There Are Illegalities and Illegalities

The recent attacks on Iran raise multiple concerns: strategic, political, and legal.  Curmie thinks the raids were stupid and sincerely hopes they’ll prove as disastrous for the Trump regime as they already have for the nation’s standing as a promoter of peace.  But what he really wants to talk about is that last item: were they legal?

There are two independent facets to that question.  The first is the one that’s been noised about by a good share of the left-leaning press: that Trump lacked Congressional approval and that the assault was therefore illegal.  Curmie thinks so, but there’s a little wiggle room.  It all boils down to what the War Powers Act actually was intended to do… and to what it says, which may be different things.  Neither Congress nor SCOTUS has seen fit to clarify the terms.

The obvious intent was to allow the President, as Commander-in-Chief, to respond to exigencies: imminent threats, that sort of thing.  The Trump administration can’t seem to get its story straight about what prompted this particular action, which is why Curmie is more than a little suspicious that these shenanigans aren’t entirely on the up-and-up.  Did we go along with this because Israel was going to do it, anyway, as Marco Rubio first argued?  Or was it something else, since he subsequently denied saying what he’s on tape saying?  Was it to stop Iran’s nuclear program, the one that was supposedly “obliterated” last year?  Or to respond to an Iranian threat that’s presumably been imminent for <checks notes> 47 years?  Curmie raises a skeptical eyebrow.

Whatever squishiness there might be in the wording of the War Powers Act, Curmie is pretty much convinced that yes, this was illegal.  The response from Trumpian apologists has been to accuse Democrats of hypocrisy because they were perfectly willing to allow President Obama to bomb Libya back in 2011, casually omitting the fact the two incidents are pretty much parallel: a POTUS of one party uses what may or may not be legitimate authority to execute a military mission, and the other party starts screaming about illegality, even unconstitutionality.  Are the Democrats being two-faced?  Of course they are!  Are the Republicans just as bad?  Yep.

But Curmie hears the GOP sycophants wondering “where was all this concern for restricting the power of the presidency in such cases when Obama was in office?”  Right here, is where.  Here’s the central paragraph of what Curmie wrote 15 years ago:

The administration’s case, one which ignored the objections of Jeh C. Johnson, the Pentagon general counsel, and of Caroline D. Krass, the acting head of the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel, is founded on three independent premises, none of which stand up to much scrutiny. The first is that an offensive mission involving drone attacks, sustained bombing, and occasional casualties doesn’t really constitute “hostilities.” The second is that, despite the fact that participation in a NATO-run, UN-sanctioned, mission to protect civilians has morphed into an aggressive attack on Colonel Qaddafi’s compound, the military and geo-political missions have not merged. The third is the apparent assertion that since the mission has taken longer than expected (and that’s never happened before, right?), we should really only be looking at how long the campaign was supposed to last. Add to that the extreme rarity of any White House over-riding the opinion of the Office of Legal Counsel, and the Obama administration has a mess on its hands… or perhaps on its shoes, because they’ve really stepped in something.

Moving on to the second part of the critique of present-day hostilities.  Let’s talk about bombing that elementary school in Minab, killing scores of little girls aged 7-12, which according to the best information we have, was perpetrated by American forces.  This is about as clear a violation of international law, not to mention common decency, as it’s possible to imagine.  It is unmistakably a war crime.  Yes, Gentle Reader, mistakes happen: “fog of war” and all that.  Bullshit.  At best, this was a manifestation of breathtaking recklessness and incompetence.  At worst, it was such an intentional infliction of pain and suffering on young girls that you’d think it was ordered by one of those pervs whose name keeps appearing in the Epstein files.  Oh… wait…

What’s the excuse?  Why aren’t the so-called journalists asking how such an atrocity can happen?  Were we just lobbing bombs into populated areas with no regard for what or who might be on the receiving end?  Was the reported death of Ayatollah Khameini therefore just blind luck?  After all, if you can target a particular area to attack, you can similarly identify a different area not to attack.  Or did some idiot like Pete Hegseth decide to demonstrate his manliness by asserting his absolute authority over a bunch of elementary schoolers.  They might have been in math class, learning about Arabic numerals, after all.  Another explanation is that this was a “precise targeting”: the school building used to be an Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) base, you see.  Ya might wanna check that shit out next time...

When the Chinese embassy in Belgrade was bombed by American forces in 1999, President Clinton apologized to the Chinese President Jiang Zemin promptly and profusely, claiming that the incident was accidental.  Given that there was no rational reason to attack the embassy, Clinton was probably telling the truth, even if the Chinese tried to spin the story to their geopolitical advantage.  There’s no reason to bomb an elementary school in Iran in 2026, either.  The difference between the events is two-fold.  First, Clinton, unlike Trump, was willing to admit to a mistake, and even to take responsibility for something that is extremely unlikely to have been under his direct control.  Secondly, whereas Bill Clinton is hardly an exemplar of truth-telling, his sanity has never been in question.

There are reports that Iran was negotiating with the US when the attacks occurred.  Perhaps that’s true; perhaps it’s leftie spin (or worse).  But there is no question that the logistics of the mission, from choosing targets to strategies for removing Americans from sites likely to be struck by the inevitable retaliation (“get on a commercial plane at your own expense at an airport that’s closed” isn’t terribly helpful advice), were an absolute disaster.  That’s what happens when you choose cabinet members based on sycophancy rather than relevant experience, intelligence, or… you know… competence.

We can hope that the Iranian people will soon be better off, that the military exercise will achieve its purported goal.  It’s not likely, given the history of other attempts at regime change, but it’s not impossible.  It is also possible that new evidence will emerge that will exonerate the US military, but there is something of the boy who cried “wolf” at play here.  What reasonably intelligent person would believe anything this administration says after its serial prevarications about ICE operations?  

Indeed, the two things that will linger in Curmie’s mind for a very long time indeed are the loss of any remaining remnant of American honor or integrity in international relations… and the nagging feeling that de facto Commander-in-Chief of the US military is Bibi Netanyahu.

“First, They Came for…”

Two facts about Curmie:

1. He lived in Kansas for seven years, working on his doctorate and staying on for another year when a full-time teaching gig didn’t materialize.  At the time, the state legislature was more conservative than Curmie would have preferred, but it wasn’t controlled by wackadoodles. 

2. He’s friends with (at least) six trans people, one of whom is also his nephew.  None of them, thankfully, live in Kansas.

Yes, it’s true that the lead story of the past few days is yet another reckless act by the Sociopath-in-Chief.  Were Curmie of a cynical disposition, he might suggest that killing little girls is a rather bizarre (and ineffective) means of trying to divert attention away from credible evidence that one has raped little girls.  But that was an act of desperation perpetrated by a single person (well, and his sycophantic minions) and whose victims committed the grievous ethical failing of being born in a different country.  What happened this week in Kansas was, in its own way, even worse.

