(Display Name not set)February 2004 Archives

Apropos last Tuesday's item, Blood Money, which claimed that Mel Gibson's "Passion" and the call for a Constitution amendment banning gay marriage signaled "a perverse cultural moment," a reader from Florida writes: "I just don't see the connection between Gibson and anti-gay marriage movement, aside of the fact they fall under the 'things Jan Herman doesn't like' category."

Well, have a look this morning's article The Culture Wars, Part II, and I quote: "[C]ulture wars wax and wane. And in recent days, as the nation furiously debated gay marriage, Mel Gibson's movie, 'The Passion of the Christ' and Janet Jackson's raunchy half-time show at the Super Bowl, the culture war seemed to be waxing again."

So yes, the Gibson thing and the anti-gay thing are "things Jan Herman doesn't like." But that's not the only reason I linked them. I suppose I should have linked the Janet Jackson boobie show, too. What bothered me about the boobie thing is the federal government's reaction, courtesy of FCC chairman Michael Powell, not the boobie show itself.

A reader from Chicago writes: "I loved the ending of your web article, What a Crock. It is so simple and to the point. I find lately that there are sooooo many people I would love to have just 'shut up'!

"Perle and his book I find very scary. How will the rest of the world react to his views, a man who has been on the Defense Policy Board for years and years and served as its chairman in the present administration? As you say, of course his views will be tied to the administration. And I find them more than controversial: They are dangerous and inciteful. Those who feel threatened by the United States may well feel that in order to stop us, they have no choice but to attack the United States on our own soil and furthermore have nothing to lose.

"The gray clouds over my head get thicker and thicker. I wish I could laugh at these things sometimes the way my husband does."

First he resigned as chairman of the Defense Policy Board. Now he has resigned from the board altogether. The right-wing ideologue Richard Perle, who advocates what might be termed a holy crusade in the Middle East and elsewhere, wrote to Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld in his letter of resignation:

We are now approaching a long presidential election campaign, in the course of which issues on which I have strong views will be widely discussed and debated. I would not wish those views to be attributed to you or the President at any time, and especially not during a presidential campaign.

Read the entire letter. It's so disingenuous it can't be taken seriously. Does Perle, who's been called "the intellectual guru of the hard-line neoconservative movement in foreign policy," really believe that because he has resigned from the board his views won't be associated with the administration's or the Defense Department's.

If nothing else, his letter takes a patronizing view of the American public with a condescending attitude toward its capacity to understand the workings of government: "A television viewer or newspaper reader, accustomed to zoning boards, school boards and appeal boards, is likely to think that the Defense Policy Board actually makes decisions, and that a member of it must be in a position to speak authoritatively about administration policy."

Perle has not only played a major role in that policy as a key advocate of the invasion of Iraq; he has been accused of a conflict of interest for working as a consultant to a company seeking favors from the Pentagon. And he has just published "An End to Evil: How to Win the War on Terror," co-written with David Frum, the former presidential speechwriter who coined the term "axis of evil" for our Maximum Leader.

In the book, Perle and Frum call for the United States "to overthrow the government of Iran, abandon support of a Palestinian state, blockade North Korea, use strong-arm tactics with Syria and China, disregard much of Europe as allies, and sever ties with Saudi Arabia," amazon.com reviewer Charlie Williams writes.

Perle notes in his letter, "Many of the ideas in that book are controversial and I wish to be free to argue them without those views or my arguments getting caught up in the campaign." Does he really believe his views won't be caught up in the campaign? If he's so concerned, why doesn't he just shut up?

Postscript: Then you read this: Bush Tightens Rules on Travel to Cuba, and you see again that the "war on terror" is being exploited for political gain -- in this instance for south Florida votes -- by an administration too corrupt at the top to permit transparency. As Alexander Pope once put it in "The Dunciad":

Morality, by her false guardians drawn,
Chicane, in furs, and Casuistry in lawn,
Gasps, as they straighten at each end the cord,
And dies ...

A new feature of Vermont U.S. Senator Patrick Leahy's Weblog is said to be gaining an audience. The feature, called "More From the Floor," provides an excellent public service.

It reminds us today, for instance: "The Senate convenes this morning to resume consideration of S.1805, the Gun Liability bill. While no roll call votes are scheduled to occur today, three amendments are presently pending to the bill: Senator Kennedy's S.Amdt.2619 about armor piercing bullets; Senator Frist's S.Amdt.2625 also about armor-piercing bullets; and Senator Campbell's S.Amdt.2623 about concealed carry." It even gives up-to-the-minute updates.

(To offer our own public service, here's a relevant commentary on that bill: "Down and Dirty in the Gun Debate.")

Not incidentally, "More From the Floor" has been lauded by the Congressional Management Foundation's newsletter for, among other things, its "clear and conversational language to make content accessible to a wide audience." And it has come in for praise from readers, such as students in a law class in Pittsburgh, Pa., who messaged: "There really is nothing like it on the Net."

As much as we'd like to agree with them, however, we beg to differ. When it comes to straight talk, is Leahy's blog any competition for the Washington-based blogger Wonkette? Not a chance. Here, for example, is Wonkette shooting from the lip in a Feb. 25 entry headlined "More on That Gay Thing":

UPDATE: Several readers have written in regarding the Federal No Ass-Fucking Amendment. First of all, to "Worried in Manhattan": Straight people can do it all they want. Your wife is wrong to use that excuse. And to "Stick-in-the-Mud in Seattle": You're right, the amendment will not literally prohibit the gays from getting in the rear; in a literal sense, it will just deny the benefits of marriage to the gays (some of whom practice the back-door love). But we suspect that what really makes the Bushies uncomfortable is ass-fucking. The idea of it, we mean.

