular opiates like professional baseball (or even college sports--I hadn't realized the NCAA and NIT basketball playoffs had begun until friends on a sports list started posting about and C asked me about the "brackets"). But I do think another part of my disaffection comes from the lingering steroid/performance enhancement scandal, which hasn't been fully addressed, by any of baseball's major players. MLB, including its administration and the owners, and the Players Union have bandied about punitive Band-Aids, when not demonstrating that they're in denial, and Congress's entry into the debacle was just a lot of bad spectacle. So what did we learn? That lots of players were using performance enhancers, but only a few, like Barry Bonds, have been pilloried. That some high profile players like Roger Clemens probably also were doping, but have lied about it, or maybe they haven't. That José Canseco, of all people, is turning out to be one of the most honest people in this whole mess, and he's even fingered the gazillionaire Adonis himself, A-Rod (A-Roid?). The reality seems to be that countless other players from the late 1980s onwards were probably using steroids and performance enhancers, that MLB and the union probably knew, and looked the other way, and that they want to condemn and punish players who got caught, without taking any responsibility for their action in abetting the situation, or admitting that it was beneficial for their bank accounts, which is what it all comes down to in the end, no? With 28 million people just getting by on food stamps these days, who has time for truculent, whining, lying multimillionaires? Well, maybe a few, if they're named Albert Pujols (at top), or José Reyes (at right), or Derek Jeter, or Johan Santana....

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And now, for a little nostalgia. 40 years ago, a St. Louis Cardinals baseball player turned in a season-long performance that is unlikely ever to be challenged. I'm talking about Hall of Famer Bob Gibson's astonishing season, when he registered a modern era-record low ERA of 1.12. The league ERA was 2.90. The 32-year-old Gibson's overall numbers were equally remarkable. He threw 28 complete games, 13 shutouts, surrendered only 198 hits in 304 2/3rds innings, and struck out 268 batters. Perhaps his weakest stat was his win-loss total: 22-9, which presses the question, how on earth did this eventual Most Valuable Player award and Cy Young winner lose 9 games?

Derrick Goold offers some answers in his recent St. Louis Post-Dispatch article: Gibson's teammates weren't getting a lot of hits against his pitching opponents, who included some of the other great pitchers of that era: Juan Marichal, Don Drysdale (who pitched 58 2/3rds consecutive scoreless innings, a record that stood for decades), Tom Seaver, Ferguson Jenkins, and Gaylord Perry. To quote Goold:

In his first 10 starts that season, Gibson was 3-5 despite a 1.52 ERA, mainly because opposing starting pitchers had a 1.34 ERA against the Cardinals.

His teammates scored two or fewer runs in eight of Gibson's losses that season and twice he lost 1-0, once when Gaylord Perry twirled a no-hitter.

Eleven of Gibson's 34 starts that summer were opposite another Hall of Fame-bound pitcher. He went 5-5 with a 1.45 ERA in those games.

"We wish we could have done more on his behalf," Cardinals Hall of Famer Lou Brock said. "Not just the ERA, but the victories. He could have won 30. ... As a hitter, you make it a goal to destroy the pitch before it destroys you.

"You could not do that with Bob. You could not destroy his pitch. You don't have a lot of time to come up with a plan to destroy something you can't see."

One of the results of that season was that Major League Baseball lowered the pitcher's mound, shrank the strike zone, and clamped down on trick and illegal pitches. Gibson's record in 1969? 20-13, with a 2.18 ERA, and 269 strikeouts. Only 4 of his 28 complete games that season were shutouts. These days few leading pitchers, who throw fewer games and fewer innings because of the 5-man starting rotations and ample relief corps, ever approach 10 complete games, let alone 4 shutouts or ERAs under 2.00; last year's ERA titlist, Padre Jake Peavy, came in at 2.54; last year's shutout leader, Arizona's Brandon Webb, posted 3; and last year's complete game top finisher, Roy Halliday, only posted 7. The AL Cy Young winner C. C. Sabathia, managed only 4 complete games, 1 shutout, and a 3.21 ERA, while the NL Cy Young winner, Peavy, had no complete games and no shutouts. Both pitchers also only won 19 games. A different game indeed.

