No, this is not another theatre review, but after seeing The Merchant of Venice and hearing the speech about the quality of mercy, I was reminded of a post that I wrote last year after President Bush signed another of his brow-beaten-into-law laws that is supposed to fight the GWOT but merely drags down the Constitution. Here it is again; it's just as true now as last October.
President Bush signed a law that creates a parallel legal system for military detainees. It eliminates the right of habeas corpus for non-citizens, removes many of the basic rules of evidence for these defendants, and gives the president the right to basically declare anyone he wants as an "enemy combatant." Anyone.
I've heard all the excuses: we're at war, the terrorists have lost all their rights to humane treatment, do unto them before they do unto us, and so on and so forth. I guess we could come up with any rationalization that fits into a soundbite or campaign commercial, but when you get right down to it, it's all just an excuse to exact revenge and respond in a visceral way to barbarism.
I freely admit that my knowledge of the law is based primarily on what I've picked up from television and Shakespeare, so I can't claim any greater insight to it than any other person who hasn't been to law school. But even a cursory examination of the foundation of the laws of this country and of Western civilization teaches us that we have a system that is dedicated to justice, not revenge. Justice means that we do not respond to a horrible crime by committing the same level of horror in response. We have matured from the level of exacting punishment as described in the Old Testament of "an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth," because if we had not, we'd be a nation of blind people gumming our Cream of Wheat.
I've heard a lot of people -- especially those on the right who claim to stand for law'n'order -- say that "terrorists don't deserve the same rights I have." Aside from the fact that rights aren't something you "deserve," under the new law it's all too easy to define what a "terrorist" is. The president may decide that terrorism isn't just confined to taking up arms against the United States or trying to pack C-4 into your Reeboks; he could decide that snarky bloggers or anti-war Quakers in Broward County fall into that category. Pshaw, you say; the president would never go that far. Well, excuse my cynicism, but a president who has already shown contempt for the laws already on the books and who uses his violation of the laws as his justification for asking for new laws to give him the power to do just that has already shown a willingness to define what terrorism is without any acknowledgement of the constraints of Constitutional law.
The counterattack from the right wing is the same predictable cant: you lefties are soft on terrorism and you care more about the rights of criminals than you do about the rights of citizens. The first claim is bogus and not worth repudiating, but the second one is truly the heart of the matter. The concept that a defendant is innocent until proven guilty gets a lot of lip service, but in our current climate it's become an endangered species. But it's the heart of our system of justice, and no one is considered guilty of a crime until a jury has rendered a verdict. Up to that moment, the accused is entitled to every right available to him under the law. If we shortchange that, what's the point of having a justice system at all? Why not just shoot them in the head as soon as you catch them? It certainly would reduce the caseload on the courts. (That's another lame excuse for eliminating habeas corpus; the courts would be clogged. Lack of prior planning is no reason to deny a defendant his rights.)
I don't know what they teach in law school, but I believe that one of the basic tenets of our justice system is a quality that is not written in Blackstone or the US Criminal Code. Our laws may be the foundation of our civil society, but it is our humanity -- our capacity and desire to show mercy even for the worst among us -- that gives it our soul. As Shakespeare notes,The quality of mercy is not strain'd,
It is not weakness to administer equal justice; it is what separates the noble experiment and idea of America from every other system of government, and it is one of the primary reasons this nation was founded in the first place. Terrorists don't win when they are granted the same rights as other defendants, and equal protection under the law shouldn't be conditioned on the accident of birth within or without the borders of the United States; a person before the bar is still a human being no matter what country issued his passport. If anything, it is a sign of weakness and desperation to stack the deck against a defendant; it's conceding that we have no faith in the justice system and must exact our revenge in a way that brings us down to the same level as the criminal.
It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven
Upon the place beneath: it is twice blest;
It blesseth him that gives and him that takes:
'Tis mightiest in the mightiest: it becomes
The throned monarch better than his crown;
His sceptre shows the force of temporal power,
The attribute to awe and majesty,
Wherein doth sit the dread and fear of kings;
But mercy is above this sceptred sway;
It is enthroned in the hearts of kings,
It is an attribute to God himself;
And earthly power doth then show likest God's
When mercy seasons justice.
Cross-posted from Bark Bark Woof Woof.