Who woulda thunk it? A wise Texan -- and one with a law degree, no less. Commenting on yesterday's item, Blood Money, a former federal assistant prosecutor from Houston writes:

"I'm not certain I agree with your characterization of 'The Passion of the Christ.' I must confess that I have not seen the film, nor do I intend to. But based upon the legitimate reviews, I think it sounds like nothing more or less than another gratuitously violent Mel Gibson film. (As I recall, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John tell the story in a more balanced manner and without the hysteria.)

"I don't believe we should dignify a crass, commercial offering by making some sort of cultural event out of it. As with most films, people will read into this film whatever they want. Remember your Marshall McLuhan.

"Likewise, I don't think 'Passion' signifies some sort of apocalypse. It's just a movie, and apparently a one-dimensional movie that deals exclusively with the torture and murder of Jesus Christ. No context, no explanation, no motivation. As others have said Gibson seems to be fascinated with torture and suffering (remember 'Braveheart'?). Wouldn't a balanced examination of the life of Jesus Christ deal even in passing with issues like peace and love?

"Enough on that.

"On the issue of 'gay marriage' -- and I hate to even use the qualified term -- I hardly know where to begin. All of what I'm about to say is obvious and should be beyond debate. But bear with me.

"There is either marriage or there is not. The marriage relationship carries with it benefits and advantages to those so united. It is quite simply unconstitutional to deny those advantages and benefits to people because of their sexual orientation. The notion that we can address this fundamental inequality by creating something called a 'civil union' is disingenuous at best. The minute we create two separate classes of people, we invite discrimination. Did we learn nothing from the 'separate but equal' laws regarding racial discrimination? Remember 'Brown v. Board of Education?' Separate is never equal.

"Preaching from the Religious Right regarding the sanctity of marriage makes me want to puke. It is simply a straw-man argument. Sanctification, whatever that means, can only exist in a relationship between two committed individuals. When an 18-year-old stripper marries a wealthy man in his 90s so she can inherit upon his death, is that 'sanctified'? When Larry King or Liz Taylor marry over and over and over again, is that 'sanctified'? Why then is a union between two committed people, who have lived together as help mates for many years, and who happen to be of the same sex, not 'sanctified'?

"I have heard people complain that we simply cannot recognize marriage between same sex individuals because their sexual practices are 'disgusting.' I would observe that, unless the parties are movie stars in a very carefully staged environment, sex acts, in general, are pretty disgusting. With all due respect, would you want to watch the president and the first lady engaging in intimate relations? For that matter, who would want to watch Mr. and Mrs. Herman, or me and my wife? Is that any reason to refuse to recognize our marriages?

"The fact is that marriage is a creature of statute with enormous economic and social ramifications. The government has no business defining marriage as 'sanctified' only when it exists between members of one class as opposed to another. We as individuals are free to read into marriage whatever religious or 'sanctification' implications we wish. The union itself, however, must be made available to all, regardless of race, religion or sexual preference.

"The larger, more interesting question is simply: 'Why?' Why would Bush disparage the actions of a judge in striking down a clearly unconstitutional law by referring to the judge as an 'activist judge,' whatever that means? If he would have someone read the Constitution to him, Mr. Bush would find that Article III of the Constitution created a separate judicial branch to act as a check on the power of the Executive and Legislative Branches. Marbury v. Madison and virtually every Supreme Court case since has affirmed the right and obligation of the judicial branch to protect the Constitution by striking down laws inconsistent with its requirements.

"Opinion poll after opinion poll shows that the majority of the American people do not favor a Constitutional Amendment to prohibit same sex marriages. Why then does Bush force the issue?

"The answer is that the man is simply a whore. He is pushing an amendment he knows won't pass, at what expense we can only guess, in order to mobilize the right wing loonies who constitute his political base. This is simply one more action of a desperate man who cannot run on his record. In this regard at least, I'm personally encouraged."

Is it safe to say that anyone who buys a ticket to "The Passion of the Christ" is paying Mel Gibson blood money? Whether the term is defined as 1) "compensation paid to the family of a murdered person," or as 2) "reward for information about a murder," or as 3) money "paid to a hired murderer," I'd say it applies in all three degrees. But that's only a secondhand guess. To know firsthand, I would have to pay to see the flick. That I won't do.

Whatever genre "Passion" is -- whether it's a slasher film, a horror movie, or a spinoff of a Homer Simpson fantasy, or maybe a snuff trip more accurately titled "The Jesus Chainsaw Massacre" -- I leave to the critics who've seen it to define, including whether it's purposely anti-Semitic. Something I do know, without seeing Gibson's flick, is that it's one more signal of a perverse cultural moment. Add it to our Maximum ("I'm a War President") Leader's call for a Constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage and Der ("No Two Ways About It") Gropenfuhrer's order to halt gay marriages in San Francisco, and we've got a three-fer.

What you will see if you click this link is a wickedly funny, beautifully made send-up of both a brand-name product and corporate America. Anybody who works in an office will recognize the milieu as well as the mindless credo of rah-rah teamwork that soars beyond absurdity. Enjoy the satire. You're never likely to see it actually broadcast.

Here's another and another. They're directed by Justin Reardon of Turnpike Films, a year-old Los Angeles production company that put them on its Website to demonstrate its skill for potential advertising clients. "They're just meant to be examples of the director's work," says Turnpike associate producer Melissa Dean. "We put these spots on a demo reel and send it out to ad agencies. It's standard industry practice."