No, there won’t be any Kansans buried under the rubble of their elementary school, but the level of bigotry disguised as piety and of quite intentional cruelty perpetrated for its own sake by the Kansas legislature is startling, even when compared to other examples of GOP malevolence towards their own constituents.  If you haven’t been following the story, Gentle Reader, Kansas Republicans overrode a gubernatorial veto and essentially disenfranchised trans voters, while causing the maximum amount of disruption in their lives in other ways, as well.  This was made easier for the bigots by circumventing the standard opportunity for the public to weigh in on an issue: a tactic called “gut and go,” by which the contents of a bill are “replaced” by, well, whatever the hell some jackass wants, thereby bypassing the public.  It’s now the “House Substitute for Senate Bill 244.”

A letter dated February 23 informed trans people that as of February 26, their state-issued driver’s licenses would no longer be valid because such identification, according to K.S.A. 77-207, must show the sex of the individual at birth.  Moreover, “the Legislature did not provide a grace period for updating credentials.  This means that once the law is officially enacted, your current credential will be invalid immediately, and you may be subject to additional penalties if you are operating a vehicle without a valid credential.”  Oh, bloody hell.

But wait!  That’s not all!  Recipients of that letter are “directed to surrender [their] current credential to the Kansas Division of Vehicles.”  A “new credential reflecting the gender identification consistent with statutory requirements” would then be issued.  OK, all this is annoying enough simply at face value.  But the real devil, and here Curmie really does mean the physical manifestation of evil, is in the details.

Where to begin?  First off, who cares whether that one letter on a license is an M or an F, since both are acceptable?  The best argument is that it helps identify the driver.  More than a photo does?  Anyway, the more important thing is that things change over time.  Curmie used to have a Kansas driver’s license.  It listed his hair color as brown and his weight at 155 pounds.  Both of those descriptions were accurate 30-something years ago when Curmie moved to Kansas.  Today, however, while there are still a few brown strands in there, the hair is grey (well, maybe “silver” if someone wanted to get on my good side) and the weight was about three inches of waist size ago.  More to the point, those things can change over just the duration of the license.  Other folks change their names: they get married or divorced, for example.  The world changes, except in what passes for a brain in a Republican pol, and we ought to try to keep up as best we can.

There are some areas in which reasonable people can disagree.  There are legitimate fairness arguments that trans women ought not to be playing women’s sports, for example.  Perhaps, although Curmie knows of not a single case in which a trans woman, or even someone pretending to be a trans woman, harassed cis women in a rest room, there’s a scintilla of honest, paranoia-free, argumentation in favor of bathroom bills.  (Needless to say, Curmie disagrees with that perspective, but at least there’s the potential for a rationale.)

But what the hell has “sex at birth” to do with ability to operate a car?  Men can drive; women can drive.  So can murderers, rapists, thieves… even (gasp!) “illegal aliens,” all legally.  Oh, and pedophiles, too; mustn’t forget them.  So even if being trans were to be regarded as unlawful (alas, there have been attempts, including in Curmie’s adopted state of Texas, to make it so), that shouldn’t prevent someone from having a driver’s license.  And there’s certainly nothing about being trans that translates (Curmie apologizes; he couldn’t resist) into being a danger on the road.  People who are, like those with multiple DUI convictions, can still have a driver’s license.  But trans folks who legally had their “M” changed to an “F” or vice versa: nope.

Oh, and if you’re trans, you need a new ID, even if your old one does show your sex at birth.  Andrea Ellis legally changed her name in December, then updated her driver’s license in January.  But, she “saw the writing on the wall after listening to [Attorney General] Kobach’s testimony for H.B. 2426” (the bill that would eventually morph into SB 244 and its demon spawn).  She therefore didn’t change the gender marker on her license, but got the same letter as other transgendered folks.  Yes, she had to change out her old license for one that was literally identical.  She’s trans, after all.

Then we add on the timing.  Apparently these letters were sent by mail no sooner than a Monday, and recipients had only until Wednesday to follow the dictates, as the law would go into effect on Thursday.  Of course, the morons on SCOTUS have decided that it’s OK for the postal service to intentionally not deliver mail, so that potentially complicates things even more.  Chances are very good that some people didn’t even know about what they were required to do until it was literally too late.  What if they were on vacation, for example?  

And then they were expected to turn in their old “credential.”  In person, of course, and you know damned well there will be no extended hours.  So that means taking time off work on short notice, finding a way to the office because you aren’t allowed to drive there, waiting in line, paying $46 (according to one source) for a new ID (poll tax, anyone?), and apparently waiting up to 45 days for a new license (N.B., Curmie isn’t completely convinced about the legitimacy of this claim), without which you’re not allowed to drive: not to work, not to the grocery store, not to visit a friend or relative in the hospital (or hospice), nowhere.

It is, of course, self-evident that new licenses could be created with considerably more alacrity than that—the technology exists to do so in no more than a few minutes—but the powers-that-be will slow-walk the process as much as they can, for no other reason than that, for them, cruelty is fun.  There is no rationality for this law, just bigotry and hatred.  Oh, and they’re handing out $1000 bounties for today’s variation on narcs, i.e., those who report folks they decide are peeing in the wrong restroom.  For a group that thinks “communists” (anyone to the left of Jesse Helms, in other words) are worse than, say, pedophiles, these asswipes sure do like to emulate the Stasi.

Well, actually, the disenfranchisement might be the rationale, as it obviously is for the SAVE Act: identify a group likely to oppose the Reich-wing zealots, and make it harder for them to vote.  That’s the argument raised by real-life Friend of Curmie Will Averill, in a Substack post that also suggests that GOP pols are particularly interested in “Bein’ Hicks and Checkin’ Dicks.”  Will doesn’t say this outright, but Curmie will: this obsession with examining specific body parts is perilously close to the prurient if not the perverse.  But that’s OK, you see, because they’re “protecting our women and children.”  <Sigh.>

There is no lack of posturing on this issue.  Lyft, for example hastened to the rescue, promising half-price rides… which are limited to $10 and expire early next week, long before there’s any reasonable solution.  That’s not help; that’s a scammy marketing campaign. 

The ACLU is filing suit on behalf of two transgendered Kansans, and it appears that there might be some other litigants, as well.  That’s a start, but the suit names only folks like the state Attorney General and Director of Vehicles, not the legislators who are directly responsible for this travesty.  Curmie’s no lawyer, so maybe that’s the appropriate tack, but it still seems insufficient.

Curmie is not, as a rule, given to “thin edge of the wedge” arguments, but with various federal agencies not merely admitting, but bragging about, compiling files on, say, people photographing ICE abuses with the goal of labeling such folks as domestic terrorists, the thought that one violation of Constitutional rights might lead to another becomes foregrounded.  And that famous passage by Martin Niemöller referenced in the title of this piece floats to the surface.