The Quality of Mercy
Warner's Turd
So, yesterday, Republican Senator John Warner threw himself a press conference. Having spent four whole days in and around Iraq, he was ready to make some "recommendations" to the president. And, wow, it was quite spectacular:
It seems to me the time has come to put some meaningful teeth into those comments, to back them up with some clear, decisive action to show that we mean business when those statements and others like it have been made.Damn, bitch gone crazy!! Five thousand whole troops by Christmas—without a timetable, making it a totally pointless, symbolic gesture?! Slow down there, Warner—you could give yourself a heart attack with such radical recommendations!
And so, therefore, I make a recommendation to the president. … I say to the president, respectfully, pick what ever number you wish. You do not want to lose the momentum, but certainly in 160,000- plus, say, 5,000 could begin to redeploy and be home to their families and loved ones no later than Christmas of this year.
…He need not lay out a totality of a timetable. I would advise against it.
…That simple announcement of a single redeployment of some several thousand individuals under the military tradition — first-come, first-served in Iraq, first to depart — you’ve got to be careful how those selections — they can pick them from various units; put together a group and send them back. Then evaluate, re-evaluate how successful it has been. Then perhaps, at the president’s discretion, select a second date and time for a contingent to be redeployed.
Petulant has video of this ridiculous stunt, and some great commentary in a full-blown rant of Petulant proportions: "If this is showing teeth, someone get my dentures off the nightstand. … This entire press conference is nothing more than a floorshow for Warner to gum the president and don his motorcycle jacket and proclaim, I am a Rebel with a Cause."
Steve Benen notes the recommendation for a 3% troop reduction is "pretty weak tea. …[U]nless Warner is planning to challenge Bush directly, and bring some of his Senate friends with him, all of this comes across as 'Pretty please, Mr. President, we’d really love it if you adopted a sensible policy. But don’t worry, we won’t force you'." Yeah.
Meanwhile, Digby (also confirming the patent bullshittery and utter toothlessness of Warner's "respectful recommendation") highlights the media's dutiful determination to lap up Warner's pile of poop and declare it haute cuisine: "The press is portraying this as a 'tectonic shift,' which is what they've been saying about Warner's every utterance for the last three years. It's ridiculous. I don't know if the Great God Petraeus will say that the surge is working so well that we can redeploy 5,000 troops, but I wouldn't be surprised, would you? (Particularly since it's highly likely that 5,000 troops are scheduled to be redeployed anyway.)"
This is just sad. All of this ridiculous posturing, contingent on the ludicrous idea that "the surge is working," while, back in reality:
The number of Iraqis fleeing their homes has soared since the American troop increase began in February, according to data from two humanitarian groups, accelerating the partition of the country into sectarian enclaves.Superb.
Despite some evidence that the troop buildup has improved security in certain areas, sectarian violence continues and American-led operations have brought new fighting, driving fearful Iraqis from their homes at much higher rates than before the tens of thousands of additional troops arrived, the studies show.
…“There is no way we would go back,” said [Aswaidi, 26, a Sunni Arab who was driven out of her Baghdad neighborhood by Shiite snipers]. “It is a city of ghosts. The only people left there are terrorists.”
Two-Minute Nostalgia Sublime
3 dudes w/ 3 names + Courteney Cox + the dad from Alf = TV Gold
Question of the Day
What are the best and worst films inspired by TV shows?
Best: I haven't seen The Simpsons Movie yet, so I can't comment on that, although I imagine it will be on a lot of your best lists, and, from what I hear, rightly so. The South Park Movie and The Brady Bunch Movie are pretty good TV-to-film remakes, but probably my all-time favorite is The Fugitive.
Worst: I've never seen Charlie's Angels, mainly because it looked pretty horrible. I tried it once, and saw about 5 minutes before I had to switch the channel. The Kids in the Hall movie was such a disaster, I don't think I ever finished it, either. For sure the worst I've seen in its entirety has to be Miami Vice. Ugh. Stinkaroo.
Get a Life
[Sometimes I just need to repost this, to get my wevtastic ass moving again…]
Echidne once wrote a great post in which she addresses a particular frustration of active feminists: “Feminists are somehow the unpaid cleaning crew … who is supposed to turn up after dark and fix the world so that the attractive nonfeminists can live in it comfortably. So that nobody else needs to spend time or money or their lives in trying to move the almost immovable rock that is public opinion on the so-called ‘women's issues’. So that it's only the feminists who can be painted with the caricature brush as mirthless and humorless, as too ugly to get laid, as man-hating fanatics.”
