The Saga of the Two Dan Sullivans.

 

By now, Gentle Reader, you’ve no doubt heard about the Senate race in Alaska, where no winner has been projected a week and a half after Election Day.  The contest between Republican incumbent Dan S. Sullivan (hereafter: DSS) and Democratic candidate Mary Peltola is complicated by the presence on the ballot of Daniel J. Sullivan, Jr. (DJS), a retired schoolteacher.

There are, of course, two issues here: the ethical and the pragmatic.  Both Peltola and DJS deny any collusion to confuse voters and tilt the vote towards Peltola.  It’s conceivable that they’re telling the truth, although Curmie is skeptical, to say the least.  The fact that DJS wanted to be listed on the ballot as a Republican although he had no apparent links to the party certainly suggests that he wanted to be a spoiler.  That doesn’t mean than Peltola endorsed, or even knew about, what DJS was up to.  But she’s a politician, so it’s best not to assume innocence.  And if the New York Times accuses the Democrats of chicanery, there’s enough smoke to strongly suspect a flame if not a conflagration.

That said… Curmie, as those who know him personally will attest, has a common name.  Whitepages.com is currently saying there are a little under 9000 people in this country with the same first and last name as Curmie.  (It was over 13,000 back in 2015, when Curmie wrote about the phenomenon.)  One suspects there are more that that.  There were three at a college of 4000-ish students in Curmie’s freshman year.  Another lives around here somewhere and isn’t really good about paying his bills, so Curmie gets hassled by collection agencies for someone else’s debts every couple of years. 

Dan Sullivan is a common enough name; there are over 2700 of them, apparently.  It’s hypothetically possible that more than one might be interested in being a Senator for reasons other than creating confusion.  After all, Curmie has spent his career working in theatre, and there’s another guy with the same name acting fairly frequently in community theatre in Curmie’s hometown of a little over 30,000 people.  If Curmie decided to try to get back into acting, would he be denied the opportunity because there’s already a guy with that name?  (We aren’t talking about a SAG or Equity gig here.)

But however much we are or are not suspicious of DJS’s motives, it’s important that we understand what, exactly, is happening in Alaska.  Let’s start with logistics.  Alaska handles elections a little differently than most states do.  Voters aren’t limited to choosing among members of their own party in the primaries; the top four candidates, whatever their affiliation or lack thereof, appear on the general election ballot. 

Then, ranked choice voting kicks in.  If one candidate achieves a majority of the votes, we’re done.  But with more than two candidates, there’s a distinct possibility that the leading vote-getter would get a plurality rather than a majority.  In that case, ballots from people for voted for the candidate who placed fourth would be switched to the candidate they ranked second.  The process would be repeated if necessary, leading to one candidate with more than half the votes.

Let us pause for a moment and note that Curmie is a fan of this system.  There are two significant advantages.  First, it significantly lessens the chances that a candidate actually opposed by the majority of voters would get elected.  It’s not hard to imagine a situation in which the votes split 40/30/30, and 60% of the voters would choose Darth Vader over the candidate with 40%. 

Curmie suspects that we might well have been spared a Trump presidency or indeed candidacy had such a system been in place for the primaries in 2016.  Trump won the primary in Curmie’s native state of New Hampshire with barely over a third of the votes.  Curmie is pretty sure Trump was virtually no one’s second (or third or fourth…) choice, and a Not Trump candidate would have won… we just don’t know which one.  But with the GOP awarding all the delegates to the winner, all the other candidates—Kasich, Cruz, J. Bush, Rubio, and Christie—ended up taking votes away from each other in state after state until they all ran out of both money and a reasonable chance at the nomination.

The other reason to support the ranked choice system is one that resonates with Curmie a good deal.  Let’s say your favorite candidate represents a third party: the Greens, for example.  You know very well that the race will be won by either the Republican or the Democrat.  So, do you vote Green and hurt the Democrat’s chances, or do you pass up the opportunity to let the Democrat know that they’re not your cup of tea, they’re just not as bad as the Republican?  The same phenomenon would apply to Libertarians and Republicans, of course.  Ranked voting solves the problem.

Ah, but we stray.  Revenons à nos moutons.

We’re back at DJS’s presence on the ballot.  We can agree, Gentle Reader, that if there was any intent to deceive the voters, as appears pretty damned likely, DJS and possibly Peltola engaged in unethical, even if (probably) legal, conduct.  But hey, it was clever, right?  Actually, no, it wasn’t.

Such a strategy might work in a different state, one where a candidate can win with a plurality of the votes, but not in a ranked choice election.  A vote for DJS is a vote Peltola doesn’t get in her quest for a majority of the votes.  It doesn’t matter if she gets more first choice votes than DSS, only if she gets a majority.  The presence of DJS (and another candidate, Gerald Heikes, who’s listed as a registered Republican) on the ballot makes it quite likely that the process will include looking at the second choice of folks who voted for the fourth-place, or possibly even third-place, finishers, and it’s unlikely that someone who intended to vote for DSS would list Peltola as their second choice.  As of this writing, Peltola has just over 49% of the first-choice votes.

Of course, the DOJ, which cares more about pandering to Dear Leader’s posturing than about… you know… justice, filed suit to prevent certification of the election if Peltola wins.  Thing is, though, she can’t win unless she has more votes than DSS and DJS (and Heikes) combined.  That’s the essential quality of ranked choice voting.  A federal judge rightly dismissed the suit, although not for the reasons Curmie would have done so.

The objections rely on not merely confusion, but upon the rather presumptuous claim that a vote for DJS was intended to be for DSS.  This appears to not be the case, as a report in the Anchorage Daily News suggests that voters who chose DJS as their first choice were nearly twice as likely to list Peltola rather than DSS as their second choice.  (Full disclosure: over a third of DJS voters listed no second choice.)  There’s a pretty clear message here: these folks aren’t thrilled with Peltola, but they prefer her to someone they perceive as a water-carrier for a corrupt authoritarian toddler.  (Curmie’s words, not theirs.)

