Newtown, Portland, Aurora: Same Old BS from the NRA and Flunky Pols

I told you so. Here's re-posting from August of this year. Once again we hear the wails, dry the tears, and wring the hands. Once again we hear the call for meaningful gun control, and once again the gun-totin' right assures us that "Guns don't kill; people kill." And once again, the only thing that changes is that more families are shattered. Click on this link of a Cheryl Wheeler song and send to every friggin' politician in America until they're shamed into doing something. Cheryl wrote this in 1997. Does anybody out there have a problem with that? I sure as hell do! Clackamas Mall and Newtown, CT in the same week. I have a problem with that too. 

Here's what I wrote about Aurora in July. Nothing happened. Who's next? 

What’s left to say? James Holmes walks into an Aurora, Colorado, movie theater armed for Armageddon and blows away a dozen people and wounds 59 others. Tragic? Of course it is, and my heart goes out to the victims and their families. Surprising? Not in the least. In fact, I predicted it–on this blog no less. Back in 2011, when Gabby Giffords and her aides were shot, I remarked that such incidents were inevitable because Americans think the Second Amendment is more sacred than the sanctity of human life. I said it when the Virginia Tech murders occurred in 2009, and I said it after the tragedy at Columbine in 1999. (It’s located just 20 miles from Aurora, by the way.) I said it again when Trayvon Martin was killed by George Zimmerman, a pipsqueak who thought a gun made him a man.

I’m sure the rightwing nut jobs will try to tell us that fewer would have died in Aurora if the patrons were all packing pistols. They’ll drag out all the nostrums, such as “Guns don’t kill people, people kill people,” “Guns cause crime like flies cause garbage,” and “An armed man is a citizen. An unarmed man is a subject.” These look good on t-shirts, but it’s gauche to wear them to funerals. How about this one for a new slogan: “The N.R.A. Murdered More Americans Than Osama bin-Laden.” Catchy, eh? And true as well. Because the NRA lines politicians’ pockets and because they propagandize a naïve citizenry into thinking guns make them safer, each year more than 11,000 Americans die from gun violence–that’s more than 3 ½ bin Ladens per year, folks. But we already know and ignore these statistics, and others such as the overwhelming evidence that murder rates are highest in states where guns are most easily obtained, and that individuals are more likely to be killed in an attempted crime if they brandish a firearm. But we don’t want to hear any of this, so maybe we should applaud James Holmes for helping us reach our national murder target faster (word play intentional).

Look–here’s a guy, Holmes, who in fewer than 60 days, purchased an AR-15 assault rifle, two Glock pistols, a 12-guage shotgun, six thousand rounds of ammo, and enough chemicals and explosives to restage Bhopal, and nobodywas suspicious. Why? Because it was all legal; Holmes had no criminal record, so to raise any questions would be, according to the NRA, a dangerous intrusion of civil rights on the part of the Evil Government. (For the record, Evil Government officials, AKA/the police, generally fatally wound around 400 people a year. What a bunch of amateurs!) The Aurora massacre raises the same damn questions asked (and ignored) before: Why does any American need an assault rifle? (Up yours, collectors!) How is it an intrusion of rights to limit the number of rounds a gun can fire without reloading? Why can’t we place strict limits on sales of ammunition? (The NRA even opposes technology that would allow ammunition to be traced to its purchaser.) Why is the Second Amendment more sacred than the 18^th(Prohibition), which was repealed? Yada, yada, yada….   Same questions, same funerals, same tears, same bewildered shock, same inaction….

I’ve not been following Aurora carefully–it’s like a syndicated TV show whose episodes I’ve seen so often I can recite the plot and dialogue from memory. And it will air again, and again, and again. All because we allow a terrorist organization in our midst, the NRA, to pose as a public service organization and sandbag sane political policy (gun control). All because we really don’t give a damn about Aurora, Trayvon Martin, Gabby Giffords’ aides, Virginia Tech, or Columbine. Harsh? I don’t think so. If we really cared, wouldn’t we have done something more than dry our tears and move on? 

And here's what I said in August: 

http://off-centerviews.blogspot.com/2012/08/the-nra-lies-and-americans-die.html

R.I.P. Ravi Shankar (1920-2012)

Ravi Shankar (4/7/20-12/11/21)

The passing of a legend. 