Her post reminds me of my lament in the same vein, about the American majority’s intractable lethargy toward their duty as a watchdog of government to ensure good governance. “Leaving a small group to carry the burden of caring doesn’t work—especially when the party in power has endeavored to marginalize them as hysterical lunatics at every turn and the impetus to stay disengaged makes accepting that characterization so very appealing, conveniently masking as it does any reminder that one’s own indifference is not just ignoble, but dangerous.”
And it struck me that both the sweeping scale of national politics and the subset of issue-specific progressive movements in America are both plagued by the same problem: too few people willing to do the hard work required to produce the results from which everyone wants to benefit. (Excepting, of course, the retrofuck jackholes who endeavor to drive us all several centuries backwards.) If only it were simply apathy, that would be, well, a pretty normal state of affairs. But it is beyond apathy—it is hostility toward activists, a resentment expressed in Echidne’s reference to “only the feminists who can be painted with the caricature brush as mirthless and humorless, as too ugly to get laid, as man-hating fanatics,” and in my reference to the marginalization of activists “as hysterical lunatics at every turn.”
Never in my lifetime has the word “activist” been as dirty a word as it is now, never has it been so inextricably linked to all manner of negative association—crazy, humorless, dangerous, traitorous. There’s always been a certain strain of activism regarded by some as laughable; anytime someone plops themselves in a treetop, there’s inevitably going to be giggles. Now, however, seemingly anyone who cares passionately about making a difference, holding the government accountable, ensuring fair elections, changing minds on social issues, arguing for fairness and equality, etc. is regarded as unhinged, and the quickest way to discredit someone is to call them an activist.
This is collective amnesia of our own history. America was a nation of action. The spirit of “can be done…the pioneer thing,” as Eddie Izzard would say. Go West, young man. Manifest destiny. Send the boys off to war; Rosie the Riveter and her sisters will keep the factories humming. Rural electrification?—no problem. By god, we’ll put a man on the bloody moon! And so we did.
And now, apparently, we’ve decided to take a little nap, after all our forebears’ hard work. Yawn. Thanks to their blood, sweat, and tears, we can fulfill our destiny as couch potatoes.
Especially since we all know that somebody will keep an eye on things. Surely someone will stay vigilant and make sure the train doesn’t go careening off the tracks, that we don’t lose our reproductive rights, our separation of church and state, our environment, our jobs, our right to vote, our very country. Yawn. What’s that? Cindy Sheehan’s on the teevee? Ohmigod, hahaha. What a wacko! She is such a loser. She, like, totally needs to get a life.
Get a life, you mourning mother of a fallen soldier. Get a life, you humorless feminists. Get a life, you parading queers yelling about marriage. Get a life, you affirmative action dopes. Get a life, you poor, lazy slobs on welfare. Get a life, you enabling progressives. Get a life, you national healthcare advocates. Get a life, Al Gore. Get a life, get a life, get a life.
So we are instructed by the La-Z-Boy jockeys. So is their resentment at those who refuse to quit stirring the pot made manifest. By telling the rest of us to get a life from the slack-jawed, numb-brained comfort of their comatose lives, by recasting inaction as life and activism as a pathetic, contemptible waste of time, they deflect the responsibility for any and every unhappiness, inequity, or injustice that befalls themselves or anyone else.
In the new American paradigm, pacifists are the enemy, and passivists are the real heroes, realizing their ultimate purpose as inert, impotent consumers, who contribute nothing but judgment on those who refuse such a fate. Get a life.
Even the phrase is rich with the notion of consumption. Get a life—surely the local Wal-Mart’s got several lovely models on offer. As if we don’t all have lives already. What we need is more people who are willing to use their lives for a purpose, to make those lives meaningful, to contribute to effecting the changes from which they want to benefit.
It is the definitive nod to what a lackluster, overindulged, ungrateful, and uninspired nation of people we have become that disdain for activism is not only accepted, but encouraged. When people marched to protest the war, the big news story was how they were holding up traffic, the inconsiderate bastards. Don’t they have anything better to do? Don’t they have lives?
Quaint, and silly, this notion of sacrifice, when juxtaposed against the ease of taking liberty and opportunity for granted. Only a fool would waste time trying to make his voice heard over the roar of complacency that echoes across the nation to its farthest corners. If we can have a war and tax cuts, surely too we can bask in our freedom with no obligatory exertion to protect it.