Taser Humor + Steroids 'R Us + One Laptop Per Child

Watching TV today as a way of diverting my attention from this cough that is drilling straight up through my throat, I had to turn off CNN, after watching correspondent Fredricka Whitfield giggling like a teenager on whippets over a video clip of University of Florida student Andrew Meyer screaming out the phrase "Don't Tase me, Bro!" just before out of control security guards Tasered him this past September 17. His transgression, you may remember, was pressing that hapless boob Senator John Kerry at a university forum. Anchor T. J. Holmes had initially responded to the Meyer cry clip, which he announced had been named the year's most memorable quote by the Yale Book of Quotations, by pitying the rambling, incoherent reply Miss Teen South Carolina, Caitlin Upton, gave at this past year's Miss Teen America competition. But he quickly joined in the giggling as well. Last night, I saw WPIX anchors Lolita Lopez and Jim Watkins chuckling heartily over the same clip. Assuming these people are not all psychopaths, is watching someone being violently assaulted by cops wielding a potentially lethal electrical device that funny? Are these people that jaded and desensitized, is Tasering people that passé? Yes, I know that we're living in a time in which not only police brutality, but state-sanctioned brutality and torture, have become so normalized they barely merit public comment, let alone outrage, but still, the drollery disturbed the hell out of me. Which makes me wonder: am I being too sensitive, serious? Or is it that the detached, zombified, overpaid media bobbleheads emblematic of so much that's wrong with our media and our society?

UPDATE: Digby notes another appalling CNN moment, this time involving anchor Kyra Phillips, who indifferently described and downplayed the fact that police were attacking the people protesting the Department of Housing and Urban Development's plans to demolish several longstanding housing projects in New Orleans. She then slanted her on-air riff to openly defend the police, using tortured and disengaged language to describe the assaults on the protesters. (I should add that my great uncle has worked for HUD for many years, and is none too fond of the clown now running it, the scandal-plagued Alphonso Jackson, the other Black person in W's Cabinet of Horrors.) One of the commenters in the Digby thread points out that the New York Times's architecture critic Nicolai Ouroussoff recently penned an excellent piece criticizing HUD's terrible plans. Ourousoff argues that HUD is failing not only to recognize the value of the architecture it seeks to destroy and replace with shoddier, less hurricane-worthy housing in a misguided fantasy of suburbanizing the city, but also to acknowledge the symbolic and social violence of the plans as well. He writes:

The agency refuses to make distinctions between the worst of the housing projects and those, like Lafitte, that could be at least partly salvaged. Nor will it acknowledge the trauma it causes by boarding up and then eradicating entire communities in a reeling city.

In an eerie echo of the slum clearance projects of the 1960s, government officials are once again denying that these projects and communities can be salvaged through a human, incremental approach to planning. For them, only demolition will do.

The difference between then and now is what will exist once the land is cleared. If the urban renewal projects of the 1960s replaced decaying historic neighborhoods with vast warehouses for the poor, HUD’s vision would yield saccharine, suburban-style houses. And the situation is likely to get worse. The government has identified some other historically important public buildings for demolition as part of its push for privatization. Charity Hospital, an Art Deco structure built downtown in the late 1930s, was abandoned after Hurricane Katrina, and its fate is uncertain.

I cannot say it enough, but the crimes against the city and people of New Orleans embody everything that is wrong with this administration and this country we're living in.

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I've passed on commenting on Major League Baseball's very flawed Mitchell Report, which despite its flawed methodology has revealed that a far wider array of major league baseball players than previously assumed were using various kinds of performance enhancement drugs, while the owners, the players union and other players, and the MLB hierarchy looked the other way. One immediate effect of this news, and subsequent reports, should be that fanatical sportswriters need to issue a collective, stentorian apology to Barry Bonds, who has been crucified in the media for denying being a roider, and then to Sammy Sosa (at right, from the Monaga Blog) who until the most recent news about pitcher Jason Grimsley's affidavit, had not been tied conclusively to any performance enhancement drug use.