Moreover, let’s take a look at that ballot shown at the top of the page.  That’s a photograph of the actual ballot, as shown on the website (linked above) of NPR station KYUK in Bethel, AK.  You will notice, Gentle Reader, that DSS is listed as both a registered Republican and the incumbent; DJS is neither.  Dear Leader, of course, has proclaimed that “You need about a 190 IQ to figure out the ballot” because people are too ignorant to know what “incumbent” means.  Curmie smiles benevolently and grants that such a claim might indeed be true about a fair number of MAGAs.  But he suspects that even those folks know what “Republican” means.

You do indeed have to be a special kind of stupid (okay, maybe ignorant) to get confused by that ballot.  To top things off, of course, Alaska has been a Republican stronghold for decades.  They held the governorship and both houses of the legislature coming into this election cycle.  Yet presumably these are the folks who orchestrated an indecipherable ballot to sway the election to the Democrat.  (Would now be a good time to remind you, Gentle Reader, that the 2020 presidential election that Trump insists was rigged was in fact the only one conducted under his administration?)

Things could still get very interesting.  No non-partisan source has called the race, although the Peltola camp is stopping just short of claiming victory.  As of this writing, she has about a 1600 vote lead over the two Sullivans combined… but it is Heikes, not DSS, who’s in third place.  One might reasonably suspect that the second choice of someone who voted for a registered Republican might very well be the other registered Republican on the ballot, namely DSS.  It is quite possible, in other words, that either of the top vote-getters might emerge victorious.  Here’s hoping the loser will concede graciously when the time arrives. 

Hey, even Curmudgeons can dream.

The Four People Most Responsible for the Blue-nami.

 

He’s only #4 on the list,
but Curmie won’t make you look
at the other three.

It’s hardly unprecedented that the party out of power scores big in midterm elections.  What happened this week overwhelmingly significant in terms of numbers, although the Democrats’ capture of both houses of Congress means the numbers really do matter.  What’s more significant is who, specifically, won or lost… and where. 

Democratic Senators-elect include an openly gay man, an indigenous woman, and a Muslim; Governors-elect include a black woman (in Georgia!) and two black men, a Latina, and an indigenous woman.  South Carolina elected a Democratic Senator for the first time in 28 years; in Maine and Texas it had been 38 years; in Kansas, 94 years!  Every statewide elected office in Texas has been in Republican hands for years.  Every one of them just got flipped.  Democrats also took over the majority of the state Board of Education, which Curmie believes is more important than who’s the Agriculture Commissioner.

Republican attempts at mid-decade gerrymandering in multiple states imploded.  Nationally known and long-serving GOP figures like Susan Collins and Greg Abbott lost re-election bids.  There could still be more good news for Democrats in still-to-close to call races in several states.  So, yeah, this one feels more consequential than run-of-the-mill midterm discontent.

The Blue-nami that happened this week is the result of the efforts of literally millions of people who went to the polls and decided to… erm… t’row da bums out.  But there are four people who stand out in Curmie’s mind as the most important individuals.  He lists them here in decreasing order of importance.

#1, obviously, is Donald Trump.  He has engineered cuts to any program or agency that supports or protects everyday people, while pushing for enormous tax breaks for millionaire cronies.  The war with Iran (well, it’s a war when explaining why we can’t fund social programs, although not when challenged on that “no new wars” business) is unnecessary and probably illegal.  That conflict has already cost every American about $1350, not counting the increased costs of gasoline and diesel caused by the closing of the Strait of Hormuz. 

The Epstein files are still tightly guarded despite court orders to release them.  Tariffs are applied and rescinded willy-nilly, the better to manipulate the stock market for 47’s personal gain.  The masked goon squads of otherwise unemployable yahoos are protected at every turn.  He’s completely abandoned our responsibility (yes, responsibility) to protect Ukraine’s borders in order to snuggle up with the never-quite-forgot-he-was-KGB Vladimir Putin.  The list goes on, but you know the litany as well as Curmie does, Gentle Reader,

It’s difficult to pick Trump’s defining characteristic: is it his narcissism?  his dishonesty?  his xenophobia?  his cruelty for its own sake?  his Machiavellianism (to be polite about it)?  Or simply that he’s an asshole for all seasons?

What’s important here, though, is not merely his abysmal performance as President.  He hand-selected candidates like Ken Paxton, Darline Graham, Michael Whatley, and Vivek Ramaswamy.  All lost.  Curmie doesn’t know much about Whatley, so we’ll leave him out of the discussion.  All three of the other are absolutely terrible candidates.  Ramaswamy will get his own paragraph in a moment.  Here’s the thing about the other two: Trump has shown all along that he values sycophancy loyalty more than competence, but he could have chosen stronger candidates by picking names at random from lists of registered Republicans.

Graham showed herself not only to be less than expert, but indeed profoundly ignorant of significant issues.  She didn’t appear to want the job, either.  A stronger person would have said no from the beginning, but of course it was that weakness, the willingness to be led by Trump, that made her attractive to him to begin with. 

It’s not clear whether Trump supported Paxton over incumbent John Cornyn because he liked him or because Cornyn, despite voting with Trump over 99% of the time, had publicly disagreed with him a couple of times.  The fragility of DJT’s ego is indeed awe-inspiring.  But Paxton, who was indicted for bribery, impeached by his own party, made a sweetheart deal to release an admitted pedophile, and has been accused of adultery by his wife (among a boatload of other issues), has so much baggage that even a lot of Texas Republicans couldn’t bring themselves to vote for him.

Would any of these races have turned out differently if the Republicans had fielded a better candidate?  Perhaps not, but it really is pretty difficult for a Republican to lose in South Carolina or Texas, and the presence of the likes of Paxton on the ballot may well have dragged other Republicans down, or led to increased Democratic turnout.  In other words, by putting his finger on the scale in the primary season, Trump proved himself to be not merely a horrible POTUS, but a bad Republican, too.