One thing is clear.  Even if we were to buy the spurious argument that trans women in particular are just pretending to be something they’re not, such a subterfuge would pale in qualitative significance in comparison to these… erm… individuals of Oedipal predilections masquerading as Christians.  Curmie has pondered whether every single pol who voted for this heinous bill should, in a just universe, be horse-whipped or sent to the stocks for a week to be pelted with rotten vegetables. 

¿Por Qué No Los Dos?

About Those Gold Medal Hockey Teams...

The image Curmie prefers to remember

On February 22, 1980, Curmie sat in front of his TV, watching the “Miracle on Ice” hockey game, in which a bunch of American college kids defeated the mighty, seemingly invincible, USSR team by the score of 4-3.  There weren’t a lot of other people in the small Kentucky town where he lived at the time who knew a blue line from a cross-check; even fewer had ever watched a game live.  But within minutes after the conclusion of that telecast, there were dozens of people, mostly but not exclusively teen-agers, driving around town blowing their horns and hanging out of car windows, chanting “U-S-A!  U-S-A!  U-S-A!” with enough gusto that they weren’t just audible, but loud, in Curmie’s second-floor apartment.

It was a moment that those who watched that game (and its aftermath) will never forget.  It was a time of malaise, to coin a phrase.  The nation was still recovering from the energy crisis, the “misery index” (unemployment rate plus inflation rate) was over 20%, and the Iran Hostage Crisis was well into its fourth month.  We, collectively, needed some good news.

Not only that, but this was not merely Good vs. Evil, but also David vs. Goliath.  And a couple of guys named Jim Craig and Mike Eruzione brought their slingshots.  There has never been, before or since, a sporting event that so galvanized the nation.  (Curmie mentioned some other contenders a little over a year ago, but none of them can really compare.)

46 years to the day after the Miracle on Ice, the US men’s hockey team finally won another gold medal.  The circumstances were different.  The opponents, though probably a slight favorite even though playing without their injured captain, were hardly regarded as unbeatable, and the country they represented was our rival in sports but (at least prior to the reign of the Mad King of Trumpistan) our ally in everything else.  The US team was no longer a ragtag collection of college kids, but an all-star team of extremely highly-paid professionals (more on this in a moment).  So this was hardly a reprise of 1980; it was just another gold medal for the US… sorta like the one the US women’s hockey team had won a few nights earlier.

Indeed, the men’s and women’s tournaments were strikingly similar: the US defeated Canada 2-1 in overtime in the gold medal game behind stellar goaltending by Connor Hellebuyck and Aerin Frankel.  There were some differences, too.  The US women were clear favorites in their game, having dominated the tournament, outscoring their opponents 31-1 prior to the final, including a 5-0 rout of Canada in a round-robin game.  The men escaped their quarter-final game with an overtime win against Sweden.  But the women neared the end of regulation in the final behind because of a short-handed goal by Canada early in the 2nd period.  The US pulled their goalie to have a 6-5 skaters advantage, leaving an empty net, with about two and a half minutes left.  It worked, as Hilary Knight tipped in a shot from Laila Edwards to secure overtime with barely two minutes remaining.  Megan Keller took it from there to win the gold.

Both the men and women succeeded in making that commercial about how “for two weeks, we’re all on the same team” pretty much true.  Then, Kash Patel and Donald Trump went out of their way to break those bonds, and, alas, a number of players on the men’s team seem to have colluded with them.

The US women, who have won a medal—3 gold, 4 silver, and a bronze—at every Olympics since their sport was first included in Nagano in 1998, celebrated, accepted their gold medals, posed briefly for a photo, and that was it, except for a few interviews.  Curmie’s only regret was that in watching the awards ceremony, he missed seeing Alysa Liu’s free skate live.  He’ll survive.

The men, of course, had a different path.  Part of this was their own choosing; part was at least partially out of their control.  Their post-game celebration included parading the jersey of Johnny Gaudreau around the ice.  Gaudreau would have been their teammate had he not been killed in a car/bicycle accident a little under two years ago.  The team had hung his jersey in the locker room throughout the tournament as a commemoration/inspiration.

But then things got weird.  A couple of players skated over to the stands and collected Gaudreau’s young children, who were included in a couple of team photos, along with their dad’s jersey.  Curmie thought this was a bridge too far, and he wondered what Gaudreau’s widow really (as opposed to publicly) thought about seeing her kids used as props for a maudlin display of virtue signaling. 

Infomercial time: But wait!  That’s not all!  The scene now shifts to the locker room.  (Hats off to whoever took the video and sent it to ProPublica.)  There’s Kash Patel, who, rather than doing his job (although the country may be better off when he’s otherwise engaged) is partying with the team, apparently on the public’s dime.  And he calls Dear Leader, who offers to send “a military plane or something” to bring the team back to attend the State of the Union address.  He then, in what might be an attempt at humor from one of the most humorless people in history, says, jokingly (?), “And we have to—I must tell you—we’re going to have to bring the women’s team, you do know that.”  

Perhaps actually believing Trump had said something funny, perhaps just picking up his tone, perhaps just trying to humor him, the players laughed.  One guy tried to get a “Two for two!” chant going, but it went nowhere.  Then Trump added, “I do believe I probably would be impeached [if I didn’t].”  Big yucks all around.  Sigh.

There are no surprises here.  We already knew that Patel is a grifter and that Trump, who congratulated precisely zero other US gold medalists, is a sexist asshole incapable of even attempting a joke that isn’t intended to be insulting, or of uttering a complete paragraph without ultimately making it about himself.  We knew, too, although we might not have been thinking about it, that if we were looking for an audience likely to respond favorably to the Mad King of Trumpistan, we couldn’t do a lot better than a gaggle of exclusively white male multi-millionaires who attended college primarily for reasons completely independent of intellectual pursuits. 

By way of comparison: the average salary in the NHL is just a little under $3.5 million a year, not counting additional income from personal appearances, promotional work, and so on.  If Curmie had made his final salary, as a tenured full professor with a PhD and decades of teaching experience, for his entire 45 year career, he wouldn’t have made that much.  And the players on the national team, of course, are stars, so their salaries are commensurately higher.  A number of the members of the women’s team, by contrast, are still in college, reminiscent of those 1980 men’s gold medalists.  The rest play in the Professional Women’s Hockey League, where the salary cap for an entire team is $1.3 million.  Curmie is not going to get involved in a debate about whether that discrepancy is appropriate or not (see his commentary about that phenomenon in soccer for some of the variables involved), but he does note its existence.

Anyway, the women’s team promptly declined the invitation, and they fool no one with their “other obligations” shtick.  They were offended by POTUS’s glib put-down, and they responded with a polite but transparent monodigital salute.  Trump proclaimed in the SOTU that they’ll be visiting the White House soon.  Yeah, maybe.  We shall see.  Anyway, was the women’s response appropriate?  Absolutely.  A lot of the commentary from other sources, especially the stuff strongly critical of the men’s team as opposed to POTUS, may have been a little overblown, but it was at least understandable.