When I was a child, the term “world music” seldom got more global than the British Invasion or dreamy folk from Canadians such as Joni Mitchell. All that changed in 1965, when George Harrison slipped a 7-½ second sitar run into The Beatles’ “Norwegian Wood.” What a sound! It was like steel striking glass and wrapped in a drone. As it turned out, that was about all Harrison could do on the sitar at the time, but he hustled himself off to India to study with the man who taught him that little lick: Ravi Shankar. Soon I and other kids were listening to Shankar’s music. Did we understand it? Well… a lot gets lost when East meets West, but let’s just say that our musical palettes gained a taste for masala. With Ravi Shankar’s passing on December 11, 2012, some of the flavor just left the planet.

Naysayers–as is their wont–slammed George Harrison for commercializing Indian music, but he was true to his teacher’s intent; it was always Ravi Shankar’s dream that the West would come to embrace Indian music. Thanks to him, it did. Shankar was born on April 7, 1920, in Varanasi, the sacred Hindu city along the Ganges. His first taste of music–and his first trips to Europe–came as a dancer in his brother’s ensemble, but in 1934, Shankar apprenticed himself to Allauddin Khan, of the famed Hindustani musical family, and when he emerged from his rigorous training in 1944, he was already among the world’s finest sitar players. That’s more remarkable than it sounds–the sitar has 23 strings (including seven that are horizontal to the fret board), some of which are drones and some of which resonate sympathetically with melody strings. It is generally considered such a difficult instrument that most renowned masters emerge in their 40s and 50s, not at age 24. In like fashion, they are expected to spend decades conquering the intricacies of classical style, not evolving signature sounds. (Shankar is famed for his unique slow opening, alap, which serves to shape the ragas–melodies–that are part of the ancient Sanskrit traditions. He also melded sitar into rock, jazz, and avant-garde compositions.)  

Shankar made his first trip to Europe as a solo artist in 1956; he met George Harrison in London nine years later. Harrison was another step in Shankar’s personal crusade to make ragas known in the West. By the late 1960s he had done so with such success that there was merit to exploitation charges. There were so many musicians trying sitar that a veritable subgenre of raga rock emerged–much of it dreck. Harrison, though, proved a true devotee and he and Shankar became close friends. (For some other good stuff, check out John Renbourn’s work with Pentangle, or Dave Mason with Traffic.) Shankar persisted, though, and did stints of serious teaching in New York and California, the latter in which he had a second home. His recording career spanned the years 1937 to 2012, the year of his death. He also won three Grammy Awards, scored at least 15 films, and won uncounted honors across the globe.

I was lucky enough to see Shankar perform on several occasions, the most recent of which was two years when he was 90. He was, by then, as frail as one might expect for one of such advanced age. Shankar was led on stage by one of his band mates holding one hand and his other gripping a cane. But once on the stage–covered by an enormous rug and festooned with tapestries–he did as he had done for over 60 years: he squatted cross-legged on the floor, hoisted his sitar to his lap, and with a single glance and nod orchestrated the first number. His body was 90, but his hands and fingers were those of a precocious 24-year-old as they flew up and down the neck, each finger plucking with precision, and each note ringing with cosmic majesty. If memory serves, the 90-minute concert featured just four compositions, but it was hypnotic and transformative. Did I understand the spiritual explanations of his ragas? I’ll claim nothing beyond this statement: Better than when I was a kid. Was I enchanted? Oh, yes!

Shankar was, by 2010, such a revered figure that the other musicians on stage treated him with deference one might reserve for saints. Shankar was a deeply religious Hindu, but he was no saint. Like many mortals, in the struggle between mysticism and worldly desire, the latter often won. He fathered three children, of whom only the first was the product of marriage. He separated from his first wife–Khan’s daughter–shortly after the birth of their son and began a long-term relationship with a woman named Kanda Shashi, with whom he fathered his greatest legacy: his daughter Anoushka, herself among the world’s greatest sitar players. Shankar had numerous other paramours, including a fling with New York music producer Sue Jones that produced singer Norah Jones. Shankar eventually left Shashi and married for a second time in 1989.

