Frank Rich and Moliere's "The Miser"

Frank Rich had a great piece in Sunday's Times about the gay-bashing in the GOP, and made very clever use of a reference to Moliere to help define the farcical nature of the Republican party.

An excerpt:

The Republicans, unlike most Democrats (Joe Lieberman always excepted), can’t stop advertising their “family values,” which is why their pitfalls are as irresistible as a Molière farce. It was entertaining enough to learn that the former Christian Coalition leader Ralph Reed wanted to go “humping in corporate accounts” with the corrupt gambling lobbyist Jack Abramoff. The only way that comic setup could be topped was by the news that Mr. Foley was chairman of the Missing and Exploited Children’s Caucus. It beggars the imagination that he wasn’t also entrusted with No Child Left Behind.

Made me remember an amazing performance by the Berkeley Rep of "The Miser," about a rich old man so miserly that the rain fell in through his roof and his entire family feared and, therefore, despised him. No doubt he was a Republican.

More on this later. Bookmarked while it's on my mind.

On vibrators, African terrorists and Nieman-Marcus

I just heard the craziest story about an aid worker in the Sudan. As told to me over a bowl of chile verde and glass of wine:

Girl goes to Africa to work on trying to save Sudan from destruction. Barely misses getting blowed up by a suicide bomber who ran into a UN facility, where other workers had gathered to watch Desperate Housewives; the only reason the girl missed the show - she's a DH regular - was because she was in the middle of a long conversation on the satellite phone with her friend (also my friend, who made aforementioned green chile & told me the story; let's call her "Sarah"). She had just said to Sarah, "Hey I gotta go, DH is on," when she heard a loud blast, and said, "That was weird. There was just a loud pop across the street. Let me call you back."

Freaky.

So the story goes on ...

Eventually, the girl comes back to the states for a brief visit, and meets Sarah in Atlanta, where they both went to college. They go on a crazy shopping spree - first stop, Nieman-Marcus for a $90 cashmere sweater. Second sop - the sex toy store.

She needed a new dildo; lonely out there in the Sudan.

Sarah described the sex store as similar to those Wal-Mart Super-Stores: a vast selection of goods whose function and purpose is difficult to ascertain to the uninitiated.

They approached an employee, told her what the deal was ("I live in the Sudan. I need an all-purpose solution here.") The employee led them to a shelf, picked up a, um, unit, described how it worked, and sent them to the cashier.

Easy.

So she returns to Africa, and a couple days after she lands, calls Sarah back. Sarah happened to be knee-deep in leading an important conference for one of her corporate clients. Upon seeing the caller ID from Sudan, Sarah freaks out:

"Last time she called, they had just blown up the TV room where she was supposed to be watching Desperate Housewives and killed like 30 people. This was like two months ago. So when I saw it was a call from Sudan, I ran out of my meeting crying and yelled into the phone, 'What's wrong? Are you OK?' My client was like, what the fuck is wrong with this girl?

"And she talks casually into the phone, 'No, I'm fine sweetie, don't worry. But I have a really important question - I can't get this fucking vibrator to work. Do you remember what the girl in the store said? Fuck, this is so frustrating!'

"I told her, Jesus girl, I thought you were dead. First time she calls me, 30 people are blowed up across the street watching Desperate Housewives. Next time she calls me, she's horny and can't get her vibrator to work."

Life in the Sudan, I guess.

"There's no future in it."

Meandering around the Kosphere today, I found this great diary about the state of journalism. It brought back some memories about my own stint in the publishing, broadcast and print worlds.

I particularly remembered a story about my last encounter with my grandfather.

Toward the end of my journalistic career, I went to pay a visit to grandpa Edwin, who was dying. He asked me what stories I was working on, who were my best reporters (I was an editor and reporter), what I thought of the Lewinsky scandal etc. (this was in the late '90's).

After going through the niceties, he cracked a wry smile - my grandpa was a total prankster - and said, "So. When you going to settle down and pick a career?"

I was pissed at first, but gave the old man his due and asked him what he meant. "I'm a journalist, pops. I have a good career."

He smiled again, and said, "Son, you have a job. But journalism - there's no future in it."

I had to stop and think about what he meant. Grandpa was in business, one of those classic Russian immigrants who, with his brothers, built a small kingdom from the dirt. I knew well enough to take him seriously - the old man had really been there, done that.

I pondered his statement for a while, and then we moved on to other topics. But now, looking back, I see how prescient and wise his words were. He didn't just mean there was no future in journalism for ME - you can barely make a living as a reporter, even at the top tier - he meant just what this diarist has captured: that the whole field had no regard for the future; it's all about today. Amazing that he was able to convey that to me on his death bed.

If you look at the average reporter's depth of understanding, you could see that Grandpa's judgment also applies to the past: there is no history in journalism, either; no one in the MSM seems to remember what happened last week, let alone last year. Hence, the shady characters in power are free to repeat old mistakes, parrot bold-faced lies, and propagandize the public with little fear of being caught.

Sure, we can look to the New Yorker and Atlantic and Harper's and etc. for some depth of field, but small, niche publications are no way to keep a democracy in check.

Grandpa died in the spring of '99, and I left journalism in Decmber of '00, just after Bush was appointed President.

I decided that, rather than run around like a chicken with my head cut off, chasing shadows and beating the competition, I wanted to make a difference.

I suppose that's what's missing from journalism these days: when I started, all my colleagues were commited to the truth, to hot scoops about abuses of power by the powerful, not fluff pieces about the temporarily famous. We were activists, but not in the political sense: we knew our role was to afflict the comfortable, and comfort the afflicted - regardless of party affiliation or position in the American caste system.

Now I've taken a job where I can do that sort of work every day. Ironically, I'm still in media, but I suspect I'll never practice journalism again - Grandpa was right. There's no future in it.