Sunday, May 04, 2008
Quick

Letters to the Editor

There are times when he appears to sacrifice serious consideration of a play in favor of a withering comment... 

Does this mean the Osborne retrospective is cancelled?

      I want to thank theatre critic Bert Osborne for attending the openings of each of the plays in “3 by Topher” at Process Theatre (“House of Payne,” A+E, April 27). Original works can be a tough sell, so everyone who walks through the door is a welcome presence. The night before his review ran, I apologized in advance to the casts of all of my plays, letting them know that he had never given a positive review of anything I’ve done in Atlanta theatre. I suspected we were unlikely to see anything different this time, despite the audience response the nights Osborne attended.

      In that regard, he certainly met my expectations.

      I do find it unfortunate that he chose to ignore the questions posed within the plays, and the superb efforts of the cast and design team. Instead he devoted the bulk of his review, once again, to his feelings about me as an artist. What was gained by that? It’s such a waste.

      Despite the pervasive sentiment at various Manuel’s Tavern gatherings, I do not believe he “hates theatre,” nor do I think he gives everything a bad review. But, I do believe that when a production or performance is not to Osborne’s taste, he writes with utter delight, bordering on glee. It is insulting and disrespectful to the artists who keep our theatre community alive and thriving, regardless of whether they live up to Osborne’s particular sensibilities.

      Osborne has said himself that he is a critic, not a cheerleader, but there are times when he appears to sacrifice serious consideration of a play in favor of a withering comment, which I find doubly frustrating because he’s certainly more than capable of better writing. Why is Osborne  content with cheap shots? Why would he want that to be what he’s “known for”?  If he envisions himself as some sort of latter-day Dorothy Parker, he should know that Parker pulled it off with wit and style.

      That said, I know from writing my own column that we are ultimately held accountable by our editors. If Osborne’s reviews were not up to the journalistic standards of The Sunday Paper, I’m sure that would’ve been dealt with by now. If he had any calling personally to conduct himself with a little more grace, he would have done so of his own accord. But he needs to stop that “Oh my stars, what’s wrong?” reaction when a theatre refuses to comp his tickets or when an actor wants to hit him with a sock full of nickels. If he insists on being a bastard, he should at least own it. And enough with saying he’s not given sufficient column inches for thoughtful consideration.  It’s his job, and it’s time he quit passing the buck and found a way to do it. 

 Kids on drugs

We have schools and an education system that are broken and beyond repair. Our leaders (and that includes Congress) and the media have no idea what education should be. To put it differently, we are incompetent in any and all fields, be it war, protection of the food supply, education, legislation, health care, energy security, national security, intelligence and even software, to name just a few. On software, there is no system that we have implemented that has not had to be redesigned or somehow reworked with enormous cost overruns. The latest absurdity is from the system we installed on the border with Mexico. (At a meeting once I asked, “We want to improve the education system in Iraq? How?” Those present laughed at my question. It was lost on them that we who do not know what to do with our education here at home want to improve Saddam’s, which was one of the best in the Middle East! Now, that is arrogance coupled with incredible ignorance.)

Your report, “Growing Up on Drugs,” (News & Views, April 27) says Jenifer Fox has written a book called “Your Child’s Strengths: Discover Them, Develop Them, Use Them.” Come on! First, to “use them” is the same as to “exploit them.” So here is an unwary corporationist who recommends exploitation of kids. For God’s sake, why can’t we let kids be kids? We have all seen parents buy expensive, high-tech toys only to see their kids play with the carton in which the toys were packed. A child can play endless games with an empty box. Why do we not learn from that? Getting kids out of the house to play in our civilized, advanced society is not a practical proposition. Better to park them in front of the TV so that we do not have to deal with them. There they can become zombies of some sort or develop into social misfits.
   
We do not only hook our kids on drugs, as Ms. Fox says. We also hook them on sex (in co-ed schools, in commercials and by suggestive TV programs), alcohol, violence, junk food, poor manners and sloth (to name just a few of the ills). And I agree with Ms Fox that “the schools are failing. The standardized tests are failing.” But what we are doing to fix the kids is using drugs, TV and toys, etc. to fit the kids to the failing schools and broken society, a society married to corporatism which leaves people with no time for the family? We are geared to consumerism, which benefits corporations, encourages temporary storage companies and keeps landfills in business. And for that kind of society, we do not need creative kids or kids with their own personalities. We want automatons!
   
To Sunaina Jain’s comment, “What child-obsessed society? We don’t even like children in this society,” We can add, “Who’s got time for kids? The richer we get, the less we can afford children. The better jobs we have, the less time we have for children.” It is an amazing society we live in. How is it that we prosecute people for drug-dependency and yet saturate kids with drugs? How is it that we make so much effort to improve our education and yet end up with persistently failing schools?    

Voicing a frightening thought

I want to offer another take concerning the sensitivity and over-the-the-top behavior of Barack Obama’s supporters (“Obama, The Yuppie Candidate,” Jonah Goldberg, News & Views, April 20): The general consensus is that his supporters are afraid the Clintons will contrive some hocus-pocus to steal the nomination, which of course, many of us do not put past them.

However, I sense that Obama supporters’ real concerns go far deeper than only a stolen election. Stealing the party nomination is an issue his supporters will speak of openly. It’s not human nature for people to voice openly their real fears; instead, the real fear is sublimated with some other contentious issue the person is more willing to fight. Their real fear, the one they are afraid to speak of, is their belief that Obama is a serious assassination threat. If an Obama supporter were to mention the assassination issue, he or she would be quickly silenced.

If we were to suppose that Obama were to succeed in capturing the nomination, his supporters suspect that some crazy rednecks will start taking shots at him—after all, they do like their guns.

If we extend the supposition to the point that Obama becomes a serious threat to defeat McCain in the general election, his supporters don’t know how the “power structure” will respond, or whether maybe the Klan will come out of the closet to go "ape-s**t.”

Too big for Plains, too naive for the Mideast

Jimmy Carter, peanut farmer and ex-president of the United States, who finds his hometown of Plains, Ga., understandably small, has again ventured into a part of the world that regularly distracts us all from musing the plethora of things his 1970s-era presidency so painfully fell short of successfully addressing (“Jimmy Carter’s Tower of Babel,” Stephanie Ramage, News & Views, April 27).

According to Carter, we need to pay more serious attention to the opinions of Hamas leaders in attempting to bring the Mideast’s long-standing difficulties to any sort of just conclusion. But I, for one, cannot help but wonder just how the world will be disadvantaged when Carter finally passes entirely from the scene, and those who recruit the dispossessed and the infirm to murder innocents no longer have this hapless ex-president to lend their actions credibility.

 I’m certain there are indeed many Arabs who proudly call the Mideast’s shifting sands their home who wonder likewise.
 

Bison bull? Or just bull?

(Regarding “Ted Turner on going green,” Life, April 13:) Bull. Congress is holding up our oil exploration, while we develop new fuel options. The president isn't perfect, but I trust a leader that keeps another attack across the oceans, not in our cities.

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