Dean, 25, says she was suddenly bombarded with hundreds of e-mails beginning three weeks ago, when the Turnpike site was discovered by Web surfers not from the ad industry. Site traffic has gone "well into the many thousands," she added in a telephone interview from Santa Monica. "People are going crazy. It's just the neatest thing. We never intended it. It's the first time anybody but industry clients came to us and commented on our work."

To Dean's knowledge, Geeklife.com was the first surfer to come across the demo reel. Since then "it's been everywhere," she says. The reason for the "frenzy," as she called it, is obvious: Watch this, or this. In all, Reardon made seven ad demos, spoofing such brands as Budweiser, Nintendo, Starbuck's, Raisin Bran Crunch and Nutrigrain. For the complete reel of Rearden's seven spots, go here. My favorite? Nutrigrain.

Question: What did Secretary Powell say about the film "Osama?"
Answer: Secretary Powell said, "This movie will sear your soul. It will show you where evil lives and how it dominates human life. It will make you hurt. But in the end it will teach you why President Bush is right about waging the war on terrorists until there are no more of them."
-- U.S. State Department Daily Press Briefing

From Havana, NBC News correspondent Mary Murray writes: "If you've never experienced a live dose of Los Van Van, Cuba's ultimate dance band, you may have missed your chance." Reporting on the Bush administration's continuing crackdown against Cubans legally "seeking to enter the United States," she notes that "since November, every Cuban musician who applied for a visa — 151 in all — has been turned down." Is this truly part of the war on terror, as our Maximum Leader and his minions would have us believe? Ridiculous question. "Almost every Cuban musician interviewed accused the Bush administration of freezing the visas to court the Cuban-American voters in south Florida," Murray writes.

Terry Teachout, a fellow ArtsJournal.com blogger, wrote an item yesterday -- lectured like a schoolmarm is more like it -- about the importance of using links in a Weblog and the good practice of crediting them. The tone recalls Mr. Rogers:

Repeat after me: Giving credit to blogsources for borrowed links is good for everybody in the blogosphere.

Not all bloggers feel this way. Certain of our colleagues are bad -- a few notoriously so -- about giving credit to other bloggers. I'll name no names, but I will say that the stingy practice of link-poaching has lately come in for quite a bit of backstage criticism.

Given his broad-brush "name no names" comment, I don't know whom he means. But since he mentions "certain of our colleagues," I have to wonder whether he's pointing a finger at bloggers here at ArtsJournal.com. If so, I take exception. I don't poach links and I give credit where due. If he means bloggers on the Web-at-large, I wish he would say so. ArtsJournal.com readers are bound to conclude that he's looking around his neighborhood and means his colleagues here, even if he didn't.

Postscript: Terry cleared the mist from my windshield with his item, posted this morning (Monday), for which my thanks. Had I been following Bookslut I suppose I might have deduced whom he meant. I actually don't mind link-poaching as much as Terry does, maybe because I'm not part of their pissing match. But I regret my intemperate "schoolmarm" characterization, especially since Bookslut picked up on it, uncredited -- eh eh. (Thanks for the links, Terry.)

Der ("No Two Ways About It") Gropenfuhrer renegged on a promised investigation into allegations of his sexual, potentially criminal behavior toward more than a dozen women, but he won't stand for anyone mocking the law when it comes to gay marriage. "It's time for the city to stop traveling down this dangerous path of ignoring the rule of law," he told a convention of Republicans on Friday. "That's my message to San Francisco."

California columnist Jim Washburn disagrees: "An 86-year-old sleazeball can marry an 18-year-old dominatrix, and that is sanctified. Larry King can marry for the seventh time, and it's sanctified. Britney Spears can get married and annulled quicker than you can say 'publicity whore,' and it is sanctified. Yet a gay couple that has stuck it out through better and worse for 40 years, being exemplary neighbors and citizens the whole while, poses a threat to marriage? It is legal for them to marry, of course, just not to each other. They could go out this afternoon and marry a total stranger, so long as it's someone of the opposite sex. That's the law. What's left to mock?"

While we were busy chronicling the customary discrimination against women at the Vienna Philharmonic, Laurie Niles, a volinist in the Pasadena Symphony, has been describing her effort to get an audition at the Los Angeles Philharmonic. We learned about Niles from a friend's smart tip. He pointed to this item at LA Observed, which in turn pointed to Laurie Niles's Violin Blog.

"Apparently the Big Orchestra in Town got more than 500 resumes for their one section violin position," she writes, "and after carefully reviewing mine decided not to 'invite' me to the audition. Waah! They even returned my $100 deposit fee!" Read about her extraordinary commitment to getting that audition, no matter what. The odds are actually greater than 500 to 1, but LA Observed says, "Don't bet against her."

Postscript: It should be mentioned that the problem of a woman being picked for the LA Phil doesn't have much to do with gender these days, in contrast to the Vienna Phil. This is particularly true for violinists. There are nine women and nine men in the first-violin section, for example, and at least four women among the 15 second violinists. The total for all sections of the LA Phil -- by my count 31 women and 72 men -- is about average for American orchestras.

The prolific Italian filmmaker Bruno Bozzetto has a delightful animated cartoon, "Life," now running on the Web. Just click the link, then click the flashing word "play" when it comes up on your screen. You'll be well rewarded. In 90 mostly whimsical seconds, Bozzetto pretty much summarizes the history of life on Earth from its creation to the 21st century.

