Ciceronian Review

Where Are You Marcus?

I was on the raod recently (a curious expression for lawyers - mostly they are in the air, not driving anywhere).  Hotels encourage televiosn watching, particularly channels one otherwise skips over.  So I saw my first episode of Commander in Chief.  Well, now, Geena Davis is fine - a great performance in Earth Girls Are Easy and The Long Kiss Goodbye.  Commander in Chief sems to have gotten some ciritical notice.  So I watched the whole show, cultural education, etc.  My god,  it was awful.  Awful.  It is shocking how much is paid for such terrible writing. It was painful to watch.  The great speech at the end of the show -- do none of the writers ever listen to speeches?  Has neither Davis nor the director ever watched or listened to a political speech? 

What set this off -- I have been reading Cicero.  In latin.  No, I can't read latin.  In translation. 

Mesmer is the Man

I watch more television when I get downhearted.  There is something encouraging about the mindlessness of television.  I don't mean the reality shows, etc., but the critically acclaimed shows and big productions.  Two examples.  I have been watching on dvr Grey's Anatomy, which has gotten a good deal of praise.  I've seen three or four episodes, and each one provokes the same line of thought:  Why does anyone think any of this is good?  The characters are run of the mill type-casting, the plots are predictable from the time each character appears in each show.

Or take Empire.  Why replace the history with made-up silliness?  The history, as best we can discern it, is a very interesting story.  Octavian was not a handsome athlete, he was a wimpy fat boy.  There is a tremendous amount of sex, of all kinds.  There are great set-piece battles to be played out, and fortuitous heroics turning the tide.  There is social and class conflict and betrayals.  Why muck it up with a ridiculous gladiator plot line? 

I also watched the recent Arthur movie over the weekend.  I love the ending -- announcing that people in Britain will ever after be free says Arthur, as everyone kneels to him as king. 

Mr. Popwell's Problem

Like most of America, I have favored television programming. One of my current interests is a show on FX called Rescue Me, with Denis Leary. The show is, like The Shield, a somewhat realistic look at life in the service industry. Rescue Me is about firefighters (all men thus far) and The Shield is about policemen. But the point is not about the shows themselves, not exactly. Rescue Me has included a number of episodes involving fairly direct depiction of heterosexual sex. The players are either both naked or nearly so, and it is unmistakable that they are having intercourse. Not a first on television, but here is the odd part. While they are having sex, and that is unmistakable, the viewer is spared the horror of exposure to female nipples. So, the female character is naked and fucking away with her hands over her breasts. I find this a bit weird. It would be obscene to display female nipples but not to show people fucking? Are Michael Powell and the FCC really that loopy? I take it the answer is “yes,” as FX must have a reason for this weird sex, and I understand the fine for the tenth of second flash of Janet Jackson’s misshapen nipple is on the order of half a million dollars. (It is amusing that the nipple ring she wore looks very much like an anti-smoking solidarity ring – see a current issue of the New Yorker for an advertisement.)

I was on a quick trip to California by car (for gustatory reasons), and this is the sort of thing one thinks about during the twelve hours.

Gay Texas

Box turtles. I was watching a re-run of the Daily Show last night. Once again it seemed the best news show on the airwaves. Daily Show does not hesitate to show Cheney flip-flops on marriage (I still wonder how is does his daughter feel and why does she campaigns for him. Does no one in that family have any principles beyond aggrandizement?) and just lying. There is plenty of funny stuff about Kerry as well. But last night’s show ran the bit on the proposed Anti-Marriage Amendment, with the comments of Senator Cronyn, likening marriage between gay men or lesbians to marriage to a box turtle. Along the lines: A man marrying a box turtle doesn't hurt you. But if they move in next door, what will you think then, and what to tell the kids?

Once you get past the idiocy of comparing people to turtles, it is an oddly apt metaphor – would permitting marriage between men and box turtles do anything much to heterosexual marriages? Surely no sane person thinks that. But then, the arguments against gay marriage are on par with the other biblical arguments – they all leave it a great mystery why there are no laws against eating shrimp, or serving a ham sandwich with a milkshake. (I have come to realize that God does not hate shrimp – He loves shrimp – the ban on eating shrimp preserves the little guys. There is no getting around how genuinely strange the Judeo-Christian God is.)

It was a weird TV night. Rawls was briefly discussed on the West Wing re-run.