Having been given the chance to do nearly anything, the majority of us choose to do nothing.
But it can’t last forever. Believing one’s choices are guaranteed but leaving it up to others to protect the continued ability to make those choices—others who then become objects of ridicule for one’s amusement—is a recipe for disaster. Sooner than later, every American will be left with only one choice: keep on laughing at the activists, or become one to save themselves. And what a glorious dawn in America it will be when every chortling, finger-pointing, invective-hurling slacker who finds activism the epitome of pitiable profligacy stops counseling us to get a life, and instead, gets off his ass, and at long last takes a stand.
Wev
I am suffering from malaise.
I feel like poop. Tired. Uninspired. Apathetic. Useless. Overwhelmed with a crushing sense of futility. I am the sloth-like, slack-jawed, droopy-lidded embodiment of wev. Wev is my quintessence. Wev beats my heart, and wev runs my blood. I wev therefore I wev. All that's left for me now is leading the wevolution on the world wide wev—so wev your engines.
Actually, I probably just need some caffeine.
Congratulations…
…to WorldNetDaily for the t0tally aw3zome coup of bringing on board wicked-hott respected journalist and erstwhile porn star/escort Rod Majors Matt Sanchez. I've never seen his movies, but from what I hear, he's got integrity literally dripping out his asshole.
Sanchez said, "I'm honored WordNetDaily.com has asked me to be a part of such a respectable organization."Sanchez might want to start off on the right foot by noting his new employer is called WorldNetDaily, not WordNetDaily. That's just good journamalizing.
Rock on.
[H/T Blogenfreude.]
Time For A New Slide Show
Remember that knee-slapping hilarious slide show where Georgie looked all around the White House for WMD? My eyes are still-a-tearin' with all out giddiness from that one. Well, I think he could really boost his ratings if he came up with a new slide show where he scours the Pentagon offices looking for MRAPs, those life saving vehicles that would "support the troops."
AP:
The Pentagon will fall far short of its goal of sending 3,500 lifesaving armored vehicles to Iraq by the end of the year. Instead, officials expect to send about 1,500.Of course, who needs MRAPs when you have evangelical material to help you out?
Pentagon press secretary Geoff Morrell said Wednesday that while defense officials still believe contractors will build about 3,900 of the mine-resistant, armor-protected vehicles by year's end, it will take longer for the military to fully equip them and ship them to Iraq.
Get crackin, Georgie! I just can't wait to see all those damn funny places you'd be searching!
[H/T to Steve]
Another Day, Another Iraq Clusterfucktastrophe
Right-Wing Operatives Plot to Overthrow Maliki, Replace Him with Reliable Collaborator Allawi: "The powerful Republican lobbying group of Barbour Griffith & Rogers is plotting an effort to displace Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and supplant him with former interim Iraqi Prime Minister Iyad Allawi."
[More at TPM Muckraker.]
You know, I've got a great idea. Since the pro-war GOP nutwitz think that Bush is Teh Best Preznit Evah!, and since Bush himself believes that a free Iraq is within reach, and since the 22nd Amendment prohibits Bush from preznitting in America again, why don't we just send his lousy ass over there where he can preznit to his minions' hearts' content?
Meanwhile, with him out of the fricking way, maybe we can actually come up with an efficacious Iraq policy.
Quote of the Day
"To place all the troops into the position of favoring one strategy ahead of us rather than another, and to accuse political opponents of trying to 'pull the rug out from under them,' is a, yes, fascistic tactic designed to corral political debate into only one possible patriotic course. It's beneath a president to adopt this role, beneath him to co-opt the armed services for partisan purposes. It should be possible for a president to make an impassioned case for continuing his own policy in Iraq, without accusing his critics of wanting to attack and betray the troops. But that would require class and confidence. The president has neither."
— Sully (who, by the way, is getting married in a few days; many happy returns from Shakesville!)
Putin on the Glitz
When, in 2001, President Bush declared he'd gazed into Russian President Vladimir Putin's eyes and "was able to get a sense of his soul," perhaps what he really saw that was so attractive was a fellow sexxxy cowboy:
When Vladimir Putin stripped down to the waist for the cameras, his muscled torso made headlines around the world.