Elon Musk takes the #2 position on our list.  His contribution to the process was pouring nearly half a billion dollars into Republican coffers during this campaign.  The fact that it didn’t work, and that Musk is only a Texas resident because he was running away from “liberal” California is great fun, but that’s not why he’s on the list.  It is a lovely bit of irony that literally every statewide elected office was just flipped to the Democrats, but what matters here is that he so openly threw literally hundreds of millions of dollars into dark money outlets.  Like all narcissists, however, he can’t keep quiet.  The result is that candidates like James Talarico could target the absurd system that allows a hegemon like Musk to spend more just in Texas this year than the median family (not individual, family) will earn in over 2500 years.

Lots of dark money funded attacks on Talarico’s opponent, Ken Paxton, as well, but Musk seems to have gone out of his way to make himself a target for a campaign that could play on populism as much as politics per se.  So, thanks, Elon, for being just the kind of obnoxious plutocrat the Democrats needed to portray—not inappropriately, mind you—as the driving force of the GOP.

In the third spot is Vivek Ramaswamy.  Curmie has written about him three times: in 2023, he called him an “arrogant twatwaffle who has a raft-load of stupid ideas, but he thinks we shouldn’t recognize that fact because he’s rich” and “a Randian amoral egomaniac and full-fledged wackadoodle who seems think that being even more authoritarian than Trump or DeSantis is the way to go.”

Early in 2024, Curmie wrote that Ramaswamy is “perhaps the only person in the country to challenge Donald Trump for both narcissism and stupidity.”  Later that year, Curmie wondered if Ramaswamy, then announced as co-head (with Musk) of what was to become DOGE, can “really be so stupid that he misses the irony of his disparagement of ‘unelected bureaucrats.’”

You may have guessed that Curmie is not a fan.  Of course, the crowning achievement in VR’s quest for the title of World’s Most Amoral Asshat came late in this election season when he trotted out an ad featuring the biological mother of Dr. Amy Acton, his opponent for the Senate seat in Ohio.  She called her daughter a liar and told people not to vote for her.

Thankfully, that little display of unconscionable inhumanity, the product, no doubt, of a recognition that, to borrow from a Paul Simon lyric, all his wealth won’t buy him (political) health, blew up in his face.  Acton and her brother were removed from her mother’s care when her stepfather was indicted for raping her when she was 12.  The couple fled the jurisdiction before he stood trial.  For the record, her brother backs her allegation. 

Everyone with a conscience—which is to say, anyone by Donald Trump, J.D. Vance, Megyn Kelly, Laura Loomer, et al.—was horrified by the ad, aghast that anyone would stoop so low as to solicit it, film it, or air it.  To intentionally bring up a trauma from 40-something years ago just to score a couple of political points just demonstrates what a despicable excuse for a human being Vivek Ramaswamy is.  It lost him any chance of winning the Ohio governorship.  Good!  Thanks, Vivek.

Equally importantly, it reminded people outside of Ohio of the sole strategy of the GOP.  They have no positive record to run on: there’s a war virtually nobody supports, inflation is moving in the wrong direction, social and financial safety nets are eroding if not gone, etc.  So… let’s throw some shit at the wall and hope it sticks.  Ramaswamy just sorta said the quiet part out loud, and voters across the country saw the Republican Party for what it has devolved into: arrogant, smarmy, and cruel.  Curmie didn’t agree with a lot of GOP policies pre-Trump, either, but there’s no way Reagan or either of the Bushes would stoop to this.

Yes, Curmie is indeed suggesting that the three people who most helped inspire the blue wave were in fact Republicans.  Our #4 position, though, is actually occupied by a Democrat, specifically Zohran Mamdani.  Stacey Abrams and Beto O’Rourke have been getting some plaudits, and Curmie understands the impulse.  But there’s no question in his mind that it’s Mamdani who deserves the highest honors.  He represents the fusion of idealism and pragmatism that has been missing in Democratic politicians for too long.

Unlike his fellow New Yorker Chuck Schumer, Mayor Mamdani recognizes the no letter, however sternly worded it may be, can match actual engagement and actual results.  It’s perfectly reasonable to disagree with some of his political decisions, but Curmie points out that going after predatory landlords or billionaires who aren’t even residents, or penalizing DoorDash for stealing from their employees will play well with a lot of people.  Even more importantly, his policies seem to have worked: it’s a lot harder for Republicans to howl about unsafe cities when the violent crime rates have plummeted under Mamdani’s watch. 

Finally, he has done the things that bring everyone, not just Democrats, together.  No one but irredeemable Islamophobes could argue with his professional handling of the 9/11 commemoration.  He was joyful in his celebration of the Knicks’ first championship since 18 years before he was born.  And he oversaw filling over 200,000 potholes that had been pretty much ignored by previous administrations.  Regular people notice stuff like that.

Significantly, voters who might be wary of supporting someone unlike themselves in demographic profile can look at Mamdami’s success and obvious popularity among New Yorkers and begin to think that maybe voting for a Muslim might not be such a bad idea.  And if that’s true, then maybe the same can be said for a black candidate, a Latina, a Jew, a gay man, an indigenous woman… you get the idea, Gentle Reader.

So, there are the four heroes of the Democratic domination on Tuesday.  There are a couple other folks worth at least a mention.  The tireless Bernie Sanders gets a nod.  Honorable mention, too, to John Cornyn, who certainly called attention in the primary run-up to what a horrible person Ken Paxton is.  Paxton and Haley Stevens get dishonorable mentions for what Curmie trusts are obvious reasons.  Under normal circumstances, J.D. Vance would have gotten his own paragraph, but we’ll leave him as a dishonorable mention since no rational person gives a damn what that fabulist buffoon says or does.

Finally, let us all rejoice.  Curmie has watched several hours of television between Wednesday and today (Friday), and has seen nary a political commercial.  There is a God.

Election Day Musings on Things Curmie Didn’t Know.

 

Whatever happens in terms of who gets elected, tomorrow will be glorious because there will be no more political ads and no more pleas for money to support political campaigns.  Curmie suspects that he is not alone in wanting it all to be over.  He might be able to withstand physical torture for a while, but would almost certainly turn over the nuclear codes (if he knew them) when threatened with watching a non-stop stream of dark money funded misrepresentations which, whoever wins, will have the effect of reducing citizens’ confidence in the integrity of government.