What about the men’s team?  Curmie can’t get too upset with anyone who gets to attend the SOTU and get a White House tour.  He’d probably have turned down an invitation from Dear Leader, but almost certainly would have accepted one from literally any other POTUS, including those he voted against.  (They’re a lot less likely to have dissed my friends, for one thing.)  We know that many if not all of the men’s players were cheering on the women in their gold medal game and indeed in some before that.  It’s hard to muster a lot of anger at someone celebrating a big victory and not choosing to spoil the moment by making a scene.  And, of course, five members of the men’s team—coincidentally (?) four of them are from Minnesota—also declined the invitation.  But, to quote The Athletic’s headline, “The U.S. men’s Olympic hockey team won gold — and then lost the room.”

Curmie will still pump his fist and shout “Yes!” when the men’s team scores in future contests, but this year’s gold medal in men’s hockey is relegated to maybe tenth place in the list of personal favorite Olympic moments: well behind the victories of a host of American women, including but not limited to Alysa Liu, Mikaela Shiffrin, Elana Meyers Taylor, and (of course) the hockey team.  Not just the Americans, though.  Johannes Høsflot Klæbo is unquestionably the greatest of all time at his sport, for example.  And, of course, there was Nazgul.

Alas, there’s one more thing.  Again, we have long since known that narcissism and boorishness continue their death struggle to be Dear Leader’s defining characteristic.  So now there’s a new video.  Watch it at your own risk, Gentle Reader, but Curmie strongly advises that you not do so shortly after eating.

Ice Dancing and the Inevitability of Discontent

Yeah, it’s another single-topic Olympics post.  Forgive me, Gentle Reader.  There may or may not be a combo post about the Olympics in the next few days.  We shall see.

Curmie’s lack of interest in what he regards as trash sports, or, rather, non-sports, i.e., those decided by necessarily subjective judges rather than by points or times or some other objective criteria, has been well-documented.  Traditionally, Winter Olympics events were largely objective: hockey, skiing (both Alpine and cross-country), curling, speed skating, luge, bobsled, biathlon, etc.  But even before the more recent proliferation of judged events on skis or snowboard, there was figure skating.  This discipline, alongside gymnastics in the Summer Olympics, stands as the most prominent pseudo-sport on record.  Be it noted: Curmie does not in any way demean figure skating or its practitioners; he just thinks that, like ballet, which also requires considerable athleticism,  it’s more of an art than a sport.  (Curmie, who has contributed in one way or another to well over 200 theatre productions, is unlikely to use any variation on the word “art” as an insult.)

The problem with competitions conducted in these terms is two-fold.  First, we’re not merely comparing the proverbial apples to oranges; we’re comparing the apples’ apple-ness to the oranges’ orange-ness.  In Curmie’s field, that means comparing one actor’s Macbeth to another’s Hamlet, or even to another’s Tartuffe… or his Rufus T. Firefly, for that matter.  There’s a reason Curmie cares little about the Tonys, Oscars, etc., unless a nominee is a personal friend.  (That has happened, but, needless to say, not very often.)

More importantly, at least in terms of the present discussion, is the fact that judges will disagree.  Fans of Team X will always argue that Team Y gets all the breaks on close calls.  It’s also true that sometimes referees or umpires or whatever they’re called in a particular sport just get something objectively wrong.  That was one of the problems in the women’s floor exercise debacle in Paris two years ago.  But some events are particularly susceptible to differences of opinion.  Figure skating is certainly near the top of that list, and ice dancing is the most subjective of the figure skating events, as there are fewer required elements.  It is completely reasonable that one judge might privilege athleticism, another technical mastery, another the difficulty of the routine, yet another grace or coordination with the music.

But there are two more serious problems, in that they affect the legitimacy of the “sport.”  One has bothered Curmie for decades: the fact, and it is a fact, that judges tend to give higher scores to the athletes who are supposed to win, irrespective of whether they deserve it.  We saw a variation on that phenomenon in the women’s slopestyle finals this year.  The gold medalist did significantly easier tricks than either the silver or bronze medalist, and her execution, if it was any better than her competitors’, was barely so.  One of the announcers for USA (the network, not the country) declared the judging “abysmal.”  Ah, but the winner was the defending Olympic champion, so of course she was wonderful this time, too, right?  

The ice dancing competition this year serves as another example.  The order of performance by the finalists is determined by their standing after the short program.  The first to go are the lowest-ranking finalists; the last are the leaders.  With one exception, a pair whose fairly significant errors were obvious even to a novice spectator like Curmie, every team moved into first place.  As far as Curmie was concerned, a number of the later teams weren’t even close to as good as earlier pairs had been.  But the order after the short program remained unchanged except for that one team that made obvious mistakes.

More importantly, of course, the French team that led after the short program held on for gold despite some pretty clear errors (like the lack of synchronization seen in the photo above).  But whereas the slopestyle competition mentioned earlier may have been judged… erm… whimsically, there was no hint of nationalistic impropriety.  One of the skiers whom just about everybody agreed should have been placed above the winner was from the same country, Japan.  The other was from New Zealand, and it was she, not the American who finished just off the podium, that the USA announcers (and Curmie) thought had been slighted.

But Curmie is old enough to remember the jokes about “and the Russian [or East German] judge gives it a…”  Soviet bloc countries cheated every way they could.  Some Eastern European athletes, like Nadia Comăneci in gymnastics or Katarina Witt in figure skating, were clearly the best of their respective sports.  But others, to be polite, were not.  That doesn’t mean that they didn’t get unreasonably  high scores from judges from other Communist countries (or that Western athletes didn’t get lower scores than they deserved from those same judges).

And now we just might be experiencing a little déjà vu: a particularly apt term, since the perpetrator is, well, French.  OK, OK, alleged perpetrator.  After the short program in ice dancing the French team of Laurence Fournier Beaudry and Guillaume Cizeron held a narrow lead over Americans Madison Chock and Evan Bates.  In the final free skate, French judge Jézabel Dabouis gave her country’s pair 7.71 more points than their American rivals despite some errors.  The US team received a lower score from Dabouis than from any other judge, more than five points below the average.  She also gave the French pair a score nearly three points higher than the average score. 

That sure seems suspicious, and there were allegations of similar partisanship from her at earlier events.  It’s been over a half century since Curmie took the one freshman-level statistics course of his collegiate career, and he’s forgotten more than a little of what he learned then.  He’s therefore not in position to endorse or undermine the accuracy (or relevance) of SBNation’s James Dator assertion that “Not only did she judge the French pair 6.45 points higher than the mean, but she undervalued Chock/Bates by -7.19 [this apparently includes the short program]— giving us a +13.64 delta favoring France over USA in the final score. This represents a staggering 6.37 standard deviation z-score difference across the event.”  Dator concludes that “there is no doubt that the scoring of Dabois [sic.] was the key differentiator in deciding who won the event.”