Call Shankar a cultural saint and leave value judgments to others. To me it is telling that among the musicians with whom he collaborated in his long career were Yehudi Menuhin and John Coltrane. Like those two legends, Ravi Shankar was the sort of musician who comes along just once in a generation.--Rob Weir

Icy December a Good Choice for a Holiday Album

MARGOT KRIMMEL and BETH LEACHMAN-GADBAW

Icy December

www.whitebirdsmusic.com

* * *

I’m on record as saying that I’d prefer orchestral music arranged for jackhammer and dental drills to listening to holiday music. I’m not alone; one of my editors says he’d resign before he ran a review of a Christmas recording. Speaking for myself, I dislike the forced jollity of secular Christmas songs, the contrived sentimentality of the religious ones, the mythical family values wholesomeness, and the fact that I’ve been hearing these songs blast from Christmas Tree Shops since Jesus was a lad. But I do enjoy listening to Beth Leachman-Gadbaw’s vocals so if I must listen to holiday music, I’m glad she’s anchoring Icy December. And I’m doubly glad that Margot Krimmel is there to add crystalline harp.

Credit Leachman-Gadbaw and Krimmel for featuring some of the lesser-known seasonal songs, such as the title track, “Gloucestershire Wassail,” “The Donkey and the Doves,” and the old-timey influenced “When Jesus Lived in Galilee.” They also offer some unfamiliar but fine things from the Celtic realm such as “Prayer for St. Brigid” and the beautiful Turlough O’Carolan harp composition “Loftus Jones.” Kudos also for mixing in original pieces such as Krimmel’s “Before the Snow” and the co-written “Song of Peace.” Krimmel is equally at home with folk, jazz, and classical harp, but on this album she opts mostly for glassy notes, colder tones, and introspective moods–all appropriate for the season. For her part, Leachman-Gadbaw indulges her passion for Irish music and harmony singing. Like Krimmel she acknowledges the cold, short days, but she also seeks to warm us with spirited cadences and the joyous inflection of her voice, one with just the right blend of youth and maturity.

Okay, so there isn’t much that’s going to make me warm to “The First Noel” or “What Child Is This?” but I immensely enjoyed the things that didn’t make visions of Bing Crosby dance in my head. So maybe I’m only a Grinch-in-training. --Rob Weir

Life of Pi a Flop from Top to Stop

LIFE OF PI

Directed by Ang Lee

20^th Century Fox, 127 mins. PG-13 (gratuitous 3D special effects)

*

Yann Martel’s Life of Pi was a surprise winner of Britain’s 2002 Man Booker Prize. It’s an unusual novel that blends magical realism, fable, and fictional autobiography (and there’s little way to tell if the latter is intended to be literal or imagined). At least three other directors contemplated a treatment of Martel’s novel, gave up, and declared it unfilmable. Would that Ang Lee had heeded their warning; his attempt at the book is a flop from top to stop–a crashing bore punctuated by cheap thrills, contrived structure, and lowest common denominator storytelling.

The protagonist Pi (Irrfan Khan) goes by a diminutive that is short for Piscine Militor Patel. He’s a lad who comes of age in India and is absurdly saddled with the name of a Parisian swimming pool courtesy his world traveler father, Santosh (Adil Hussain). Santosh is a volatile mix of dreaminess and rationalism, which also happens to be one of the book’s major organizing themes. He is simultaneously a man of science, but a naïf who builds an impractical zoo in Pondicherry, an area of India once colonized by France. It’s no wonder that Pi is also a walking contradiction, smart and resourceful, but also a devotee of all of the world’s major religious traditions. Various journeys–physical, psychological, and possibly imaginative–begin when Santosh’s zoo is no longer viable and he decides to pack up his family and all of the animals for a new start in Canada. Disaster at sea strands Pi on a lifeboat with a wounded zebra, an orangutan, a snarling hyena, and–as we suddenly discover–a carnivorous Bengal tiger named Richard Parker. (The odd name is a joke involving an invoice error.) First the hyena dispatches the zebra and then, to Pi’s great sadness, the female orangutan; Richard Parker makes quick work of all three of them. For the next 227 days Pi must try to avoid becoming Richard Parker’s lunch. Will they bond, or will the law of the jungle prevail?