Curmie offers a few tidbits of things he didn’t know.  These really go beyond the usual nonsense: someone supported raising the Social Security cap and therefore “wants to raise Social Security taxes,” or they voted against a bill that included 1000 awful things and one good thing and therefore don’t support the good thing, or they suggest that a graduated income tax is less regressive than a sales tax and therefore want to impose an income tax (casually omitting the concomitant reduction in other taxes).  You’ve seen all this before, Gentle Reader.

Curmie also didn’t know that all Muslim candidates (or, indeed, non-candidates) want to impose Sharia Law, or that schools are apparently performing sex change operations during the lunch break, or that grown men are taking over all the slots on high school girls’ basketball teams.  Curmie also expresses his erstwhile ignorance that someone whose parents brought their toddler with them when they entered the country illegally is just as dangerous as a rapist or murderer even if they’ve never had as much as a speeding ticket.

There was one ad this time—Curmie forgets who it was for (or, rather, who it was against, since it was funded by dark money)—opened by promising to tell the truth rather than just opinion: it then proceeded to describe the other candidate as a “dangerous socialist” and cited Fox Business News as a source for that claim.  <Sigh.>

It’s the specificity of some of the assertions that really has Curmie scratching his head.  Curmie lives in Texas, which also happens to be the home of three of the most mendacious figures in American politics… and it takes rather a lot to be considerably worse than the average pol of either party.

Let’s see: apart from accusing Gina Hinojosa of supporting policies she has expressly opposed, Governor Greg Abbott claims she voted 45 times in the state legislature to raise property taxes.  It’s possible that that’s even true.  It’s also possible that an earlier ad claiming that the state government has nothing to do with property taxes and we should oppose local governments who want to raise those rates is accurate.  Curmie struggles to see how both of those alleged statements of fact could both be true, but then, he’s not a slimeball politician who’ll say (or do) anything to remain in power.

Moving on to the Senate race, where Ken Paxton was Dear Leader’s choice in the GOP primary against incumbent John Cornyn because despite the fact that he’s been impeached for bribery by his own party and has offered sweetheart deals to wealthy confessed child sex offenders.  Another of those dark money ads claims that Democratic challenger James Talarico wants to raise taxes by $400 trillion.  Yes, Gentle Reader, that’s about 13 times the national GDP.  That Talarico dude is one hell of a spendthrift with other people’s money, isn’t he?

Either of Abbott’s claims about property taxes might be true; they seem plausible enough except when presented side-by-side.  The anti-Talarico ad seems to have just thrown a big number out there with no real attention paid to whether anyone would raise an eyebrow.  (It’s also possible that the number has been changed recently to, say, $400 billion: still an absurd figure unless we’re talking about a multi-year process.  Curmie punches the mute button on the remote as soon as any political commercial comes around, so he might have missed a correction.)

But then there’s Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick, who claims credit for raising average teacher salaries by $69,000.  Not “to” that amount, “by” that much.  Curmie has a lot of former students who would be thrilled by the “to” figure.  Patrick’s ad is simply hilarious on its face.  People might not consciously distinguish between big numbers, or note the apparent contradictions in Abbott’s messaging, but they do know that teachers didn’t get raises of anything close to $69K.  Patrick is not just a liar; he’s a bad one.  But given the fact that Curmie hasn’t seen a single ad or yard sign for Democratic candidate Vikki Goodwin, Patrick probably has the best chance of the trio of winning his race.  You may already know by the time you’re reading this, Gentle Reader.

Curmie is not suggesting here that the Democrats aren’t perfectly willing to smear their opponent.  Is Paxton, for example, really the “most corrupt politician in the country”?  Curmie would would have thought that Dear Leader would have wrapped up that title.  And opinions masquerading as facts are pretty much standard operating procedure in political campaigns.  But there ought to be a limit, and the GOP candidates in the three most important state-wide races have shown themselves to be not merely dishonest, but stupid about it.

Anyone who would vote for any of them is likely to be a little dim-witted, too. 

Oh.  Yeah.  QED.

 

On the Lessons of Marcus Aemilius Scaurus.

 

Curmie couldn’t find an image of MAS,
so here’s a picture of his theatre

Curmie isn’t sure why he started thinking about our title character of late.  Maybe it’s because of two different Dan Sullivans running for Senate from Alaska.  If so, it would be because the most famous Marcus Aemilius Scaurus isn’t the one Curmie wants to talk about.  Our guy is the son of his better known father of the same name.  But it’s Marcus the Younger (hereafter, MAS) who is the Godfather of money in politics.  So that could be it, too… and it’s what this piece is about.

You should not, Gentle Reader, feel the slightest embarrassment if you’ve never heard of MAS (or his dad, for that matter).  Curmie knows about him only because he’s a theatre historian.  Our source is Pliny the Elder, who was, shall we say, not a fan.

MAS became aedile in 58 BCE.  That job, a sort of combination of city manager and public works supervisor, carried considerable power but no salary, so it was restricted to those rich enough to be able to hold that position without pay.  Pliny declares that MAS’s “aedileship may perhaps have done more than anything to undermine morality, and whose powerful ascendancy may have been a more mischievous achievement on the part of his stepfather Sulla than the killing by proscription of so many thousands of people.”

Nope, not a fan.  But here’s the relevant part:

As aedile he constructed the greatest of all the works ever made by man, a work that surpassed not merely those erected for a limited period but even those intended to last forever.  This was his theatre, which had a stage arranged in three stories with 360 columns…. The lowest story of the stage was of marble, and the middle one of glass (an extravagance unparalleled even in later times), while the top story was made of gilded planks.  The columns of the lowest story were… each 38 feet high.  The bronze statues in the spaces between the columns numbered 3,000….

As for the auditorium, it accommodated 80,000…. The rest of the equipment, with dresses of cloth of gold, scene paintings and other properties was on so lavish a scale that when the surplus knick-knacks that could be put to ordinary use were taken to Scaurus' villa at Tusculum and the villa itself set on fire and burnt down by the indignant servants [most translations say “slaves”], the loss was estimated at 30,000,000 sesterces.