And one week on, the ripples are still being felt in Russia, where he has become a sex symbol, the inspiration for men to start pumping iron, and the new darling of the gay lobby.
And, apparently, Pootie-Poot likes to play other kinds of dress-up, too.
Well-known as a downhill skier and black belt in judo, he has appeared on national television driving a truck, operating a train, sailing on a submarine and co-piloting a fighter jet.Who knew the two heads of the erstwhile Cold War poles had so much in common? Beady eyes, contempt for democracy, delusions of dictatorship, and prancing about like wankers in silly get-ups. Two peas in a pod, I tells ya!
Anyway, for my money, Putin's never been sexxxier than when kissing a little boy like a kitten.
Rrrrroww.
Dramatis Personae
I'm on my annual pilgrimage to the Stratford Festival of Canada in Stratford, Ontario, where I will be seeing five plays in four days. This, along with my trip to the William Inge Festival each April, is how I spend most of my vacation time. It's not really a surprise; in my other life, when I'm not crunching numbers for the school district in Miami, I am a recovering theatre teacher and playwright.
I've seen three productions so far; My One and Only, A Delicate Balance, and The Merchant of Venice, and I've jotted down a few thoughts about them. As saying goes: Read on, Macduff.
My One and Only: Sheer Joy
The Stratford Festival started out as a three-play bill of Shakespeare plays under a tent on the banks of the Avon River in the small town 60 miles (100 km) west of Toronto in 1953. Since then it has grown to an eight-month event that includes standard musicals like Oklahoma!, avant-garde experimental pieces (La Guerre, Yes Sir!), British 18th century and Restoration comedies (The School for Scandal and The London Merchant), French farce (Moliere's Tartuffe) and modern classics like Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman. It's entirely possible to spend a week at Stratford and not see something written by Shakespeare.
The reasons are simple: economics. There are a lot of people who love theatre, but they also like seeing something beyond what the Bard wrote, and the festival recognized this early on. (My first trip to Stratford in 1970 included only one Shakespearean play out of three.) And the people who run the festival also know that their audience includes a lot of people, usually the elderly, who come from Ohio, New York, and as far away as Chicago for the weekend and they want to see something that will gladden their hearts (if not their pacemakers) with reminders of theatre from their own time period done with polish and energy by attractive and brilliant young dancers and singers. Something like A Delicate Balance (see below) can only go so far.
My One and Only certainly fills the bill. It is nothing but pure joy and confection, a jewel box of Gershwin songs put together in juke box fashion -- a trend among modern musicals (vide Mama Mia! and Jersey Boys) wrapped around a simple plot of boy-meets-girl, boy-loses-girl, boy-marries-girl with tons of toe-tapping (literally) thrown in. Tommy Tune, who created this piece in 1983, knew the heart and soul of this kind of theatre, and it works like a charm at the Avon Theatre in Stratford, a restored movie palace from the 1920's. Laird Mackintosh and Cynthia Dale are perfect as the two lovers destined to be each other's one and only, and the rest of the supporting cast is as perfect as a Busby Berkeley chorus line. And if it takes this kind of show to make the money so that the festival can undertake the plays that draw a smaller crowd but advance the art form, then so be it; let the gaffers and gammers nibble on the sweets while those of us with more adventurous tastes check out the boys in leather in Christopher Marlowe's Edward II in the Studio Theatre.
Next year, the artistic directorship will pass from the capable hands of Richard Monette, who has guided the festival since 1994 into a shared directorship that includes Des McAnuff, who directed, among other things, Jersey Boys on Broadway. The festival also plans to restore its old name, the Stratford Shakespeare Festival and include more of the Bard's plays, including Hamlet. But they're also planning productions of The Music Man and Cabaret. The more things change...
A Delicate Balance: On the Edge
There are two rules in the WASP culture: 1. Never do anything that would embarrass the family, and 2. Have another drink. Anything that disturbs the delicate balance of going to the club, having lunch with the girls, the cocktail hour with polite conversation, or trips to the City must be dealt with by ignoring the problem, sweeping it under the rug, and not talking about it. We must go on; is your martini dry enough, dear?
As a product of the upper middle class culture that includes prep schools, summer homes, the Ivy League, and the country club, seeing the Stratford production of Edward Albee's A Delicate Balance hit home for me and my parents. At the first intermission we looked at each other and said, "Remind you of anyone we know?"