In the novel–and pretty much just a tack-on in the movie–it’s not at all clear if the scenario as Pi relates it occurred, or if it’s a projection of his imagination. Or, it maybe something far more sinister happened in the lifeboat. Maybe he is the tiger, the hyena the ship’s cook, the zebra a sailor, and the orangutan his mother. Did Pi drift to Mexico fortified by cannibalism? This is tricky stuff, so how does one film it? Answer: One doesn’t. (Or shouldn’t.)

Fairness demands that I frame my critique with the admission that I have never been an Ang Lee fan. Much like Santosh, Lee has a fascination with Western culture–classics such as Sense and Sensibility (1995), exposés of bourgeois life (Ice Storm, 1997), tributes to pop culture (Hulk, 2003), and interpretations of history (the Civil war era Ride with the Devil, 1999). Lee is frequently mawkish, as he was in the vastly overrated Brokeback Mountain (2005), or completely off the mark, as he was in Taking Woodstock (2009), which is one of the worst films I’ve ever seen. He is also prone to trying to out-Hollywood Hollywood, a big problem in Life of Pi.

Because the story is unorthodox and “truth” exists (or doesn’t) on several levels, Lee has to find a way to structure the narrative. He resorts to one of movie-making’s biggest clichés: having an older protagonist relate his tale to another through flashbacks. This works in fiction because we are privy to inner thoughts; on the screen, however, such a technique is ham-handed and dull. Second, Lee needed to truncate the tale; hence he emphasizes only the tiger-on-the-boat dilemma because it is the most visually interesting part. (And, one suspects, literally the more “palatable” of the competing story arcs.)

But is that narrative believable? As a literal tale, it stretches credulity and strays toward magical realism. Movies are good with total fantasy worlds, but the liminal space that is magical realism is notoriously hard to do well; only a handful have been successful (Pan’s Labyrinth, Beasts of the Southern Wild) and this isn’t one of them. What Lee opts to do is less forgivable than mucking up a hard-to-film book–he plays Life of Pi for its cheap theatrics and milks it commercially. Instead of the complex and conflicted emotions of the novel, Lee bathes Pi is the thrill-a-moment manipulation of slasher films that make viewers gasp when danger suddenly leaps forth from the shadows. And here’s the worst part: Life of Pi has been aggressively marketed for its 3D version for which moviegoers pay an inflated price. Forget the story, the inner machinations of Pi’s mind, or any potentially profound metaphors; Lee uses the story for the mercenary purpose of setting up the next gasp-inducing special effect. (Need I tell you that sudden tiger appearances factor heavily into this equation? Hear me roar!) This is cheap filmmaking at its most expensive–all manner of technical wizardry that is, ultimately, as broad as the Pacific and as thin as a tiger’s whisker.

2D or 3D? How about ND, as on “no dice?” Life of Pi is a dish best left untouched on the plate, which is what I intend to do with future projects from this poseur director.

--Rob Weir

Film Lawless an Entertaining Prohibition-era Drama

LAWLESS (2012)

Directed by John Hilcoat

Weinstein Company, 115 mins,  R (violence and brief nudity)

* * * ½

Lawless probably flew through a mall near you with the speed of a Black Friday markdown. It’s hardly a masterpiece, but this Bonnie and Clyde-meets-Matewan-meets-The Godfather Depression-era drama is surely worth a rental. It features solid performances, a superb soundtrack, and a tense, taut screenplay, the latter of which may surprise as it comes from Australia’s Nick Cave, who also did much of the music.

Lawless follows the trial-by-fire of the Bondurant clan, a trio of brothers making moonshine in Franklin County, Virginia, during Prohibition. As most know, Prohibition was a huge failure in which the good intentions of self-appointed guardians of public morals clashed with the profit motive, individualism, and the gap between principle and desire. Its main accomplishment was to make ordinary people into outlaws, and to transform two-bit hoodlums such as Floyd Banner into crime moguls. The Bondurants lived in what Sherwood Anderson called “the wettest county in the world,” one in which nearly every resident had some connection to illicit liquor production, sales, or transportation. When locals encountered a roadblock, they knew it was local law enforcement stopping them to buy moonshine, not put the collar on them. Some of the best homemade hooch came from brothers Forrest (Tom Hardy), Howard (Jason Clarke), and Jack Bondurant (Shia LaBeouf). Forrest is the head of operations, partly due to local legends that cast him as indestructible; Howard is the half-civilized enforcer; and Jack is the younger brother who wants to be a player, but has a greater moral compass than stomach for violence.