The false shock and piety, which is to say, sanctimony, from people in the baseball world, including former baseball owner and public welfare maven George W., was totally predictable. What I'm still waiting for some of these folks to admit is how much baseball benefitted from the bulked up stats, and the fact that players began earning outsized salaries compared to other professions in the early 1980s if they made the major leagues and could sustain even a modest career, so there was every incentive to juice up. There still is. For hitting a ball around a field or getting it over the plate, baseball players earn more than most CEOs, who are grossly overpaid as it is. The truth is, an entire era, up through now, will have to be viewed with "enhancements" as the norm, rather than the exceptions. This new realization must be taken into account with all of the stats and records set or none of them. Before steroids there were amphetamines, which still exist, and who knows what someone is cooking up in a laboratory even as I type these words. "Clear" was out there for a while before track and field's authorities discovered it, and only they did so as quickly as they did only with the help of whistleblowers. So long as the financial incentives exist to cheat, people will do so. My question is, who really believes that baseball is the only sport where this is a serious problem? What about the NFL, the NBA, the NHL, and every other sport where chemical enhancement gives athletes an edge? Could the Beijing Olympics possibly be clean? I doubt it.

Which leads me to this link, from the Dallas Morning News: "More professionals, students using brain performance enhancing drugs." Business people, musicians, professional gamers, students...it's definitely not just pro athletes, but our society in general that needs to undergo more thorough self-analysis and critique....

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Yesterday brought a pleasant surprise: an XO computer arrived in the mail, though I'd hardly expected to see it anytime soon. The computer is the result of my participation in the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) program, the brainchild of visionary MIT professor and Media Laboratory founder and former head Nicholas Negroponte, who decided to develop affordable, networkable computers to empower children in the developing world. The original prototype, which I blogged about here two years ago, has been modified to some extent, but the model I received is a robust, fully loaded little portable machine containing an easy-to-figure, Graphical User Interface (GUI) atop a Linux platform. The software includes a browser, a writing program, several layers of music-making software (which I sampled right away), a recording studio with a camera (for photos, videos and audio--that's me, at left, on screen, photographing myself photographing myself), lots of games, a basic programming tutorial, and the means for children to network with others very easily, either in class or outside it. In fact, I could see children getting started on these machines swiftly and learning not only to write, but to create group projects, make music and visual art projects, create mathematical and statistical programs, write software programs, and even learn to repair their computers and troubleshoot hardware problems.

The XO has great Wifi capability (in fact, its literature say it's a fulltime wireless router), and after C added its MAC address to the base stations here, I was on the Net...in less than 5 minutes. It also easily links to local networks and fosters their creation. It has ports for a microphone (in), headphones (out), and USB-connective devices, a slot for memory upgrades, no harddrive, and only two internal cables--and it saves all projects unless you delete them. The computer's CPU suspends its CPU operation selective, allowing it amazing power savings, or about 1/10th of what a standard laptop consumes. This aspect of the computer mirrors its battery, which lasts between 6-8 hours with average use and can be recharged using a variable energy powercord, as well as via a crank or a solar or wind-powered source, to facilitate use in the many countries where electricity is a premium. The screen rotates so that it can function as an e-book, and the overall machine is compact enough that it can fit in a backpack and appears to be fairly robust, though real world use will probably assist its manufacturers in making it even more so. The only drawback I can see so far is the tiny keyboard, which is perfect for children but a challenge for anyone with larger fingers--but that's the point, this is a computer for children, though I can foresee someone down the road creating something along these lines, affordable and very robust, for adults as well. I certainly hope someone does, because the XO is a sweet little machine.

All in all I think Negroponte's idea was a remarkable one, and I'm very interested to see how the OLPC program unfolds. So far, from what I can tell, it has worked out pretty well where it's been implemented. The computers have been piloted in Nigeria, Brazil, Thailand, Peru, Uruguay, and India, and I sincerely hope that they can be offered to children in many more countries. Here's a quote from one child in Nigeria:

“I use my computer very carefully so that it will not spoil. I use it to type, I use it to write, I use it to draw, I use it to play games... I'm using my computer at home to type assignments.” — T. (Primary 4), Galadima School, Abuja, Nigeria

If you'd like to learn more, you can click on the link above, and if you think you'd like to contribute to the program, donate a computer or volunteer your time and services, click here. If you know of people who write open source, educationally-oriented software that might children can use, please urge them to contact OPLC as well.×