The comfortable lives of Tobias and Agnes in their comfortable home in Darien or Greenwich or Winnetka or Perrysburg have only a few minor disturbances; Agnes's alcoholic sister Claire is living with them, and the more she drinks the more she serves as the truth-teller, the Fool to King Lear. Their daughter Julia is returning home to the safe haven of her room after her fourth marriage has failed, but this is nothing new; children like this must return to the nest because they never grow up. All is well, sort of.
But into this come Harry and Edna, dear friends of Tobias and Agnes, who are driven out of the their home by a nameless terror. As they sat in their living room enjoying their evening drink they were both suddenly seized with this overwhelming fear, so they seek refuge with Tobias and Agnes, moving in without asking and in the process bringing along the pathogen of this terror with them, passing it off to each one in turn until everyone has faced it, dealt with it in their own way, and -- true to the culture -- subsumed it with booze.
If the only play you know by Mr. Albee is Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, then this play may seem like a kinder, gentler version of the same idea. Yet in spite of the fact that there is far less violence and far less outward brutality, in its own way this play cuts far deeper and with far more surgical precision than the bludgeon of the first play. And in this play the characters give you the chance to not just identify with them -- as seemingly the audience did; as I was leaving the theatre I overheard one other audience member say to her companion, "They're just like us except not as mean" -- you get to know them and care about them, and this is done not through long speeches of exposition but by their little tics and quirks that reveal so much in so many small ways.
I must admit that I have a soft spot for plays like this and emphasis of character interaction over the melodramas of action and emotional extremism. It is far more revealing that someone deals with a crisis by making minute adjustments to the throw pillows and knick-knacks on the coffee table than it is by someone pulling a gun, and sometimes a single word or a phrase can do more than anything to drive home a point that terrifies the audience than all the heroes suffering a heart attack and tumbling to the bottom of the stairs.
The cast includes Martha Henry as Agnes; Ms. Henry has been a part of the Stratford experience in some form or another since 1962, and here she is the perfect hostess. David Fox, taking the place of the late William Hutt, has all the right moves as Tobias, the genial patriarch/bartender, and bears an uncanny resemblance to Poppy Bush. The role of Harry is played by James Blendick, who often plays character roles, but here he brings a touch of nuance and preppie charm to the role of the gentle but imposing friend. Fiona Reid plays Claire the truth-teller without a hint of malice or stereotyping, and Michelle Giroux as Julia, the wounded child, touched me deeply because I know her and have been in her place at least once in my life. But then, in this play, as in all good plays, we will all find someone who reminds us of us.
The Merchant of Venice: The Cost of Doing Business
One of the more intriguing characters that William Shakespeare used in his canon is that of Shylock, the Jewish moneylender in The Merchant of Venice. Drawing from a stock character -- or more correctly, a caricature -- of the stereotypical Jew of Elizabethan times, Shakespeare embellished him with the dimensions of humanity that makes it hard to decide if Shylock is the villain, demanding his literal pound of flesh in payment of a forfeited loan, or the victim of cruel antisemitism and driven to his actions in revenge for the treatment he's received at the hands of the Christians who spit on him as they take their loans from him. What makes it all the more intriguing is that over the centuries our view of Shylock and his portrayal in the play has changed because of outside circumstances and enlightenment on the part of the audience. Treating Shylock and his faith as "alien" in Venice -- the city he calls as much home as any of the other characters -- paints him as the perpetual outsider, and his odd religion is unwelcome, condemned and feared by the Christians, a practice that continues to this day, if not so much against the Jews as it is against, say, perhaps the Muslims.
To be fair, there's no lack of stereotyping by Shakespeare of other ethnic cultures and nationalities in the play. He pokes fun at the French, the Germans, the Scottish, the Arabs, and even the English, but he does them in comic relief as Portia reviews her choices of the men who have come to ask for her hand in marriage. (And Shakespeare has no problem in stereotyping women, either, even as he creates one of the more independent women in his repertoire in Portia, but the only way she can get ahead in a man's world is by pretending to be one.) But the portrait of Shylock is the only one where Shakespeare not only uses the stereotypes of the time, he also gives us the view of the world through the eyes of Shylock and lets us see how he is treated, and lets him explain why he feels compelled to strike back at his tormentors....if it will feed nothing else, it will feed my revenge. He hath disgrac'd me and hind'red me half a million; laugh'd at my losses, mock'd at my gains, scorned my nation, thwarted my bargains, cooled my friends, heated mine enemies. And what's his reason? I am a Jew. Hath not a Jew eyes? Hath not a Jew hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions, fed with the same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject to the same diseases, healed by the same means, warmed and cooled by the same winter and summer, as a Christian is? If you prick us, do we not bleed? If you tickle us, do we not laugh? If you poison us, do we not die? And if you wrong us, shall we not revenge? If we are like you in the rest, we will resemble you in that. If a Jew wrong a Christian, what is his humility? Revenge. If a Christian wrong a Jew, what should his sufferance be by Christian example? Why, revenge. The villainy you teach me I will execute; and it shall go hard but I will better the instruction.