So who is this Bozzetto? He was born in Milan in 1938, began making films at age 15, and was 20 when "Tapum! La storia delle armi" first brought him to public and critical attention. He has produced about 100 animated cartoons, winning too many prizes to bother counting them all, including an Oscar nomination in 1991 for "Cavallette." Here's a still from it for Mel Gibson. Bozzetto's most popular character is probably Signor Rossi.

In response to yesterday's item, a reader writes: "I'm a Hubble man, too. I noticed that funding for maintenance of the space telescope was eliminated after the president's bullshit Mars project announcement, another coincidental bait-and-switch. There is a wormhole and his name is Bush."

This comes as no surprise to many in the scientific community. As reported even by Bush-friendly Fox News: "President Bush's administration distorts scientific findings and seeks to manipulate experts' advice to avoid information that runs counter to its political beliefs, a private organization of scientists asserted on Wednesday.

"The Union of Concerned Scientists contended in a report that 'the scope and scale of the manipulation, suppression and misrepresentation of science by the Bush administration is unprecedented.'"

As reported in the Chicago Tribune, "top scientists and environmentalists" backed the report, which said "the administration had suppressed research on global warming, air quality, sexual health, cancer and other issues."

And in case you didn't read that, as reported in The New York Times, the group comprises "more than 60 influential scientists, including 20 Nobel laureates" who maintain that Bush & Company's systematic distortion of scientific fact served "policy goals on the environment, health, biomedical research and nuclear weaponry at home and abroad."

It's just Standard Operating Procedure for the White House wormhole: According to the report, "the administration also allowed industries with conflicts of interest to influence technical advisory committees, disbanded for political reasons one panel on arms control and subjected other prospective members of scientific panels to political litmus tests."

It looks like bad taste may bring the world to an end in what's being called the Big Rip. Not content with being the bête noire merely of aesthetes and high-minded critics, bad taste has become a new obsession for cosmologists trying to understand "a mysterious force called dark energy [that] seems to be wrenching the universe apart."

This dark energy -- also termed phantom energy -- "crosses a boundary of good taste," says Darmouth physicist Robert Caldwell, co-author of a paper exploring "the possibility that a mysterious force permeating space-time will be strong enough to blow everything apart, shred rocks, animals, molecules and finally even atoms in a last seemingly mad instant of cosmic self-abnegation."

Bad taste is the stuff of "bad news," Caldwell says, because, as Dennis Overbye writes in The New York Times, "Phantom energy violates physicists' intuitions about how the universe should behave." Good taste would mean less weirdness. Imagine what could happen, short of a galactic apocalypse. A chunk of phantom energy "could be used to prop open wormholes in space and time -- and thus create time machines, for example," Overbye writes.

Other scientists are equally dismayed. One says it's "unphysical, but we're not ruling it out." Robert Kirshner, of the Harvard Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, tells Overbye that the idea of a mysterious force wrenching the universe apart had been dismissed as "too strange." Kirshner says, "It sounds wacky, but I think we're in a situation where we're going to need a really new idea. We're in trouble. ... It might be our ideas are not wild enough, they don't question fundamentals enough."

Is it possible that 21st-century scientists need to take a cue from the bad taste of "Lord of the Rings" director Peter Jackson? His first full feature film, made in 1983, put him way ahead of the game. Titled, yes, "Bad Taste," it's been called "a testament to what can be done with a small budget and a lot of dedication." That's something cosmologists ought to keep in mind with the expected loss of the Hubble Space Telescope, which could help measure the parameters of phantom energy.

Perhaps scientists should borrow one of the posters for that movie -- < B>Good  Taste Made Bad Taste -- as sandwich boards to lobby for continuation of the Hubble program. Or if it's not too disgusting, they might consider screening "the particularly gruesome effects" in Jackson's low-budget "Braindead" for NASA administrator Sean O'Keefe as part of a "save the Hubble" campaign.

Here's one of the essential news stories of our time: Beyoncé performed in a "halter dress that gave revealing side views of her breasts." This shock to the system occurred during the halftime show of the NBA All-Star game, while Janet Jackson "sat courtside swaying to the music." Doesn't the Associated Press have better things to do?

It's good to see The New York Times taking constructive note of the Vienna Philharmonic's discrimination against women, which I harped on earlier this month. In a report on Sunday about Seiji Ozawa's role in Vienna's musical world, "He Got His Opera, Vienna Got Its Maestro," Alan Riding noted:

[Ozawa] hopes to exercise influence in one area that has brought the Vienna Philharmonic reams of negative publicity: its longstanding resistance to admitting women into its ranks. True, in 1997 it voted to admit women through the existing audition process. But even today, it has just 3 among its 148 members: a harpist, a violist and a cellist. Other women occasionally play with the orchestra as substitutes.

The Times' acknowledgment of this issue is vitally important because it's the sole newspaper in the United States that the Vienna Philharmonic cares about, mainly due to the fact that its reporting can affect opinions among the New York audience for its annual tours to Carnegie Hall -- the orchestra plays there Wednesday, Thursday and Friday this week -- and among the American audience-at-large that buys its recordings.

Just getting to this point, after many years of protest initiated by composer-musicologist William Osborne and a small but organized group of U.S. women activists, has taken too long. The Times music critic Bernard Holland and the classical music editor James Oestreich tended to pooh-pooh the issue, and for years they were seen by feminists as, in effect, apologists for the orchestra. It wasn't until another Times music critic, Anthony Tommasini, made the issue a central point of a critique of the Vienna Philharmonic's Carnegie Hall performance in 2000 that the issue began to gain traction at the paper.