OK, but how much is a sesterce?  Well, obviously, we can’t translate directly, but what Curmie has been able to piece together is that a daily wage was about three sesterces, perhaps a little less.  So, the props, wall hangings, and assorted tchotchkes were worth about 10,000,000 times the daily wage of an average Roman.  In other words, it would take that everyday citizen over 27,000 years to earn just the cost of the non-structural stuff, even working seven days a week.  That doesn’t count the marble, glass, gilded wood, etc., or, indeed, the labor costs associated with building the theatre.

This, by the way, was for a space that was apparently used for only a few days.  The first permanent theatre in Rome was constructed three years later by Pompey the Great.  Why would MAS spend that kind of money on a temporary structure?  Well, apparently for two reasons, both ultimately boiling down to this: because he could. 

There’s conspicuous consumption, a variation on the theme of the arrogance associated with wealth.  Today’s equivalent would be “The problem is that for $5,000, the most you’ll be able to buy [at Mar-a-Lago] is a hamburger and maybe a small dessert.”  It’s the other argument that’s more interesting: the implicit if not explicit argument that anyone that rich would be unbribable and therefore more likely to work for the benefit of the citizenry rather than of special interests. 

Who knows?  That might even have been true in ancient Rome.  Even in this country, folks named Vanderbilt and Stanford founded universities—real ones, not like Oral Roberts or Liberty.  Even the Koch brothers didn’t concentrate wholly on right-wing politics; they also funded medical research, supported cultural institutions, and otherwise did things that actually helped someone other than themselves.

The new wave, though, the Trump/Musk/Ramaswamy/Bezos clique, are quite willing to accept bribes, and have seldom if ever done anything other than attempt to further enrich themselves... or, if they were feeling particularly charitable, their families, their cronies, and occasionally their sycophantic followers, although this last group is always hastily discarded when they are no longer useful.  In this way, 21st-century rich folks are not quite the same as ol’ MAS, who at least gave the people a nice theatre space for a few days while strutting his affluence.

They’re remarkably similar to MAS, though, in that they believe that money ought to be a primary influence in determining who has political power.  Whether it should be or not, it damned sure is.  For better or worse (mostly the latter), money is indeed a major influence.  MAS was indeed elected as praetor (a step up from aedile) after his publicity stunt.  (No, correlation doesn’t necessarily mean causation, but…) 

Back in 2010, SCOTUS proclaimed, in what is undoubtedly the worst decision in Curmie’s lifetime, that money is somehow speech (no, that’s not what “money talks” means) in the Citizens United case.  Thus, whereas there’s a limit ($3500 at present: still a fair amount of money in Curmie’s world) on how much an individual can donate to a political candidate’s campaign, there are two loopholes: candidates can spend as much of their own money as they choose, thereby giving a significant advantage to the billionaire class, and contributions to Super PACs are unlimited.

Thus, Elon Musk can spend $446 million (so far) to buy the midterm elections.  TNo, those PACs technically can’t work directly with a candidate’s campaign, but if you really think, Gentle Reader, that all those often mendacious ads about what an awful person James Talarico is aren’t de facto encouraging you to vote for the utterly despicable Ken Paxton, then your 6th grade diploma ought to be revoked.  Curmie doesn’t care if the official buy comes from the Pedophile Protectors of America or whoever instead of Paxton’s campaign per se.  

The use of PAC money also helps to explain why so many ads are negative.  If you can’t say “vote for X,” all that’s left is “don’t vote for Y,” and there’s a helluva lot more money to do the latter than the former.

But, as we did with Rome, let’s look at that cost figure in context.  The median household income in the US in 2025 was $87,460.  In other words, it would take that family roughly 5100 years to make as much money as a South African-born asshat who almost certainly was in the country illegally back in the ‘90s has already spent just on this year’s elections.  In what universe is this an intelligent system instead of one designed to keep the billionaire class in power at the expense of the rest of us?

Of course, the most direct assault on that particular part of the status quo comes in the form of California’s Proposition 40, which would tax the assets of billionaires.  Whether this is a good idea or not in either political or pragmatic terms is open for debate.  What isn’t is that a one-time 5% tax on a billion dollars would have literally no appreciable effect on the day-to-day life of the folks footing the bill were the measure to pass (it almost certainly won’t, by the way).  The idea that someone might have to struggle by on a mere $950,000,000 (at least!) in assets does not send shivers up Curmie’s spine.  He’s pretty sure those folks could still afford to Supersize their Big Mac combo meal if they wanted to.

Looked at a different way: there’s been over $140,000,000 spent on the campaign to defeat this referendum.  That’s a fair amount of money in Curmie’s neighborhood, and he suspects that it is in yours, too, Gentle Reader.  Even if all that money came from a single billionaire worth “only” a single billion, that poor, destitute creature would somehow have to make do on a mere $860 million, or roughly what the median family would take almost 10,000 years to accumulate even if they had literally no expenses.  Curmie’s heart bleeds for them.

This is where Curmie calls upon the time-honored modifiers aligned with arguments that begin with the words “not all…”  There are some exceptions to "billionaires are assholes": Melinda Gates and Taylor Swift both get a pass, for example.  One suspects a handful of others ought to, as well.  But not the majority. Those folks adopted most of the Marcus Aemilius Scaurus playbook… all but the actually providing literally anything in return part.  Curmie does not advocate eating the rich, however.  They’d be put to much better use as fertilizer, along with the other kinds of shit.

Censorial Asshat Series: "Little Shop of Horrors" (#4 of 4)

Ana Mota addresses the GPISD School Board

And we move on to the last (please, Almighty Dionysus, let this be the last!) story of this semester about high school theatre censorship by people who think a director telling an actor to move further (stage) left is promoting socialism.  This one bats clean-up because it is the most egregiously inane of all the censorial decisions this fall. 