Well, maybe.  In ice dancing, as in a number of other sports (competitive diving is the first to come to mind), the high and low scores are omitted from the final calculation.  In other words, Dabouis’s under-scoring of the Americans on the free skate had only an indirect effect on the rankings: the lowest other score was counted, and it wouldn’t have been had Dabouis scored them at or near the median.  Dabouis’s score for Beaudry and Cizeron did count, but that’s because the Czech judge scored them higher than Dabouis did, meaning her score wasn’t completely out of line.  The highest score for Chock and Bates came from the American judge, and three of the seven judges from other than the US or France had the French pair ahead.  It was very close, in other words.  Beaudry claims their routine was more technically demanding.  Perhaps it was; Curmie’s not the guy you want making that decision.

The  powers-that-be supported the judges’ decision, which of course would have been the case no matter how egregious the ethical violation might have been.  The International Skating Union issued a statement asserting that “It is normal for there to be a range of scores given by different judges in any panel and a number of mechanisms are used to mitigate these variations.”  The ISU claimed it has “full confidence in the scores given and remains completely committed to fairness.”  Uh huh.

But there’s one more thing.  Allow Curmie to quote two of the competitors.  One said, “I see some strange games being played that are destroying ice dance…. I don't think I’ve ever been to a competition like this in my career, from a judging standpoint.”  Another said, “Any time the public is confused by results, it does a disservice to our sport. I think it’s hard to retain fans when it's difficult to understand what is happening on the ice.  People need to understand what they’re cheering for and be able to feel confident in the sport that they’re supporting.”

Destroying the sport?  A disservice to the sport?  Those are pretty serious charges, especially coming from top competitors.  OK, Gentle Reader, wanna guess who said what?  The latter is Madison Chock after receiving silver instead of gold in Milan.  The former?  Guillaume Cizeron, after the rhythm dance at a Grand Prix event in Finland in November.  Indeed, at least one member of four teams (at least), including all three on the podium in Milan, has criticized the ISU and judging, just in the last few months.  True, there’s no doubt a little egotism at play, but it sure does look like there’s a real problem that the ISU doesn’t seem terribly interested in acknowledging, much less fixing.

There’s a suggestion that AI could be used to “judge” the technical elements, leaving human judges for the more artistic stuff, but that’s definitely creepy and almost certainly ineffective.  Not allowing judges from any country with a competitor sounds good in theory, but even if that were to apply only to the finalists, we’d still be wiping out the input of the dozen or so nations who best understand the sport.  It would be possible, presumably, to disallow a judge to vote on someone from their own country.  There could be ten judges, with one of them as an “alternate” who would vote only if one of the other nine was from the same country as a competitor.  Or maybe disallowing the top and bottom two votes instead of one.  Or…

The problem is that unless something is done, the appearance of impropriety will always overshadow honest disagreements.  The events Curmie considers trash sports aren’t going anywhere: they’re too popular amongst people who aren’t really sports fans and just want to watch some flashy showmanship every four years.  Looked at as an exhibition of prowess, a variation on Cirque du Soleil (or the Olympic opening and closing ceremonies), this is great stuff.  But if ice dancing in particular wants to be regarded as anything even resembling an honest competition, it needs to get its house in order.  Soon.

The IOC Is Hypocritical, Craven, and Inept. Also, Water Is Wet.

Curmie initially intended to write about this year’s Winter Olympics in general.  He may do that down the road, but right now there’s one story that deserves its own post.  Skeleton slider Vladyslav Heraskevych was barred from competition because he insisted on wearing a helmet honoring his fellow Ukrainian athletes killed in the conflict with Russia in his homeland. 

You can see a photo of the offending headgear at the top of this page, Gentle Reader.  There’s nothing particularly controversial there, as far as Curmie is concerned.  There’s no text, and it’s not like there’s a photo of Vladimir Putin with a target on his forehead.  It’s a memorial, full stop.

But, you see, the organization that won’t allow athletes from Russia or Belarus to compete under their country’s banner doesn’t allow political expression.  Yeah, that makes sense.  ☹ The London Olympics in the summer of 2012 included a recognition of those killed in the 7/7 bombings in 2005, as well as a reminder of the Blitz.  The fact that NBC couldn’t be bothered to cover that part of the opening ceremony doesn’t change the fact that it happened.  Such expressions are indeed commonplace.

Of course, the majority of the headlines are about how Heraskevych “violated the rules” or some such nonsense.  That’s because journalism is dead.  The alleged transgression is of rule 50.2 of the Olympic Charter, which states that “no kind of demonstration or political, religious or racial propaganda is permitted in any Olympic sites, venues or other areas.”  There’s a men’s figure skater who, according to NBC talking head Ashley Wagner “becomes the Pope” at the end of his long program.  That’s not “propaganda,” but a helmet with a couple of photos of countrymen and -women is?  Give me a damned break.  Indeed, an over-zealous interpretation of the rule would prevent an athlete from wearing a cross or a Star of David to breakfast in the Olympic village.  Even the IOC isn’t that stupid, but it’s what the charter could be contorted into meaning.

The story is that the International Olympic Committee remains the quintessence of hypocritical waffling.  IOC President Kirsty Coventry’s statement is especially absurd: “It’s not about the messaging. It’s literally about the rules and the regulations and that, in this case, the field of play, we have to be able to keep a safe environment for everyone and sadly, that just means no messaging is allowed.”  Curmie awaits any rational argument that Heraskevych’s helmet affects the safety of literally anyone.  This expansion of the definition of safety is, alas, endemic, but that doesn’t make it reasonable.

It goes without saying that Ukrainians are virtually unanimous in support for Heraskevych.  Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s post on X is worth reading in its entirety, but he insists that “No rule has been broken,” and concludes his tweet (are they still called that?) with this: “We are proud of Vladyslav and of what he did. Having courage is worth more than any medal.”  Zelenskyy subsequently awarded Heraskevych their country’s highest civilian honor, the Order of Freedom.  (That link also includes the names of the 22 Ukrainian athletes memorialized on Heraskevych’s helmet.)

Of course, there’s a fair amount of posturing involved here.  Heraskevych wasn’t regarded as a medal contender, but now he’s one of the most talked-about athletes to have travelled to northern Italy of late.  Could he have accepted the “compromise” of wearing a black armband or something along those lines?  Sure.  But in refusing to compromise, he got a lot more attention.  Curmie has no idea whether Heraskevych’s intransigence was a function of integrity or publicity-seeking.  Either way, the IOC got clobbered by the Streisand Effect.  In attempting to suppress discussion of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, they called a lot more attention to it.  What would have been at most an isolated mini-protest by a single athlete became the stuff of international headlines.  Ukraine is appealing to the Court of Arbitration for Sport, and the Latvian coach is appealing the decision to the International Bobsleigh and Skeleton Federation.