In "Glorious, Yes, But Resisting Today's World; The Vienna Philharmonic Returns, Virtually a Male Bastion," Tommasini faulted the orchestra's musical and cultural "unanimity of purpose" as a defense for its exclusion of women. He echoed points that Osborne had made in emails and articles on the Web and in scholarly magazines such as M.I.T,'s Leonardo Music Journal and the Journal of the International Alliance of Women in Music. Tommasini wrote:

Obviously, the unanimity of purpose that the Vienna Philharmonic has achieved is a precious thing and you can understand their fear of diluting it. But what accounts for this quality? The maleness of the players? Maybe that was so in a time when women were routinely oppressed, but it makes no sense any longer. More likely the special cohesiveness comes from a shared commitment to a revered heritage. Why should fine female musicians not be able to embrace this heritage and work ethic as well as men? Over the decades many sons have followed their fathers into this orchestra. Cannot daughters do the same?

Interestingly the orchestra has always sought young players. At auditions no one over 35 is selected. Looking at all the youthful faces, I kept wondering what these men must think about the orchestra's history of prejudice against women. Do they approve? Are they go-along, get-along chauvinists or closet feminists waiting for the old guard to pass away?

If more women join its ranks, the orchestra will certainly change. But why should that not be an enriching change? The players already have a weighty tradition to uphold. It must be tiring to also cart around all that manhood.

Tommasini's mention of auditions brought up another question, also raised by Riding's article, in which Ozawa is quoted as saying: "It's true that since I came here, more women have come for auditions, because the record says that some 60 percent of the musicians I chose for the Boston Symphony were women. But I have to say, the auditions I have seen have been fair."

At the time that Tommasini's critique appeared, Osborne hailed it as a mainstream breakthrough. But he was well aware that it fell short of telling the whole story. Auditions then and even now, despite Ozawa's claim, are stacked against women.

In "Blind Auditions and Moral Myopia," Osborne has explained the orchestra's procedure: "The Philharmonic's auditions are held in three rounds. In the first two the musician plays behind a screen, but in the third it is removed. This allows the physiognomy of the applicant to be evaluated to make sure it matches the orchestra's ideology that gender and ethnic uniformity give it aesthetic superiority."

Osborne notes that after World War II, the Philharmonic did institute true blind auditions, "but they were soon eliminated" because, as he quotes from the memoirs of Otto Strasser, a former Chairman of the Philharmonic, they caused a problem. Strasser wrote:

I hold it for incorrect that today the applicants play behind a screen; an arrangement that was brought in after the Second World War in order to assure objective judgments. I continuously fought against it, especially after I became Chairman of the Philharmonic, because I am convinced that to the artist also belongs the person, that one must not only hear, but also see, in order to judge him in his entire personality. ... Even a grotesque situation that played itself out after my retirement, was not able to change the situation. An applicant qualified himself as the best, and as the screen was raised, there stood a Japanese before the stunned jury. He was, however, not engaged, because his face did not fit with the "Pizzicato-Polka" of the New Year's Concert.

Well, Strasser can rest easy. Despite the orchestra's recent hiring of its first person of color, a Japanese tuba player who will not be too visible, the situation has certainly been rectified by the current practice of taking away the screen for the third and final round of so-called blind auditions.

I asked Osborne by email for his reaction to Riding's article. He replied: "I am happy that The New York Times has kept the VPo theme alive -- even if brief and sotto voce. Progress for women in any area of music helps women in all of the other areas."

But given the orchestra's male to female ratio of 50 to 1, he asks: "What are we to assume, that Austrian men are genetically superior to Austrian women? That something is wrong with the Austrian educational system? Or that something is fishy with the auditions in an orchestra that has a tradition of entirely excluding women and was forced to change against its will and that removes the screen for the last round?"

At any rate, Osborne finds it ironic that Ozawa, who is of Japanese descent, has come to the defense of an "orchestra, which until last year forbade membership to people of color." He adds: "As usual, the article doesn't mention the orchestra's racial ideology (which is directed particularly toward Asian musicians) -- though it seems to vaguely allude to it and its correlations with the orchestra's sexism."

The Vienna Philharmonic will doubtless fall back on the assertion that change can only come gradually: It can't be expected to alter the male-to-female ratio overnight. So let's look at the employment numbers for six years from 1997, when the orchestra proclaimed a new, enlightened policy of hiring women, until 2003. It's men, 21; women, 3. How's that for even-handed progress?

George Butler, who is making a documentary about Sen. John Kerry, says Kerry's thoughtful younger brother Cameron "will have a very central role in any Kerry administration." Provided, of course, that Kerry wins the Democratic presidential nomination and the general election.

In honor of President's Day, it's time to point out that Cameron Kerry's role will either be central or not. It cannot be "very central." There can be no degrees of "central," just as there can no degrees of "unique," as in very unique.

Other pet language peeves? How about "kick off"? Football and soccer begin with a kick-off, not races and campaigns -- as in "Bush to kick off race, campaign" -- or parades, speeches, protests, deals, meetings, plans, days, nights, contests, or anything else. And how about "at the end of the day"? Isn't it time to bag that phrase? Or does everybody who uses it really want to sound like a Hollywood jerk? (Besides, have you ever heard more insipid lyrics?)

This is not to prize narrow rules of grammar and usage above all else. The vitality of the language depends on change and flexibility, and also accuracy of expression. The author Nelson Algren once described his disagreement with a publisher this way: "I was adamant. He was adamanter." That's a violation of the rules, but it's pure poetry.