Shakespeare is rare among playwrights of his time in that he allows his protagonist to explain his reasons for his motivations; certainly he does not give equal time to Iago in Othello as to why he "hates the Moor;" when given the chance to justify his actions at the end of the play, Iago proclaims his perpetual silence. But Shylock appeals to the human frailties and failings by raising up the Jew out of the "subhuman" category to which he's been subjected, and demanding that his persecutors see him as just as human as they are is certainly an element that makes him more than just a stereotype. While it may not engender sympathy for him -- he is as unlikeable a character as you will meet regardless of his faith -- it does give him the dimensions that make him worth paying attention to.
The production here at Stratford stars Graham Greene as Shylock. You might remember Mr. Greene from his role as Kicking Bird in Dances with Wolves and other roles. Here he portrays Shylock as a Wall Street businessman, foregoing the stereotypical costume of the yarmulke, beard, and prayer shawl as is often seen in productions of the play. He is making a business deal here with Antonio, the eponymous merchant of the play, and when the loan can't be paid, he demands his payment without religious fervor but cold and hard demand, lacking, as Portia notes in her famous monologue (which is read, oddly, as a legal brief), "the quality of mercy." When Shylock is defeated by his own demands for the exact rule of law -- a lesson not to be lost on certain political parties -- he accepts the defeat and the punishment, not to mention the hypocrisy of the Christians who show the same lack of mercy in demanding that he convert -- with shrug and a chuckle as if the whole episode is the risk you take when you do business with people in Venice.
The rest of the cast was admirable, including Severn Thompson, who played Portia, and Raquel Duffy as Narissa, her friend and co-conspirator at the trial. The set, on the Stratford Festival thrust stage, was minimal and unintrusive, as it should be. The only thing that seemed out of place was the costuming, which seemed to combine Renaissance and modern times and made you wonder what exactly the designer was trying to say. If it was an attempt at making a link between that time and now, it was done in a way with voluminous skirts (one worn by Portia made me think it was inspired by Shelob the spider from The Lord of the Rings) and the men's clothes, with the exception of Shylock, looked like they had been bought at a Goth-type Renaissance Fair. Fortunately, in this case, it was the only discordant note in what was otherwise an interesting and well-directed production.
I still have yet to see An Ideal Husband by Oscar Wilde and The Comedy of Errors by Shakespeare. I'll report in on them later, but now it's time for intermission.
Cross-posted from Bark Bark Woof Woof.
Not-yet-driving while black
St. Louis-based blogger supreme Dana Loesch of Mamalogues shares a delightful story of police attention where it was most decidedly not needed.
What other purpose could black people have in Soulard except to steal cars from affluent white yuppies, right? What the hell are black people doing out of North County? They’re stealing our cars!
Just a tiny slice o' life in the Gateway City. Y'all come back now real soon, y'hear?
(Cross-posted.)
LaVena
Thanks to Violet, Ann, and Vanessa for giving more attention to LaVena Johnson's case.
Sign the petition to the Senate and House Armed Services Committees to reopen the investigation into her death.
Clenis Blame!
"Clenis Blame"
sung to the tune of Tay Zonday's
megahit, "Chocolate Rain"
Clenis blaaaaaaaame!
Some can't help but focus on its reign.
Clenis blaaaaaaaame!
They can't forget the dress on which it came.
Clenis blaaaaaaaame!
Of their existence, Clenis is the bane!
Clenis blaaaaaaaame!
Did you hear it's covered with a vein?
Clenis blaaaaaaaame!
Man, this Clenis really has some fame.
Clenis blaaaaaaaame!
"Everything's its fault!" the dopes proclaim.