Still, the emotion displayed by Coventry in discussing her unsuccessful attempt at talking Heraskevych down caught Curmie’s attention.  It’s unlikely that she’s an idiot… which means that we should pay attention when she says “No one, especially me, is disagreeing with the messaging; it’s a powerful message, it’s a message of remembrance, a message of memory, and no one is disagreeing with that.”  That seems to be very close indeed to an admission that there’s nothing really problematic about that helmet.  And that would mean that perhaps Coventry isn’t all that unhappy about all the publicity, even if it seems to put the IOC in a negative light… it might just be worth it.

Curmie doesn’t necessarily believe that, but even he can dream.

Well, One of Them Is Excusable

<Sigh.>

Curmie, as you might well imagine, Gentle Reader, sees a lot of political cartoons, memes, and brief commentary from (generally) like-minded folks.  Every once in a while, he sees something so absurd on its face that it couldn’t possibly be true.  Alas, it turns out to be true more often the not.  Curmie, however, is skeptical by nature, and he really does try to avoid re-posting stuff that isn’t true. 

This week, there were two stories that caught Curmie’s eye in this regard: an alleged quotation from Ted Cruz and a video supposedly posted to Donald Trump’s Truth Social account.  Both were in the “this couldn’t be true… could it?” category.  Well, they were both true.  Sort of. 

Let’s start there, with Senator Cruz’s line that we should “stop attacking pedophiles.”  Did he really say that?  Yes, he did.  But it’s clear that, unlike the host of politicians who get busted for saying something outrageous or an outright lie, the “he misspoke” follow-up really is true.  His spokesperson is absolutely justified in saying that Cruz was “rattling off a series of crimes we should unite in opposing, started a sentence about opposing pedophilia, and added a stray word while talking it out.”

This is the kind of thing that happens when speaking off the cuff.  Anyone who spends a lot of time talking is going to screw up, and might not even be aware of it.  Curmie is pretty certain he did that several times over the course of his career; it’s just that his students and colleagues were kind enough to know what he meant and to let it go at that.  And Barack Obama doesn’t really think there are 57 states. 

Even when there’s enough time to think, these mistakes can happen.  There’s a Modelo beer commercial that assures listeners that they are “not to be reckoned with.”  They mean “not to be trifled with,” but that’s the opposite of what they say.  A few years ago, Curmie’s hometown didn’t get any appreciable rain for several weeks.  The city (or the county, or whoever) posted a bunch of signs about “drought protection.”  One suspects they weren’t actually trying to protect the drought.  See?  This stuff happens.

Look, Curmie is no fan of Ted Cruz.  The guy is a liar, a coward, and possessed of less integrity than even a run-of-the-mill partisan hack like his fellow Texas Senator, John Cornyn.  But that’s really sort of the point: give him a day or two, and he’ll say or do something that really is worth of derision, and “our side” can be a little less disingenuous.  Things get complicated by the fact that in one sense Cruz is indeed protecting pedophiles, but it’s by more by craven inaction than by clear intentionality.  He’ll never not be an asshole, but he’s pretty much innocent this time, and we need to respond accordingly.

On the other hand, there’s that video posted to Dear Leader’s Truth Social page that includes an image of Barack and Michelle Obama’s faces superimposed onto the bodies of apes.  Needless to say, the cries of “racism” were prompt and loud.  And they came from virtually everywhere.  Sure, Democrats were at the forefront and the criticism.  Chuck Schumer, Nancy Pelosi, and Hakeem Jeffries all weighed in.  But, unsurprisingly, it was firebrand Jasmine Crockett who pretty much led the charge: “Most of us already know who Donald Trump is. We already know there are no bounds to how low he’s willing to go. We know that he has no moral compass. We know that he is a disgrace. So while his behavior is not shocking, it is certainly disgusting and disturbing.”  That is not a subtle commentary.

That said, a lot of GOP pols weren’t far behind.  Representative Mike Turner (OH) wrote that “the release of racist images of former President Barack and First Lady Michelle Obama is offensive, heart breaking, and unacceptable. President Trump should apologize.”  Expressing similar sentiments were Senators Susan Collins (ME), John Curtis (UT), Pete Ricketts (NE), Tim Scott (SC), and Roger Wicker (MS), and Representative Mike Lawler (NY), among others, no doubt.

And it’s only fair to mention: last time out Curmie lamented Ethics Alarms’ Jack Marshall’s started allowing “excuses for inexcusable conduct by Dear Leader and his minions [to become] a significant part of the mix.”  But he writes “I regard that as about a half-step, maybe less, from the President calling the former First Couple ‘niggers,’ and subsequently adds that “this ugly episode fairly earns shame and criticism for the President, regardless of how it came about.” 

That last part is relevant.  The White House initially tried to pass the incident off as unworthy of consideration, and the response as “fake outrage.”  That strategy backfired, although J.D. Vance is still trying.  Their focus then shifted to placing the blame on… wait for it… an anonymous “staffer.”  Sigh.  Dear Leader sees no reason to apologize because, you see, he did nothing wrong.

Unfortunately, even if we believe what has now become the official line, things look bad.  First off, the best that can be said is that someone so stupid that they didn’t realize the racist overtones to the post was granted permission to post in POTUS’s name.  You know, that guy who hires only the best people.  The alternative is that the racism was intentional.  That’s certainly a possibility, especially given the comments by Lara Trump, who is trying to be as vile a creature as her father-in-law: “It's kinda like any good joke is rooted in truth.”  Ew.

Someone made that video, and, best case scenario, thought it relevant to… well… anything.  The full video shows Dear Leader as a lion, the king of the jungle, to whom a gaggle of leading Democrats as other animals ultimately bow down to him.  Frankly, it’s a stupid shtick, but its sycophancy is no doubt celebrated throughout Trumpistan.  But if it’s indeed supposed to be based on The Lion King, then it’s worth noting that there are no simians in that play or film.  The choice of apes for the Obamas, then, adds credence to the allegations of intentional racism.

The beginning of the reel is a standard whine about “stolen elections,” Trumpistan’s term for “it was completely fair, but our guy didn’t win.”  It then auto-advanced into the Lion King nonsense.  Curmie doesn’t know how that could happen accidentally, but he’s enough of a technological troglodyte that his ignorance doesn’t necessarily mean anything.  Perhaps there really is a perfectly innocent explanation.

But what if the worst we can say about the video is that it’s kinda dumb?  Now it becomes a variation on the familiar trope of the cover-up being worse than the crime.  All that needed to happen was a prompt removal, and a statement that the offending staffer has been fired.  People might still be suspicious, but the situation is reduced to the proverbial tempest in a teapot.  Of course, both transparency and admitting anything are verboten in Trumpistan.  So we get disingenuous commentary from the Usual Suspects.  They’re almost as incompetent as they are dishonest.  Alas.