Full exposure: There's nothing to deflate the self-regard of theater critics like comparing their notices. Here's what they said about the Aquila Theatre Company's staging of "Agamemnon," which opened last night in New York.

Notice, please, that the issue is not who's right or who's wrong, so much as why are all of them somehow ridiculous? Have a look at Howard Kissel in New York's Daily News; Linda Winer in Newsday; Ben Brantley in The New York Times; Donald Lyons in the New York Post; Michael Sommers in Newark's The Star-Ledger; Artsjournal.com's own Terry Teachout in The Wall Street Journal; and yours truly below.

Postmodern stagings of ancient Greek plays have their work cut out for them. Consider the "Agamemnon" presented by New York's Aquila Theatre Company, starring Olympia Dukakis. It opens tonight. In trenchcoats and snap-brim fedoras, the chorus of Argos elders looks like it stepped out of a Raymond Chandler novel. Seven variations on Philip Marlow mill about at the entrance to the House of Atreus and bring us up to speed:

It has been ten years since
the great prosecutor of Priam,
Menelaus, and King Agamemnon,
the sons of Atreus,
twinned in throne and scepter
and yoked together by Zeus-given power,
launched from this land
a thousand Argive ships,
a force to vindicate our honor.

Agamemnon returns victorious from the Trojan war, having avenged the kidnapping of Helen, the wife of his brother Menelaus. Apparently, the beautiful face that launched a thousand ships also launched a thousand U.S. Army surplus jeeps. When Agamemnon enters stage left in his "war chariot," there's this to be said for it: At least it's not a Humvee.

Dukakis brings nobility and restraint to Queen Clytemnestra, though not much emotional range, which minimizes our pity for her anguish over the death of daughter Iphigenia (reluctantly sacrificed to the gods by Agamemnon to save the Argive fleet from some really nasty weather). "For all he cared he might as well have been killing an animal," Clytemnestra says, after stabbing her husband to death in retribution. Her powerful lines to justify the regicide drip with years of pent-up bitterness and anger. I would have appreciated less Olympian restraint.

Louis Zorich (Dukakis' real-life husband) is a well-spoken Agamemnon, though not as virile as he perhaps ought to be. Marco Barricelli has more than enough virility for both of them as Aegisthus, Clytemnestra's conspirator and lover. As Cassandra, the portentous war prize brought back from Troy, Miriam Laube is persuasive and fiery.

I also liked Aquila artistic director Peter W. Meineck's translation for its straightforward colloquial language, his and Robert Richmond's direction for its lack of fussiness, and -- postmodern shortcomings notwithstanding -- the production's overall aura of primitive grandeur. Were Aeschylus alive today, he might appreciate that his 2,500-year-old tragedy is still running.

"Agamemnon" is at the John Jay Theatre, 899 Tenth Avenue, across from Lincoln Center, through Feb. 22. Tickets may be purchased at Telecharge.com or by phone (212) 239-6200. Subscriptions for Aquila's 2004 season (three plays for $90, including "Othello" and "The Man Who Would Be King") are available by phone at (212) 998-8017 or online here.

I said, "Enough already!" But apropos Tuesday's column by David Brooks, which claim's our Maximum Leader is inarticulate "like most of us," the staff believes you really should see these out of fairness to 290 million Americans (not including Donnie Boy):

"The vast majority of our imports come from outside the country."
"If we don't succeed, we run the risk of failure."
"Republicans understand the importance of bondage between a mother and child."
"I have made good judgments in the past. I have made good judgments in the future."
"The future will be better tomorrow."
"We're going to have the best educated American people in the world."
"I stand by all the misstatements that I've made."
"We have a firm commitment to NATO, we are a part of NATO. We have a firm commitment to Europe. We are a part of Europe."
"Public speaking is very easy."
"A low voter turnout is an indication of fewer people going to the polls."
"We are ready for any unforeseen event that may or may not occur."
"It isn't pollution that's harming the environment. It's the impurities in our air and water that are doing it."
"Quite frankly, teachers are the only profession that teach our children."

Quite. For more where these came from.

Who knew? The spirit of "American Idol" infected U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft back in 2002. Was it a retrovirus? Watch him perform his own song, "Let the Eagles Soar," at a North Carolina seminary. It must be seen to be believed or, depending on your tolerance for the surreal, disbelieved.

The news media's pretense that the Maximum Leader actually said something of value Sunday in his interview on "Meet the Press" was one more confirmation that the United States is being turned into a Banana Republic.

So said I as straight-faced news stories began pouring in with headlines like this from UPI: "Bush defends actions against Saddam" (instead of, say, "fumbles defense") and leads like this from The St. Louis Post-Dispatch: "President George W. Bush delivered on Sunday a robust defense of his presidency, from his policy toward Iraq to his handling of the economy to his blunt style ..."

But now that the media has had a chance to digest its so-called news, things are looking somewhat better. In two beautiful editorials, yesterday's "Mr. Bush's Version" and today's "Mr. Bush's Revisionism," The New York Times has spoken out with ringing clarity against the pin-headed deceptions and pathetic lies that passed in certain quarters for "a robust defense."

Many others, too, are weighing in. For example, Chicago Sun-Times columnist Mary A. Mitchell says this morning she feels betrayed: "Trust fades as war cry rings too hollow." Fred Kaplan wonders in Slate, in "Bush at Sea": "Does this war president have any idea what he's talking about?"

That is not a rhetorical question.

Continuing our theme about irresponsible news media, here's Paul Krugman on recent reporting of the Maximum Leader's budget proposal: "You don't want the news section to read like a partisan attack, but in the very first few paragraphs, you should say something like this is a budget that raised eyebrows around Washington, or something like that, because it's true. That's the real story -- not the boilerplate that came with the official presentation."

