A Real New Orleans show?

Apparently, HBO is going to be running another show set in post-Katrina New Orleans.

Initial reviews are good. I hear from friends who are big into the TV scene that it's going to be fantastic, and the write-ups say that it's spell-binding.

Much of the praise seems to be a result of the co-creators. The pair are responsible for a little-known show called The Wire.

I haven't seen it, and I know few who have. But those chosen few give reviews that border on the fanatic. They say The Wire is not just good television, it's high art and something that proves film can rise to the sublime.

I hope they're right. Because Treme has the potential to do justice to New Orleans and the whole sad Katrina saga.

It seems to me that a post-Katrina NOLA is the best setting a writer could hope for. The high drama and unique culture provide as compelling a basis as a writer could ask for.

But I have not yet seen (and granted, my expertise is slim) any form of art that does it justice.

The most laughable attempt I can think of is the ill-fated show K-ville. It had all the right ingredients; a cop in that setting seems like instant drama. But the show devolved into a generic cop drama, and the attempts at summing up New Orleans' fantastic culture degenerated into routine pots of gumbo and boiled crawfish.

Upon reflection, it seems that the spirit of New Orleans would be difficult to encapsulate. New Orleans' culture, like a Mardi Gras, is a spirited, intricate dance. To an outsider it appears like a gaudy, colorful party, but the complex emotional machinery that drive it are made up of infintessimally small, but vital cogs of experience. Thus any outsider that tries to capitalize on New Orleans uniqueness ends up only catalogueing stereotypes and cliches.

I certainly hope these folks get it right. By all indications, these aren't just a few guys who want to capitalize on a compelling story; instead, it appears they are two genuine lovers of New Orleans and the culture, and they intend to do that culture justice.

I hope they do. The real New Orleans, and the real tragedy the city experienced after that dreadful storm is a story and a setting too good to go unrecognized.

The League of Ordinary Nations

So I'm watching the West Wing.

(This is probably a good time to point out that A.) The West Wing is perhaps the best thing to ever appear on television ever and B.) It's one of the best sources for discussion outside of a classroom. Wait, who am I kidding; it's one of the best sources for discussion including the classroom.)

The episode I'm watching brings up an interesting moral/socio-political question. The U.S. intelligence community discovers that the Defense Minister of the (fictional) country of Kumar is responsible for the planning of a foiled terrorist attack on the Golden Gate Bridge. The minister, unaware that the U.S. knows of his activities, plans to come to visit the White House. President Bartlett decides that this is the oppourtunity to arrest him and bring him to justice.

Unfortunately, it turns out that the information tying the minister to the plot was elicited under torture. (The Russians did it in the episode, but it illustrates just one of the many ways that torture never ends well.) President Bartlett faces pressure from his advisers to order his assassination.

Keep in mind, assassination of such a figure is illegal based on international law. It's also of questionable morality.

But the man is responsible for a grevious action.


You're the President. What do you do?

I don't know what'd I do off the top of my head. There are many people who would say "This man is evil. He wants to kill us. We should kill him. Period."

But it's far more complicated. International laws exist for a reason. No state should be allowed to assassinate leaders of other sovereign states without trial - doing so compromises the sovereignty of the state and allows stronger nations to execute officials without legal justification.

And no, "We are the U.S., and we are right," doesn't cut it. American exeptionalism as a form of blanket moral high ground regardless of circumstance is a dangerous and meglomaniacal way to view the world.

This isn't to say that there's nothing exceptional about America. Far from it. In fact, if we are to believe that America and her allies are somehow above other nations that pursue tyranny and strong-arm tactics, it is precisely because we obey the rule of law and allow justice to be served rationally, fairly, and publicly.

As President Bartlett puts it in the episode, simply assassinating a dangerous target because we can't find legitimate evidence to convict him would put America in the "league of ordinary nations."

If America (or any other nation) is to be exceptional, it must abide by the rule of law.

Always. Even when it's hard, which means when it's infuriating and dangerous.

But perhaps there is a line when it becomes too difficult, or too dangerous. This is the argument the fictional President's military advisors and chief of staff make, and it's the argument made repeatedly by former real-life Vice President Cheney and other Bush Administration officials in response to tortue accusations.