On the Reactions to "Melania"

One, but hardly the only, response

Curmie, once a not infrequent guest columnist on Jack Marshall’s Ethics Alarms page, hasn’t posted as much as a comment there in over a year.  He does drop by occasionally to see if it has reverted to its titular ethics orientation instead of its more recent manifestation as a right-wing propaganda outlet.  It has not, alas.  To be sure, even when Curmie was a frequent contributor, his views on gun control (quite similar to those of Ronald Reagan, by the way) were described as “un-American,” and his position on abortion (pretty much that of every Protestant or Jewish denomination prior to the ‘80s) “unethical.”  This is standard partisan blather, and Curmie freely admits to indulging in the same tactics from time to time.  (He doesn’t pretend to be an ethicist, however.)

Anyway, Curmie once found it fairly easy just to disengage from that stuff, mostly because it represented only a smallish fraction of what Jack posted.  But when the “Democrats hate America” bullshit started to become the subject of the overwhelming majority of the output, and when excuses for inexcusable conduct by Dear Leader and his minions became a significant part of the mix, Curmie just couldn’t take it anymore.  The cadre of sycophantic commenters, most of whom hadn’t ever said anything positive about anyone to the left of Louis XIV, just made things worse.  Curmie bailed, thereby making what had already become an echo chamber into even more of one.  If any EA readers find their way to this page, he apologizes for that part.

Anyway, as noted above, Curmie does drop by EA occasionally, especially if, as was the case in the suppression of that high school production of The Crucible last spring, it’s a topic about which Jack’s perspective would be at least interesting if not indeed enlightening.  There was no such specific impulse a couple of days ago, but Curmie did find a piece about the very different Rotten Tomatoes rankings of “Melania,” the documentary about FLOTUS’s preparations for the second inaugural.  The screengrab Jack posted showed a 6% “tomatometer” ranking, but a 98% “popcornmeter” rating.  The former is the percentage of professional critics who gave the film a 3.5 out of 5 or better; the latter is from the general public.  As of this writing, there’s even more distance between the two scores: 5% vs. 99%.  Here’s that link, Gentle Reader; of course those numbers may have changed again between Curmie’s writing and your visiting the site. 

Imdb.com, in case you’re wondering, has the film at 1.3 out of 10, a level of negativity surpassed, as far as Curmie can remember, only by the 1.2 for the “Queen Cleopatra” series on Netflix that Curmie wrote about in the spring of 2023.

OK, that’s a tremendous spread.  Curmie can’t comment about the film itself, as he has not seen it, nor does he have any intention of ever doing so.  Curmie’s interest in watching a documentary is largely determined by his interest in the subject.  If his interest level is 10 out of 10, he’ll probably watch even if the film gets bad reviews; if it’s below 5, it’s going to take someone whose opinion Curmie really trusts saying, “No, really, this movie is really good” to even consider it.  Perhaps now would be a good time to say that it’s doubtful that Curmie will watch a different FLOTUS’s film, Michele Obama’s “Becoming,” either.  It’s been out since 2020 and is currently on Netflix, meaning it’s de facto free for Curmie and Beloved Spouse to watch should we be of a mind to do so.  And it’s got significantly better ratings from the critics (93%); the 78% “popcornmeter” rating looks pretty comparable to the 7.1 on imdb.  But it’s still pretty unlikely that we’ll watch.

Note that whereas the general public who voted on Rotten Tomatoes and those who voted on imdb pretty much agree on “Becoming,” they couldn’t be much further apart on “Melania.”  There’s not a whole lot above a 99% on the former or below a 1.3 on the latter.  Does this mean that the Woke Folk head to imdb and the MAGAs to Rotten Tomatoes?  Probably, at least to some degree.  Is it possible that one group or the other (or both) bombarded one of those sites with votes from people who hadn’t seen the film, or even from bots programmed to skew the results?  Of course.

But let’s look at Jack Marshall’s comments.  He notes that the opening weekend attracted a larger audience than expected (or at least than was expected after early predictions were revised downwards); it was indeed one of the biggest opening weekends for any documentary in a long time.  He doesn’t mention the $35 million marketing budget, which… erm… might well have been a factor.  He does admit that “There is always a chance that the popular reviews were rigged by MAGA zealots,” and that “The divide does not mean that the critics are wrong.”  He then proceeds to declare that “movie critics tend to be members of the progressive bubble, and are probably incapable of watching anything connected to President Trump objectively,” and that “the split also shows incompetent and irresponsible critics.”  Wait… what?

Curmie used to do some theatre criticism and even reviewed a couple of films.  It was never his job to predict what the reader would like or dislike, but to state as clearly as possible what he thought worked… or didn’t.  If a film is bad, it’s bad, and it’s the critic’s job to say so.  Ooh… but you shouldn’t do that if you’re a liberal and the movie you’re reviewing is both politically conservative and crap.  Leni Riefenstahl and Sergei Eisenstein both made excellent films, even if they were exercises in propaganda.  It appears that Brett Ratner doesn’t belong in their company.  Of course, it’s unlikely that Curmie will even know for sure.

More to the point: who is going to any opening weekend?  Professional critics… and fans.  Curmie admits that he’d never heard of Cinemascore prior to doing a little research for this post.  Those folks gave “Melania” an “A.” But then you look at their methodology, which seems to rely exclusively on interviews with the opening night audience.  It’s human nature to like things you agree with.  You’re a lot more likely to say this movie was really good if you’re a fan of FLOTUS (or her hubby) than if you think she’s a dim-witted, vulgar, bimbo.  Curmie remembers when, back in the days Netflix had customers rate movies on a scale of 1 to 5, he gave a 4 to a documentary on Václav Havel, not because it was a good film (it deserved a 2 as a film), but because he was a huge fan of Havel and hoped Netflix would suggest more movies about him or similar topics.  That kind of response is completely understandable.

The people who went to see “Melania” on the opening weekend wanted to see that film because of its topic.  It’s difficult to say much more than that.  Imdb has a note that their “rating mechanism has detected unusual voting activity on this title.”  Ya think?  The rating distribution is pretty much an inverse bell curve, or rather it would be if the 10s were anywhere near as plentiful as the 1s.  Virtually no one gives the film a 4 or 5, and damned few opt for 2-3 or 6-9.  Concluding that most moviegoers responded more politically than aesthetically seems pretty reasonable.  It’s not completely out of line to suggest that at least some critics did the same, but it’s a lot less certain.

What hasn’t been mentioned is what all this ought to be telling us.  Curmie doubts that there has ever been a film about which what critics or voters on one of those websites say means less than this one.  No critic is going to dissuade a faithful MAGA from going; no outpouring of positive sentiment is going to convince a leftie of the film’s qualities.  The reaction to this film, like “life” in one of the most famous speeches in Macbeth, is “but a walking shadow, a poor player, / That struts and frets his hour upon the stage, / And then is heard no more.  It is a tale / Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, / Signifying nothing.”