The mere thought of watching the Grammys Awards was puke-making. For a minute-by-minute wrap of Sunday night's show, we left it to summa cum laude student of pop culture Ryan McGee, who traditionally records his impressions online in real time at Wading in the Velvet Sea:

8:02 pm: So lemmee get this straight: The producers figured the best way to start off a show honoring the last year in music is to have a medley of pre-1985 Prince hits? 8:03 pm: Why is Beyoncé up there? Maybe she's about to win a Grammy. Let's see how many times the "artist performs, then instantly wins a Grammy" phenomenon happens. 8:04 pm: This is all a bit like watching Ike and Tina, only in this case, Tina could whup Ike whenever she felt like it. Seriously, Prince is so short, he could be in Matchbox 20. 8:10 pm: Wow, shocker. Beyoncé won a Grammy. Wow. I'm stunned. Yawn. 8:13 pm: OK, so we have a Dave Matthews/Vince Gill/Pharrell Williams/Sting supergroup covering "I Saw Her Standing There". Wonder if this supergroup idea will be a theme. I'm nominating George Clinton, Yo Yo Ma, and Lance Bass to do "I Am The Walrus" right here and now.

In "My Man Godfrey" Eugene Pallette once said: "All you need to start an asylum is an empty room and the right kind of people." That was 68 years ago. He's still right.

This morning's "Meet the Press" on NBC should have been called "Meet the President." If only Tim Russert had said: "Yes, Mr. President, but you didn't answer the question." The first exchange set the tone for all the rest:

Russert: On Friday, you announced a committee, commission to look into intelligence failures regarding the Iraq war and our entire intelligence community. You have been reluctant to do that for some time. Why?

President Bush: Well, first let me kind of step back and talk about intelligence in general, if I might. Intelligence is a vital part of fighting and winning the war against the terrorists. It is because the war against terrorists is a war against individuals who hide in caves in remote parts of the world, individuals who have these kind of shadowy networks, individuals who deal with rogue nations. So, we need a good intelligence system. We need really good intelligence.

The answer went on at more than twice that length but never got around to addressing the actual question. Read the transcript. Similarly, other canned replies begged the questions and went on and on at length but with so few specifics and so little variation they should have come stamped with a generic product label: "Oval Office house brand." 

Some peculiar answers were simply the testimony of a confused mind, all claims to the contrary notwithstanding.

Russert: But can you launch a preemptive war without iron clad, absolute intelligence that he had weapons of mass destruction?

President Bush: Let me take a step back for a second and there is no such thing necessarily in a dictatorial regime of iron-clad absolutely solid evidence.  The evidence I had was the best possible evidence that he had a weapon.

Russert: But it may have been wrong.

President Bush: Well, but what wasn't wrong was the fact that he had the ability to make a weapon. That wasn't right.

Huh? Let's just call it the war context of no context, which our Maximum Leader kept insisting on. He cocked his head like a bantam rooster and moved his lips like a sock puppet. This is considered "presidential"?

Equally rotten, the news media are treating the interview as news instead of the joke it in fact is. This pretense -- that the president actually said something of value -- is one more confirmation that the United States is being turned into a Banana Republic.

Postscript: Glad to see Peggy Noonan's commentary: "The president seemed tired, unsure and often bumbling. His answers were repetitive, and when he tried to clarify them he tended to make them worse. He did not seem prepared. He seemed in some way disconnected from the event." She also noticed something very important about the transcript of the interview: "It reads better than it played." I was struck by that myself. The transcript almost makes him seem coherent.

It's also nice to see that somebody besides me thought Tim Russert did a lousy job. Here's David Corn in The Nation: "In his Oval Office, hour-long session with Bush, he repeatedly let Bush slide or elide. The few tough queries produced the predictable replies from Bush. And then Russert did not come back with the obvious follow-ups. ... Instead, Russert allowed Bush to dish out the all-too familiar, White House-approved rhetoric. It pains me to say, he was more enabler than interrogator."

My staff of thousands is taking the day off. For your amusement, we recommend the recent oeuvre of Belle de Jour, the diary of our favorite London call girl, which reads increasingly like a serialized Proustian novel. (Scroll to the bottom entry --jeudi, janvier 29 -- and read up. Also, we don't really think of the diary as Proustian or an oeuvre. We just like French words.) If that's too sexy for you, perhaps you'll be diverted by the ballistic thrust of this political eouvre. Need a more reasoned account? Try "Get Me Rewrite!" We aim to please.

Exhibit One: "The Passion of Christ," Mel Gibson's take on the last 12 hours of Jesus Christ's life, to be released nationwide later this month. It purports to be an accurate historical depiction, complete with bloody whippings, nine-inch nails, subtitled Aramaic dialogue and, let's not forget, the actual soundtrack (dolorous music, portentous drums) that accompanied the torture and crucifixion.

"This isn't just violence for violence's sake," Ron Luce, president of the Christian youth group Teen Mania, tells The New York Times. "This is what really happened, what it would have been like to have been there in person to see Jesus crucified." Luce must have been listening closely to Gibson, who has himself said: "This film will show the passion of Jesus Christ just the way it happened."

I guess if you say it enough times and cue the mood music that makes it true. (Nah, see the comments.)

Exhibit Two: "The Guilty Men," a documentary about the assassination of John F. Kennedy, which was shown last November on the History Channel. It purports to give evidence that Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson was part of a conspiracy to have JFK killed.