I've often fought this assertion vehemently. Perhaps I'm just a starry-eyed college student who hasn't been exposed to the harsh realities of life, but it seems to me that compromising the very ideals we fight for makes the fight meaningless.

But then again, I'm not the one responsible for soldiers in harm's way. I'm not the husband of a wife killed by terrorists, and I'm not a general who's seen the brutal reality of a world that really wants to see us dead.

It's a tough question to answer. And I really wish more people who addressed it acknowledged the issue like it was.

Oh Snap it's Cold

It's cold outside. The ways I have reached this conclusion (besides the fact that I absent-mindedly stumbled out the door in shorts this morning) are many.

1.) When it gets this cold, if you spend more than a minute outside with even just one other person, someone will inevitably remark "Hey. It's cold outside." Depending upon the number and type of compatriots in your company, there will be variations. Yesterday I heard the following: "Hoo boy it's cold," "It's colder than a witches' tit," and the ever classic "FUCK IT'S COLD." If it's really cold out, you say it even if you're by yourself. Which, if you ever stop to think, is pretty freakin' wierd.

2.) Stuff freezes. Like, freezes solid. In Lousiana. Good hint right there.

3.) You see headlines on prestigious news organization Web sites like: "Freezing temperatures persist in the Deep South" and "How cold is it? Check out Key West"

Apparently it's getting cold everywhere. NPR tells me the entire Northern Hemisphere is experiencing uncharacteristically cold weather. It's getting so cold that it's affecting the worldwide economic markets. Also, orange juice will be more expensive.

As a person who loves cold weather (and who doesn't drink orange juice), I'm loving it. But given the extraordinary level of whining IRL, on Facebook, and, well, pretty much everywhere, I guess I'm in a pretty small minority.

Sports Fans are Nerds.

As I sit here watching the BCS National Football Championship*, I'm also watching social networks.

*Note: Nick Saban has proven he's the Prince of Darkness -- or at least commander of an Army of Darkness. He used his dark magics to strike down Colt McCoy, his opponent's star quarterback early in the first quarter. The game itself is pretty boring, and it looks pretty good for the SEC. But there are plenty of sports blogs, and I know very little about the subject. Still, go SEC.

As I keep my eye on Facebook and Twitter, it's becoming more and more obvious to me that hardcore sports fans are just nerds.

As I see it, there are two general archetypes of sports fans. There are those who played sports and there are those who didn't.

The first category is made up of former high-school/junior high/little league players who enjoyed playing the game. They got to enjoy playing the game because they were competing against average human beings. Average human beings, of course, are slow, weak and uncoordinated. Professional athlets are freakishly muscled behemoths that somehow manage to move with inhuman precision in a way and at a speed that several hundred pounds of flesh have no right to do.

So, once a young athlete realizes that they are not that rare combination of brute force and finesse that makes a great athlete, he finds something in "The Real World" to do for a living.

The draw of competitive sports, however (which, as a decidedly athletically challenged individual, I never picked up and sometimes have trouble fully comprehending) sticks with them. This becomes obvious as they move on to later life.

It's especially obvious in college, where many of these former athletes are fresh out of that life. The stereotypes are pretty consistent: former basketball players who spend the vast majority of their life in athletic shorts and some form of t-shirt; football players who maintain a strict workout regimen aimed at preserving their tacklin' muscles (thoughts on weightlifting later); soccer players who, upon seeing a field, cannot resist the urge to run around barefoot and bounce things around with their feet.

This is in no way a condemnation. I'm a band nerd 3 years out of the much-beloved bandstand, and if marching bands were as popular as football teams, I'd be in exactly the same situation. In fact, I pretty much do exactly what my sports fan friends do during the game during a halftime show.

But that's exactly my point.

The only thing that seperates a sports fan from any other breed of nerd is their sphere of expertise. Especially when you look at those who have reached middle age, the average sports fan is hardly a paragon of physical fitness. They know players like music or art afficianados know great artists. They learn plays and formations like video gamers learn attack combos or RTS* strategies. And they memorize as many or more stats as a tabletop roleplayer.

*RTS: Real Time Strategy. A type of video game involving resource collection and unit command. Noob.

Am I saying this is bad? OF COURSE NOT. I'm only trying to say that it's ironic when sports fans look down on those who follow other activities with similar zeal.