Anyway, the production of the well-known musical Little Shop of Horrors at South Grand Prairie High School in Texas was canceled earlier this month.  Curmie learned about it from Chris Peterson’s post on the OnStage Blog on October 11.  He references an Instagram post by Ana Mota (exactly when that was posted, Curmie can’t say, but it was after the 6th and before the 11th).

So, let’s let Ms. Mota tell the story (slightly edited):

On October 1st, 2026, I earned the role of Seymour [the male lead] in our school musical, Little Shop of Horrors.  I had the same opportunity as everyone else did and was ultimately decided to be the best fit for the role.

On Tuesday, October 6th, I was informed that I will no longer be allowed to portray this role due to a decision made by the district and its legal team concerning Senate Bill 12.  For those unaware. SB12 prohibits sexually oriented performances on public property in the presence of anyone under 18….

This would be a good time to invoke the oft-repeated advice of Popehat’s Ken White: that educational institutions shouldn’t hire their lawyers from the back of a bait shop.

Okay, back to Ms. Mota:

In the end, their compromise was to change the musical altogether…. The district… decided to take extreme caution, removing me from the role.  In turn, they violated Title 9; I was excluded from participation in an educational program receiving Federal financial assistance because I am female.

Well, a couple of things: First, Mota wasn’t excluded from participation; she was offered to share the female lead, Audrey, with the girl originally cast in the role, Criselle Zamarripa.  Secondly,  Curmie isn’t a lawyer, so he has no opinion on the validity of a Title 9 case (but see below). 

But Mota’s calling attention to the district’s actions is particularly noteworthy.  Even if we were to accept the dubious proposition that it’s somehow inappropriate to have Mota play Seymour even though the director thought she’d be the best performer for the role, we’re left with problems.  If the district really thought they had a case, they’d just move forward, with erstwhile understudy Adam Portales moving into the role of Seymour.  Ana Mota could share the role of Audrey with  Zamarripa… or not.  That would be her decision.

Instead, the powers that be petulantly scrapped the show altogether, thereby stripping the entire cast of their opportunities to appear in the musical.  Sure, they can re-audition and hope to be cast in the substitute show, Frozen.  But the roles are different: it’s certainly likely that the leads in Little Shop would be cast in Frozen, but not necessarily in major roles.  And some, we might reasonably suspect, wouldn’t be interested in doing that show, because they don’t like the show or they’ve become disillusioned by the process, or, well, whatever.

Changing the play for no discernible reason also presents the possibility that the problem wasn’t really that a girl was going to play Seymour, but that the show was Little Shop.  Indeed, the Broadway World article cites the District’s official statement:

In the musical, a romantic relationship develops between the two main characters. When District leadership learned of this issue and in consideration of themes in the musical involving an abusive relationship, a decision was made to pull that production and find something more appropriate. This decision was made in light of the District’s ongoing effort to ensure its programs remain consistent with Senate Bill 12 and all applicable law.

Even apart from the self-righteous inanity of this statement, it does, of course, pre-suppose that no one in “District leadership” has ever seen Little Shop on stage or screen, and that a musical that has been performed on literally thousands of high school stages across the country is somehow problematic.  There are, as of this writing, over 180 licensed productions of the show in the works.  It’s difficult to determine how many of these are high school productions: many are listed by the name of the venue, for example, but at least 75 can be clearly identified as school or youth theatres.  The latest Playbill listing Curmie can find of the most popular shows in high schools across the country is from four years ago; Little Shop ranks fourth among full-length musicals. 

Side note: when Curmie’s Beloved Spouse directed the musical in small-town Iowa thirty-something years ago, there was some parent who protested that the show was anti-Christian or something because of Audrey II, the plant that feeds on human blood.  There’s always someone.  Some school administrators are smart enough to ignore the noise.  Some, not all.

Before we go any further, Gentle Reader, let’s be clear about one point in particular.  Cross-casting has been a part of theatre since its origins.  Antigone, Helen, and Athena were originally played by male actors.  So were Juliet, Gertrude, and Rosalind.  This last is of course particularly interesting.  When Curmie posted a link on his personal page to one of Howard Sherman’s pieces about the brouhaha at GPISD, a dear friend from a professional organization wrote, in part, “Wonder what they’d do about ‘As You Like It.’ Let’s censor Shakespeare.” 

If you’re not Shakespeare aficionado, Gentle Reader, that’s the play in which, in the original production, a male actor played Rosalind, who then dressed as a man, Ganymede, to go off into the Forest of Arden, where she pretended to be… erm… herself to teach her beloved Orlando how to woo her: a man playing a woman playing a man playing a woman.  Importantly, no matter who plays Rosalind, that actor will be playing a character of the opposite gender at some point.

Moreover, there are a number of male characters often if not indeed usually played by women: Peter Pan, Ariel in The Tempest, and, in opera, Cherubino in Mozart's The Marriage of Figaro, to name but a few.  Curmie recently saw a college production of Into the Woods in which Jack (of beanstalk fame) was played by a woman.  Perhaps not so coincidentally, Mota has also played Jack in that show, at the same school she now attends!   One suspects that boulders did not fall from the skies nor chasms open in the earth’s crust despite the outrageousness of the casting.

Of course, especially at the high school level, there are almost always more girls than boys auditioning, and more often than not there are also more male than female roles.  Curmie has been quite open about the fact that when he first started out (most theatre folks begin as actors), if he was the fifth best guy auditioning, he’d be cast; the same level of skill would have made him the tenth-best woman… for four roles.  Filling in with girls/women who can act is generally a better strategy than using a considerably weaker actor just because he’s got the right kind of dangly bits.

Indeed, anyone who knows the first thing about educational theatre, especially at the secondary school level, understands this phenomenon.  Show Curmie a high school theatre director who says they’ve never cast a girl as a guy, and he’ll show you someone who hasn’t been around very long… or a liar.  This is one reason why the statement of support for the students by Jay Gerlach, the Executive Director of Educational Theatre Association, carries so much weight… or ought to do so:

Portraying a character whose experiences or identity differ from one’s own is fundamental to theatre education. We ask students to consider another perspective, understand another person’s motivations, and imagine a life beyond their own. Those are lessons worth teaching. A student’s portrayal of a character of another gender should not, by itself, cost that student a role or an entire company its production.