This Time for Sure!

To quote the great 20th-century philosopher Bullwinkle J. Moose, “This time for sure!”  Curmie really is going to write about something that not only isn’t about ICE, it isn’t even about the 47 Regime at all!

As regular readers of this blog know, Curmie is a retired theatre professor.  He is virtually certain that he’ll never return to the classroom except, perhaps, as a one-day guest.  He’s no longer a member of any professional organization except one specifically linked to his PhD alma mater; he has three writing projects started, but he’s lost momentum on all of them, and it’s considerably more likely that none of them will ever be finished than that more than one will.  But there is one area of the job where he’s still rather active.  Five former students in the last couple of months have asked him to be a reference for them.  Four are applying to grad schools; one is looking for jobs as a teacher.  We’ll just call her “SA,” as Curmie doesn’t want to hurt her job prospects just because he can be an asshole from time to time.

It’s SA’s case that spurs this post.  Over the years, Curmie has discerned a rather disturbing phenomenon.  Whereas virtually every grad school or theatre company that has taken a serious interest in a student who’s listed him as a reference has made contact one way or another, public schools in Texas (at least) pretty much don’t care.  Curmie has lost count of how many former students have applied for jobs teaching theatre in a high school or junior high; it’s in the dozens, at least.  Most of these folks got a job; that’s the good news.  The number of schools that contacted Curmie at all totals perhaps 15% of that number.  Perhaps other references were so positive that the mere fact that Curmie agreed to be a reference was enough.  More likely, administrators just couldn’t be bothered to do their jobs.  It’s reasonable not to bother to check references if a candidate clearly isn’t going to make the cut.  But it’s unconscionable not to do so before hiring someone as a teacher.

One of the students for whom Curmie wasn’t a reference was what we call a “paper major,” i.e., someone who takes all the required classes for a Theatre major, but works on shows only to the extent specifically required by coursework: no auditioning, no volunteering for crews, none of that kind of stuff that might actually provide relevant experience.  She got a job as a technical director for a high school, because the person you want to show other people how to work a counterweight system or use power tools is someone who’s pretty much never done it herself.  ☹ Oh, but she went to that high school, so that’s OK, then.

But whereas those schools that don’t even bother to check references are the greater problem, those that do are almost as bad.  Now we come to the first rec I get to write to support SA’s quest for a teaching position.  They don’t want a letter; there’s a form to fill out.  We start with some questions with drop-down responses.  A couple of them are reasonable: things like time management, willingness to assume responsibility, etc.  Others are clearly variations on “can we push the applicant around (please say ‘yes’)?”  Curmie will pretend he doesn’t understand the subtext and answer what the question literally asks: about “ability to follow instructions,” for example.  His former student follows instructions very well, thank you.  But she’s clearly a lot more intelligent than whoever designed this questionnaire, and might just rebel a little if “instructed” to do something freaking stupid.  That is precisely why Curmie agreed to recommend her.

Alas, there are worse examples.  First question: “What is your relationship to this candidate?”  If that’s a fill-in-the-blank kind of query, it’s a logical way to start (assuming you’re too lazy and/or dim-witted to want an actual letter of recommendation).  But remember that this is a drop-down, and there’s no option that corresponds to the faculty/student relationship we had when she was an undergrad.  The only choices: “Supervisor,” “Peer,” “Friend,” and “Other.”  Supervisor?  Well, sort of, but it’s not like I was her boss or something.  Peer?  No.  Friend?  Well, yes, now, but that’s not what they mean.  

By the way, if there’s no professional relationship, what the hell use is the recommendation of someone who’s simply a friend?  “We were apartment-mates junior year, and she always did the dishes when it was her turn, and got out of the way when my boyfriend came over” might make her someone to go have a beer with, but it’s hardly a relevant concern in assessing her suitability as a teacher. 

Curmie supposes that makes him “Other.”  (He can hear those who know him personally snickering something like “Ain’t that the truth.”)  It’s just weird that Curmie (and her Master’s program supervisor) are relegated to “otherness,” but “friends” are given their own category.

The other question Curmie struggled with was about SA’s “teaching strategies.”  The closest Curmie has ever come to seeing SA’s “strategies” in action was when he advised her production of a 10-minute play a couple of decades ago.  And it’s not like Curmie remembers details of that show; even if he did, we can reasonably assume that she’s learned some things in the interim. “I don’t really know” is the honest answer.  Nope, not allowed on their divinely inspired form.  What to do?  

Well, SA has been living abroad for several years, successfully running a company that integrates ESL with theatre work.  This is a strategy that was very much foregrounded in Tudor England (except that the language in question was Latin instead of English), and was the driving principle behind the “French plays” Curmie saw and participated in when he was an undergrad.  Making that work for any period of time requires both creativity and pragmatism.  In the absence of evidence to the contrary, Curmie is calling that “excellent” and moving on.

Curmie’s initial thought was that this school’s form—farmed out to some company at taxpayer expense because either wanting actual letters or creating the school’s own form might take a few minutes of the administrators’ precious time that could be better spent playing solitaire on the office computer—was the stupidest he’d seen, against some very steep competition.  But then he thought back a little further.  One of the first such forms Curmie filled out for a former student does indeed take the Too Fucking Stupid to Believe Grand Prize.

It’s been a long time, so Curmie can’t remember all the details, including (luckily for them) the name of the school; he’s only reasonably confident he remembers who the student in question was.  If it’s who he thinks it was, she was truly remarkable, and has become a very successful teacher in a different district than the cretinous yahoos who distributed the form.  For this school, there was a list of something like 20 statements, with a drop-downs ranging from “strongly agree” to “strongly disagree.”  The very first question, presumably what the school cared about the most, was “Applicant is well groomed.”  Yes, really.  Curmie remembers that one.  There followed a series of prompts about the candidate’s being “obedient” (yes, Curmie remembers that specific word), “respectful,” and similar code words for passive servility.

Finally, about Question #16, we get to something about knowing the subject material.  There was one other question—Curmie can’t remember what it was, exactly—that was actually relevant to whether an applicant would be good at the job.  The rest, by far the majority, were all about looking nice and being inoffensive.  Those readers who know Curmie personally know what Curmie thinks of those priorities; the rest of you can no doubt guess.

The problem, as it so often is, is that the people who make hiring decisions—principals, etc.—are, as a class, even lazier than they are stupid, and that’s saying rather a lot.  Our public education system has been turned over not to competent professionals but to stolid bullies who care more about their own authority than about educating students.  They have degrees in educational administration but no damned sense.  All principals, superintendents, and similar folk?  Of course not.  But the word “most” has surpassed “many” in Curmie’s contemplation of this issue.  That’s not a good thing.