Clenis blaaaaaaaame!
For the world's ills the Clenis should feel shame!
Clenis blaaaaaaaame!
I don't know how such crap can be maintained.
Clenis blaaaaaaaame!
The wingnuts really, truly are insane.
Clenis blaaaaaaaame!
I hope some psychiatric help's obtained.
Clenis blaaaaaaaame!
One wonders what they have to gain?
Clenis blaaaaaaaame!
No focus on George Bush's lack of brains.
Clenis blaaaaaaaame!
It's just an endless, screeching, sad refrain.
Clenis blaaaaaaaame!
Politics is nothing but a game.
Clenis blame.
Vibrators May Yet Find a Sweet Home in Alabama
In Alabama, you can sell guns on any street corner but you can't sell sex toys. That's right. Alabama is a vibrator-free state!I can't wait. This should be a particularly fun one for Clarence Thomas, who will no doubt dust off the Long Dong Silver collection to do some intensive research before the case.
Well, technically you can go across state lines and buy sex toys in Georgia and Tennessee and carry them home. But the Alabama Legislature, in its infinite wisdom and in the spirit of protecting citizens from moral turpitude, a while back banned the sale of sex toys (or "marital aids" as some lawmakers coyly call them).
…Anyway, the Supremes have informed the state of Alabama that it must file an answering brief with the High Court, which is an indication that the case might be taken up in the next session.
[Thanks, BlueGal.]
But We Give Rights to Dogs!
"Most importantly, unlike animals fetuses reside in women's bodies, and being forced to carry a pregnancy to term imposes serious burdens on a mother's health and life prospects, which forcing a woman not to torture dogs does not."—LeMew, stating the obvious in his inimitable and much-appreciated way.
Cop Accused of Rape; Covering Crime
A betrayal of the public trust doesn't even begin to cover this:
Prosecutors say [Marcus Huffman] was on patrol March 18 when he met the woman after she was turned away from a club because she appeared intoxicated. Huffman is accused of offering her a ride, driving her to the substation and raping her.The 19-old-woman then went to a relative's home where she called 911 to report the rape. Among the three officers who responded was Officer Marcus Huffman.
Special Assistant Attorney General Erik Wallin said prosecutors have a video showing Huffman entering the substation with the woman, then leaving separately before the woman did.
In addition, prosecutors say they have recovered Huffman's semen from the woman's boxer shorts.
He was also the senior officer handling the complaint, and, according to RI Attorney General spokesman Michael Healey, "He later filed a report which we allege failed to include important facts, among which were any mention of the incident involving him and the victim."
Whenever survivors of sexual assault have discussed here their various difficulties with law enforcement, inevitably there are people who express shock at the stories of callousness, disbelief, and outright hostility with which some of us have been met when attempting to report a sex crime. Now I'm no cop-hater; my granddad was NYPD, and he was a great guy and a good cop who really enjoyed and cared about people. But it's also wise to remember that cops' badges don't magically imbue them with a particular sympathy for victims of sexual assault that the rest of the population (including the media, judges and juries, legislators, doctors, sportsmen and entertainers, crap hucksters, other cops, etc. etc. etc.) is largely lacking.
And, ya know, some rapists are cops, too. Some rape victims; some rape suspects. If they weren't cops, they'd be raping someone else, because that's what rapists do. But that there are rapists who are cops (and, inevitably, cops who protect rapist cops) makes things just that much more difficult for victims of rape, even if a cop wasn't the perpetrator.
You never know when you walk into a police station (or pick up a phone) to report a rape, whether you're going to get someone who's on your side, someone who treats you like a liar, someone who just doesn't care, or someone who might exploit your already-terrible situation to take further advantage of you. Those of us involved with victims' advocacy have heard plenty of stories in every category. That's a big question mark for victims to have to face.
The police culture, however, too often mimics the Catholic Church in its protection of dangerous men. Huffman had already been convicted of three misdemeanor counts of simple assault and had also been "suspended without pay for two days for skipping a closed-door hearing concerning a brutality complaint filed against him. At the time, he was accused of beating a 14-year-old boy with a night stick." He probably shouldn't have been on the force at all, and no way should he have been responding to rape calls (even if he hadn't been the stinking rapist).
Eradicating that big question mark starts with the police, who, at minimum, can't be sending known bullies to do the job of protecting and serving the victimized.