Yeah, what he said.

To be fair, Seymour isn’t exactly a walk-on or even a chorus part, nor is it traditionally a “breeches role,” but it really doesn’t matter if the actor is male or female.  Indeed, in his most recent post on the issue, Sherman writes that “the licensing house MTI [Music Theatre International] permits cross-gender casting so long as the gender of the character remains as written.”  Sometimes matters of race, gender, body type, and so on are important.  This isn’t one of those times. 

Moreover, whereas Curmie was never a star debater in high school or college, he does remember that the presumption always rests with the status quo.  Think instant replay in a football game.  Whatever the referee called is what the ruling is going to be unless there is “clear and convincing evidence” to the contrary.  That role is, or at the very least should be, Mota’s until and unless there is a demonstrable reason why it shouldn’t be,  Curmie is going to trust the director of the show to cast the production in such a way as to make for the best possible production.  But even if the arguments are only equal, she plays Seymour. 

We all initially assumed that the district’s decision was based on the anti-drag legislation from 2023.  At the board meeting of on October 15, board president Emily Liles invoked the identically named (SB12) anti-DEI bill from 2025 as the basis for Mota’s removal from the role.  Apparently there’s a law, or at least a tradition, in Texas that any bill designated SB12 must be remarkably stupid, over-broad to the extent that it is particularly susceptible to selective enforcement, and based on paranoid delusions about the presumed horrors of a just and open society.  <Sigh.>

Whether the district just wasn’t clear at the beginning, or whether they abandoned one SB12 for another when people pointed out that they really didn’t need to follow a law that was twice ruled unconstitutional is a matter of conjecture.  Well, the whole business about “a romantic relationship” in their official proclamation sure does make it sound like they’re just a gaggle of sheltered bigots, but that might conceivably not be true.

What is definitely true is that Mota challenged the board: “I ask that you look at the exact wording of Senate Bill 12 and find what is it in that bill that prevents me from portraying a male role in a theatrical context.”  Her mom, Nancy Jimenez-Mota,  also got into the act: “What part of SB 12 are you referring to?  How are you legally interpreting the law to conclude that my daughter’s role violated whichever SB 12 you are referring to?”

Particularly interesting in this regard is this reporting from PBS/NPR affiliate KERA: “Liles did not elaborate on how that law would ban Mota from playing the role….  KERA has also emailed the district asking what specific part of the law it was complying with and has not received a response.”  It sure does look like Liles didn’t respond to the demand for specifics.  Curmie strongly suspects that’s because she can’t.

And now there’s an actual Title 9 lawsuit. Mota’s mom describes the decision to move forward with the case:

I think there’s a time in which we need to stand up for the freedoms granted by the Constitution and for us, this was our time to act. These laws are created with ambiguity to keep us afraid and limited and end up being un-American by limiting our freedom of expression. Even though the alternative of inertia is more attractive and safe than the idea of speaking up, freedom was not carved from silence.

As Curmie said above, he takes no position on the legal issues.  But ethically, everyone involved in censoring this production deserves to be out of a job at the very least… and perhaps to be fed to Audrey II.

Curmie generally considers himself pretty proficient at snark, but he yields to Howard Sherman on this one.  He closes the second of his three articles on this case thusly: “Auditions have not yet been held for South Grand Prairie High’s production of Frozen. There is no word on how the school board will rule on the gender identities of the snowman Olaf or the reindeer Sven.”

Ana Mota says she’ll audition.  She’s likely to get Anna or Elsa, but it would somehow be fitting if she landed Olaf or Sven. 

Censorial Asshat Series: "She Kills Monsters." (#3 of 4)

 

Round #3 of our four-destination tour of Censorial Asshatitude takes us to Copley, Ohio, where the school’s production of Qui Nguyen’s 2011 play She Kills Monsters, was shut down early in the rehearsal process.  That cancellation was subsequently circumvented, then overturned… sort of.  We’ll get to that part in a moment.

Let’s start with the play itself.  Here’s the description on the Concord Theatricals (formerly Samuel French) webpage:

She Kills Monsters tells the story of Agnes Evans as she leaves her childhood home in Ohio following the death of her teenage sister, Tilly. When Agnes finds Tilly’s Dungeons & Dragons notebook, however, she finds herself catapulted into a journey of discovery and action-packed adventure in the imaginary world that was her sister’s refuge. In this high-octane dramatic comedy laden with homicidal fairies, nasty ogres, and 90s pop culture, acclaimed playwright Qui Nguyen offers a heart-pounding homage to the geek and warrior within us all.

Conspicuous by its absence in that description is the fact that what Agnes learns from the D&D notebook is that Tilly was apparently involved in a lesbian relationship.  This revelation, of course, accounts for both the controversy surrounding the play (this isn’t the first time the show has been censored) and, in a different way, its popularity, especially on high school and college campuses.  Curmie wasn’t initially able to determine whether the script that went into rehearsal at Copley was the original or the “Young Adventurers” version, which tones down some of the sexuality and makes Agnes a high school senior rather than the mid-20s English teacher of the original.  According to a Facebook post by parent Tiffany (TJ) Jamison, however, the script in question was indeed the YA version.

She Kills Monsters is, as noted above, extremely popular, with an average of over 100 amateur productions, most of them in educational environments, per year since it became available.  As recently as four years ago, it was tied for seventh in Playbill’s list of most-performed non-musicals in high schools.  Curmie has seen the show twice, both times at the collegiate level: a production directed by one of his former directing students and featuring a number of actors he’d previously directed, and a COVID era Zoomed production directed by a dear friend at another university. 

In many ways, Curmie is not the target audience: he’s not young or female or LGBTQ+, and he knows nothing about D&D beyond the fact that it exists, and that a couple of his friends enjoy it.  But everyone has dealt with grief, sometimes mixed with guilt.  And Curmie does remember struggling (like everyone else, presumably) with the transition from adolescence into adulthood, even if that process happened <mumblemumble> years ago.  One’s earliest romantic and sexual relationships are always both exciting and terrifying, irrespective of one’s orientation.  And whereas Curmie would never have self-described as a nerd or an outsider: let’s face it, that’s what he was.  