Based largely on "Blood, Money and Power," a book by Barr Mcclellan (coincidentally the father of White House Press Secretary Scott McClelland and Food and Drug Administration chief Mark S. McClellan), it alleges that LBJ ordered the assassination of JFK to halt an investigation into his dealings with a fellow Texan, the fabled con man Billy Sol Estes, as well as the imminent disclosure of allegations that he, LBJ, had been involved in a murder.

"Simply stated, LBJ killed JFK," McClellan said in the documentary, repeating what he'd written. What's more, according to McClellan, the night before the Nov. 22, 1963, assassination, < B>the final decision to kill Kennedy was made at a party at the home of Clint Murchison, a Dallas businessman and owner of the Dallas Cowboys, where LBJ discussed the plot with Richard Nixon and J. Edgar Hoover.

Uh-huh.

Postscript: Now here at least is a movie you can depend on for historical accuracy. Love the soundtrack.

My favorite Australian-born TV critic once wrote: "What the junk journalist doesn't realise -- or does realise, and waxes more aggressive so as to shout down his vestigial conscience -- is that he's not really a party to the star's fame, which is based on solid appreciation and would still be there even if the tabloid press disappeared overnight." But that was in 1981, and he was writing about his admiration for Billie Jean King, who was being outed as a lesbian.

Nevertheless, is what that critic said still true? (Hell, was it true then?) Is there a junk journalist alive today who even has a vestigial conscience? Is there still such a thing as solid appreciation as opposed to, say, leering fandom? For that matter, is there a star alive who hasn't been marketed, not to say manufactured, by the the most powerful instrument of the tabloid press: television?

One way of looking at all those questions is to point out that Janet Jackson's new single, "Just a Little While," has been rushed to radio stations, to make the most of the fuss about her bared breast. Another is to note that the Federal Communications Commission chief, an indignant Michael Powell, has been beating his breast in outrage about her bared breast. Still another is that the entire U.S. population -- make that 99 percent, according to an unscientific poll -- is either amused or bemused by the spectacle of both her bared breast and a government investigation into her bared breast.

For maximum exposure, Mr. Powell: Bring back Ken Starr.

From the Maximum Leader's bonkers budget to biochemical terrorism in Washington, the news is too depressing today. So here, for what they're worth, are laughs from Lara. I don't know who Lara is. She's just a forwarding agent. But I do know she has a sense of humor, even though her women's collection of photos does not feature Janet Jackson's right breast.

Her election collection offers a solution to the voting-machine crisis (especially for Florida's voters), suggests a design change for Air Force One, and does justice to the Maximum Leader (as well as Al Gore). On this page, she addresses the casualties of war, the I.R.S., McDonald's and (not least but least funny) Osama bin Laden. There's more: optical illusions, for instance, and a link to The Odd Word, a smorgasbord of "Malapropria" and "Yogi Berra-isms" for punsters.

This is a test: I'm told that if I want to increase my Web traffic, I should post these keywords: Janet Jackson, Janet Jackson's breast, Super Bowl and Blogcritics.org. So here goes: Janet Jackson's breast is the most TiVoed moment in history. Well, the history of Janet Jackson, anyway. TiVo users couldn't keep their eyes off that Super Bowl stunt. And for those who haven't read enough commentary about Janet Jackson's breast, go here.

Ah, Vienna. Such a wedding cake. How gemütlich. So warm and cozy. But when you look closer, you discover the tarnish beneath the charm. Consider Austria's major cultural export, the world-famous Vienna Philharmonic, which performs later this month at Carnegie Hall under the direction of Seiji Ozawa.

Seven years ago, after being criticized and pressured to change its hiring policy, the orchestra said it would end its discrimination against women.

But today there are still just two non-harpist women in the ensemble: violist Ursula Plaichinger, hired in 2001, and cellist Ursula Wex, hired in 2003. All the rest of the 149 orchestra members are men. And let's not forget, neither Plaichinger nor Wex are officially members of the Philharmonic. They must first complete a three-year tenure at the Vienna State Opera.

At any rate, perhap a small grimace of congratulation is in order: The VPo also hired its first person of color last year. In Vienna, that's considered progress. After all, the VPo has had a 162-year policy of "whites only" membership. But that naturally goes unmentioned in the official narrative of the orchestra's charming history, which nevertheless manages to make sorrowful, clucking noises about its Nazi past.

Come to think of it, Philip Kerr's Berlin private eye Bernhard Gunther puts the city's charm itself in a certain perspective:

There's nothing the Viennese love more than getting "cosy." They look to achieve this conviviality in bars and restaurants, to the accompanisment of a musical quartet comprising a bass, a violin, an accordion and a zither. ... For me, this omnipresent combination embodies everything that was phoney about Vienna, like the syrupy sentiment and the affected politeness. It did make me feel cosy. Only it was the kind of cosiness you might have experienced after you had been embalmed, sealed in a lead-lined coffin, and tidily deposited in one of those marble mausoleums up at the Central Cemetery.

Painting with a broad brush? Of course.

We saw Janet Jackson's breast-cum-starry-nipple bared by Justin Timberlake, reportedly an accident, then we saw a streaker. We saw the Budweiser donkey, the get-an-erection ads and the geriatric tug-of-war over a potato chip. We heard lots of noisy rock and crotch-grabbing rap. Did we see "Child's Pay," the moveon.org ad? Nope. Did we hear Willie Nelson's war-protest song, "Whatever Happened to Peace on Earth"? Nope. Did we hear somebody say, CBS sucks? Yup.