All is tidy in Franklin County until an ex-Chicago cop, federal agent Charlie Rakes (Guy Pearce) shows up. Rakes is an oily dandy—and Pearce plays him with a delicious despicableness—who lived down to his name. He wants to extort the locals and rake in graft, not clean up the county. All of the locals cave in for the sake of staying in business, except for the fiercely independent Bondurant clan. Rakes’ ruthlessness amorality eventually touches off the Franklin County Moonshine Wars—think the showdown in John Sayles’ Matewan. Toss in two love interests—Maggie (Jessica Chastain), a tough cookie fleeing the city and developing a thing for the brooding, monosyllabic Forrest; and Jack’s hots for Bertha (Mia Wasikowska). Add a crippled-not-too-bright neighbor lad, Cricket Pate (Dane DeHaan), reminiscent of Michael Pollard’s C. W. Moss in Bonnie and Clyde; and toss in for good measure Jack’s battles with his conscience (like Michael Corleone in The Godfather saga, and you have the arc of this story.

Is Lawless on the derivative side of the ledger? Yes. As I said, it’s no masterpiece. Still, the performances are very good. Tom Hardy has to convey nearly every emotion physically, as his vocabulary seldom extends beyond grunts and growls; LaBoeuf rockets between cowardice, charm, and resolve. Gary Oldman shows up in a cameo as bloodthirsty Floyd Banner, but you’ll probably prefer him to Pearce’s take on Charlie Rakes, whom he plays with the sort of (metaphorical) black-hat paste-up air of villainy we usually associate with bad guys in John Sayles pictures. Chastain is also sublime as Maggie, who is equal parts unflappable and vulnerable. Kudos also for a terrific soundtrack featuring Cave, Emmylou Harris, Ralph Stanley, and Willie Nelson. A word of caution: some of the violence is quite graphic.

The film is based on a historical novel written by Matt Bondurant, Jack’s grandson. Some of the movie is, of course, exaggerated for cinematic impact but, yes Virginians, there was a Franklin County Moonshine War. I’d recommend this film and you happened to take away from it the message that moralists cause more social problems than they solve, well who am I to say you’re wrong?—Rob Weir

Sense of An Ending Deserving of Praise

THE SENSE OF AN ENDING (2011)

By Julian Barnes

Vintage, 166 pp. ISBN 978-0307947727

* * * * *

This short book—more of a novella than a novel—won Britain’s Man Booker Prize (the equivalent of the National Book Award) in 2011 and, for once, I applaud the committee’s choice. It is a book about time, aging, memory, and regret. It is also a work that explores not only endings, but our senses as well. As anyone over 50 knows, aging and memory aren’t the most compatible of bedfellows. We worry about memory loss (or trivialize amidst a welter of bad jokes), but do we also reify youth in ways we should not? Is aged memory any worse than the shallow perceptions of youth? Did we really “see” the things we claim to have “seen” during the callow days of youth? What decisions did we make oblivious of their impact? What consequences did we dodge?  

The novel opens in an English public school which, for reasons only Brits understand, is actually an expensive private school. It’s the sort of snooty place where young boys are taught how to become members of the upper crust, as well as the proper way to look down their noses at social inferiors. Our protagonist, Tony Webster, is an elite-in-making, though his family background is more humble. He hangs out with two other lads and all three like to pretend they are brilliant and clever. Enter the new kid, Adrian Finn, who really is brilliant and clever. Tony quickly befriends him, partly in the hope that Adrian’s intellect is a contagion he’ll catch. He doesn’t. Adrian eventually goes off to Cambridge and Tony to middle-of-the-road Bristol University, where he meets Veronica, his first serious love. Alas, like Adrian, she’s slightly out of his class. The relationship quickly unravels after an awkward weekend spent with Veronica’s parents. In the next several months Tony receives several other shocks, the news that Adrian wishes to date Veronica, and then the news that Adrian has committed suicide.