So, whereas She Kills Monsters might resonate a little more with one demographic than with another, there’s enough connection to everyone’s life experience that we’re ready to follow along.  The play, in Curmie’s opinion, is a good one: not brilliant, perhaps, but solid, with good opportunities for actors of different races, genders, body types, etc.  It also can be done on a very small budget, or it can stand up to a more design and tech-heavy production without getting lost in the glitz.  Its position as one of the most-produced plays in the current repertoire is not misplaced.

Ah, but those gay kids… 

The Copley production of She Kills Monsters auditioned on September 8, went into rehearsal on the 14th, and was canceled on the 16th.  If, as Superintendent Aimee Kirsch has said, the show was canceled not because of its gay themes but because the proper vetting procedure wasn't followed, the time to do that, or at least to demand a review, was as soon as auditions were announced.  If you’ve got a procedure that must be followed, then yes, it’s the Superintendent’s responsibility to check things out.  But the likelihood that Howard Sherman is correct in his assertion that “such approval process had not been applied to previous Copley Thespian shows” hovers somewhere between “beyond reasonable doubt” and “ontological certitude.” 

Curmie suggested last time out that the Superintendent in Watertown, Wisconsin was “a liar as well as an asshat.”  And now, cue Herman’s Hermits: “Second verse, same as the first.”  <Sigh.>

Oh, ever-so-coincidentally, of course, Kirsch received an email from the proverbial Concerned Parent.  The only difference this time from the plethora of previous cases is that this is apparently the parent of someone in the show, as opposed to someone who has literally no business exercising the heckler’s veto.  However much Curmie may disagree with your position, in a case like this, he supports your right to pull your kid from the production, just not to shut down the show altogether.  This person, of course, remains anonymous, but if the play goes on, as now looks likely, then either the kid will participate or the puritanical parent will be revealed.

As might be expected, students cast in the production and their parents weren’t thrilled about the cancellation.  They didn’t believe the show was shut down over a procedural matter.  The school’s most famous alumna, Carrie Coon, has a Critics Choice Award, three Primetime Emmy nominations and two Tony nominations among other accolades.  Here’s her commentary: “I find it absurd and offensive.  I just find that a wild abridgement of their First Amendment rights.”  She also contributed $1000 to a GoFundMe to find another venue for the production.  The goal was $800; well over twelve times that much was raised in very short order. 

Coon’s celebrity engagement certainly helped the cause, but it was the folks on the ground who made the strongest case.  Emily Neuheuser, the president of the school’s Thespian Society, served on the committee that chose Alice in Wonderland as a replacement show, but made it clear that she thought that process, with categories like Community Alignment, was ripe for abuse by those with an agenda.  She’s right, of course.

Howard Sherman writes that TJ Jamison led the charge for transparency and accountability, demanding “1. A public explanation of what occurred, the reasoning behind the decision, any identified mistakes and statements of support, and, 2. Transparency regarding the origin of the complaint and the process by which it was escalated so expeditiously.” She went on to ask for “specific and tangible steps to address the harm caused to students, families and the community.”

The big news, though, was that GoFundMe.   The students were in the position to begin working with the Millennial Theatre Project, a local theatre, to produce the show in their space.  But, as Howard Sherman reports, the venue they could offer has only about 5% of the seating capacity of the school’s auditorium.  Better than nothing, but…

The October 20 board meeting opened with remarks by Kirsch in which she said, “Recognizing how much the production of She Kills Monsters means to so many of our student performers I have provided the director with the facility rental paperwork so that an independent organization can lead our students in rehearsals and performances of She Kills Monsters right here on our stage, free of any facility rental charges.”

In other words, as long as the school can cravenly distance itself from responsibility, all is well.  There were other speeches at that meeting, including from three students including Neuheuser, four parents including Jamison, and an alumna, but the sound quality of those recordings make it too difficult to understand what was being said… so the quotations from Sherman on the second of his two pieces on the kerfuffle are what we have to go on.  

You’re encouraged to read Sherman’s entire account, but four things stand out in Curmie’s mind.  First is student Chad Fortin’s comment that “If the administrator had simply told the truth, the real reason of the show’s cancellation, I would at least respect its integrity in being open about the conversations. We could have had a real discussion about the issues involved. Maybe there would be no agreement, but at least it would have led to a productive dialogue. Instead, the administration chose a coward’s way out.”

Second is Neuheuser’s post-meeting recognition that mounting the production, which will apparently be added in the spring, with rehearsals overlapping with those of the musical, will require “jumping through a lot of hoops.”  The production will be headed by its original director, Amber Coughlin, who will be working as a contract employee, not a member of faculty, and who says “A lot of this will be done on volunteer time by myself and a couple other individuals.”

Another significant observation comes from parent Megan Stotter, who noted that the school’s Club America (linked to Turning Point USA) affiliate had appeared at a forum for student organizations to promote their programs.  “If the Copley administration is concerned with the community alignment of any club’s ideas, speech and activities,” she said, “then they cannot cherry pick which group is policed.”  Good point, that.

But the capstone, really, was delivered by another parent, Chad Kirkbride.  His summary: “Copley is embarrassed, and our community recognizes that censoring the arts puts this school district squarely on the wrong side of history.”

The folks on the front lines in Copley acquitted themselves admirably, in other words.  But we’re going to close with the words of the playwright, Qui Nguyen:

One good thing that’s come out of these moments is that in the aftermath, I get to hear about young artists finding incredible ways to push back, finding clever, brave, sometimes hilarious ways to tell this story anyways. I’ve always said this play has taken on a life of its own. It’s more their play now than even mine… Ultimately it’s amazing to see what fortitude, tenacity, creativity, and community can do when they’re channeled towards something good…. Battling boring people is a never-ending struggle, so don’t give up. Keep killing monsters.

Sometimes the monsters are terrifyingly humanoid.