What happens to the promise of youth?  Was it ever promising in the first place? What really happened in the past? Pay attention to Adrian’s line that history is where the inadequacy of memory intersects with the insufficiency of evidence. In part two of the book, Tony is recently retired, a divorced father in his 60s, and of the type the British often call a “putterer,” the sort who drift through life ding this and that. Tony was not clever; he became the one thing neither he nor his schoolboy friends ever wished to be: ordinary. Tony lived more as an object than an actor in life’s drama. And so he probably would have spent his final days (an “ending”) had he not mysteriously received a small bequest from Veronica’s recently deceased mother, plus transference of ownership of Adrian’s diary. The fact that Veronica has possession of the latter and refuses to turn it over leads Tony to contact her.

No, this is not one of those trashy spring-love-renewed-in-autumn romances; it’s more compelling than that. The question of why Veronica won’t turn over the diary is met with another important but ambiguous line: “You don’t get it, Tony, and you never did.” What is “it?” Tony has several meetings with Veronica, each as awkward as their country weekend forty years earlier, and Tony still has no clue about “it.” Somehow, though, Tony thinks that “it” might be the “sense” that makes “sense” of his life. Memories come flooding back, but can he trust them? And can we, as readers, trust the explanations he imposes, Veronica implies, and other story characters reveal? Why is Tony so fixated on a single uncomfortable weekend from long ago? What really happened between Tony, Adrian, and Veronica? What does a man who has for decades lived beyond desire want from Veronica? And where is Barnes leading us? Is it a real ending, or merely a “sense” of an ending?

I suppose cynics might dismiss the questions Barnes raises as analogous to the pretentious- masquerading-as-profound forays into existential philosophy that Tony and his vacuous mates once pondered. Not me. I admired Barnes’s ability to make me care about such self-absorbed characters, and that he found weighty ideas to contemplate amidst the wreckage of their lives. It is a beautifully crafted book, elegant in its prose, and balanced between pathos and humor. Warning: If you need definitive resolutions, you may have to impose one. I have mused over this book for days and I’m still not sure if it’s a British version of That Championship Season, Chinatown, The Graduate, a mash of all three, or something else entirely. I’d love to hear what you think happened.—Rob Weir  

Vote for Putz of the Year

Vote on who gets this year's (dis) honor.

We’ve reached the last month of 2012 and it’s time once again for the annual Putz of the Year Award, given to the individual or group that manages to look dumber than a horse’s patootie. The rules are quite simple. One must have been a complete jackass within the given calendar year. I do not claim that the nominees below are the most evil or ridiculous characters on the planet, only that they’ve engaged in particularly galling behavior during 2012. Off the list are  Lifetime Lack of Achievement Awards for those who make a case for retroactive abortion: Eric Cantor, Ann Coulter, Rush Limbaugh, Karl Rove, Pol Pot, Kim Jong Il, Bud Selig…. I am happy to consider new lifetime nominees, but the 2012 nominees are:

1. Mitt Romney: If there was any doubt of the man’s absolute and utter inability to lead a nation, his classless comments after the election should remove all doubt. Why did he lose? He blamed it on “gifts” President Obama bestowed on “special interest groups.” The 47% remark was bad enough, but Mitwit went on to ID the special interests: women, young people, African Americans, and Hispanics. Let’s do some math here. Granted there are those who fall into multiple categories, but Bubba Romdum just dissed 96.9% of Americans! Yep. That’s how many fall into at least one of those categories. The week after the election some people were urging Obama to consider approaching Romney for advice. Don’t do it, Barack. Let the Toxic Mormon ooze back under the rock from which he came.  

2. Scott DesJarlais: Romney isn’t the only tone deaf Republican. Take Tennessee Representative Scott DesJarlais (please!). He’s a leading (dim) light in the anti-choice movement. But it seems that (Don’t-Beam-Me-Up) Scotty only thinks po’ folks need to keep their babies. All the time he was pounding the piety pulpit, DesJarlais found nothing wrong with pro-choice if the cradle threatened to rock his way. DesJarlais urged his now ex-wife to get not one, but two, abortions. He also counseled his pregnant mistress to get one. Apparently the hypocrisy barrier has been lowered to the point that it lies (operative word) with the underground cables.

3. Jeffrey Loria: Baseball always seems to produce its share of world-class jerks, but Snake-oil Loria takes the cake. First he blackmailed Miami officials into underwriting a new ballpark to the tune of $640 million ($1.4 billion over the life of the bond), and then he promised he’d spend money on the team. He did–for ten months. After spending a king’s ransom to sign players such as Mark Buerhle, Jose Reyes, and Heath Bell at higher-than-market prices, he surrounded them with bums that led to Marlins to a last-place finish. This after years of pocketing money plundered from the luxury taxes of so-called “big market” teams such as the Yankees, Red Sox, and Dodgers. Loria held a fire sale and traded away all the good players so that next spring’s payroll is projected to be around $34 million, nearly 40% below the next lowest pay roll. This is extortion, pure and simple. Several things should happen. First, rich teams should sue Major League baseball to recover monies that went to the Marlins. Second, the city of Miami should rescind the bond and offer it to Loria; if he refuses to assume it, bring in the wrecking ball and level the damn stadium. That would still leave the city on the hook for construction costs, but it would be sweet vengeance. (It would also cover the mistake of building it in the wrong part of the city in the first place.) Barring that solution, jack up Marlin fees for everything–impose a surcharge of tickets, parking, and concessions; install toll gates on access roads to the park; raise utility rates to the site; and pass an “occupational privilege tax” that impacts every Marlins’ player, worker, and official. If this drives Loria out of the game, MLB will be the better for it. Ditto if MLB folds the Marlins.

4. David Petraeus: I couldn’t care less that he was having an affair. Petraeus, from all I can tell, was a decent general, and his personal life would be his own business–were he not the head of the Central Intelligence Agency. What galls me about Petraeus isn’t his morals, it’s his stupidity, arrogance, and complete ignorance of history. What the hell makes top public officials think that their dalliances will remain secret? If you don’t wish to be scrutinized, do what most people do and stay the hell out of public life. But when a man is in charge of secrecy and can’t keep a secret, it gives pause as to whether he should be in that position. To top it off, it looks as if his mistress had classified documents in her possession. Maybe national security wasn’t compromised, but under what set of logic does one entrust classified documents to a paramour rather than the spooks at Langley? The Petraeus scandal is on par with the philandering dolts who left their Little Black Books open to public view whilst trying to impeach Bill Clinton for lying about his dalliance with Monica Lewinsky.

5. The Anti-Choice Movement: The moralizing band of Neanderthals that refuses to STFU…. Most aren’t as openly hypocritical as Scott DesJarlais-–who earned his separate nomination–but what a band of misogynist jerks: Richard Murdock, Todd Akin. Rick Berg, Paul Ryan…. In Georgia, we got State Rep Terry England, who co-sponsored a “fetal pain bill” in which he compared American women to pregnant livestock such as pigs and cows. The Commonwealth of Virginia produced the idea that women seeking abortions should have to undergo an invasive IUD procedure; Oklahoma declared that fetuses were “persons” as did Missouri, Mississippi, and Michigan. (Does this mean they are also “corporations?”) There’s so much zealotry in this coterie of self-appointed guardians that I suspect it might be a cadet branch of the Taliban.

6. Gary Bettman: The National Hockey League’s Gary Bettman may be the most incompetent commissioner ever of a “major” sport. We must use the word “major” with caution, as Bettman seems hell-bent on destroying all interest in hockey and reducing its status to something on par with the Little League World Series. If you wanted to sabotage a sport, how would you do it? Move teams from places where people care to where they don’t? Check. Try to play a winter sport in places where the only ice rattles in mint julep glasses? Check. Shut down play three times in 17 years? Check. Align yourself with union busters, scabs, and robber barons? Check. We’re talking a figure so vilified that even some of the robber barons want his bones boiled down for pucks. Name one good thing Gary Bettman has done since he became NHL commissioner in 1993? Take your time… you don’t need to rush off to watch a hockey game.