Must see theater

This looks like a must see for anyone in NYC - a new staging of "A Man for All Seasons" with Frank Langella in the Sir Thomas More role. We're thinking of spending a few days in the city prior to Christmas. If so, I'll be in the market for tickets. The fact that First Things's review was more inspiring than anything else I've read recently is a great sign:

But More does neither. He begins with the stride of a statesman and ends with the shuffle of a prisoner, yet throughout he is a bulwark against concession and shallow appeasement. Frank Langella’s hefty frame and rich baritone realize More’s character in a physical way: Almost always the largest man on stage, Langella draws to himself all the energy in the house. He towers over his fellow actors, visually depicting the might of integrity in the face of moral compromise.


Thank you Roundabout Theatre.

Axis of Evil Revisited

I saw this piece on "The Secret History of Kim Jong Il" in Foreign Policy recently and shuddered. A illuminating account from one of Mr. Kim's former teachers. It's easy to find Kim Jong Il bemusing. The claims that he shoots at least three or four hole-in-ones on each round of golf for instance. Stories like that are legion. But then we get glimpses of the utter, unabashed depravity of his regime. Like this from the aforementioned story:

My friend, a well-connected physician at the time, told me that he had been ordered by the Communist Party to pick out the shortest residents of Pyongyang and South Pyongan province. Against his conscience, he went out to those areas and had local party representatives distribute propaganda pamphlets. They claimed that the state had developed a drug that could raise a person’s height and was recruiting people to receive the new treatment. In just two days, thousands gathered to take the new drug.

My friend explained how he picked out the shortest among the large group. He told the crowd that the drug would best take effect when consumed regularly in an environment with clean air. The people willingly, and without the slightest suspicion, hopped aboard two ships – women in one, men in the other. Separately, they were sent away to different uninhabited islands in an attempt to end their “substandard” genes from repeating in a new generation. Left for dead, none of the people made it back home. They were forced to spend the rest of their lives separated from their families and far from civilization.

What level of systematic repression convinces the masses to allow tyrants like Mr. Kim to remain in control for decades?

is it simply Fannie and Freddie's fault?

As satisfying as it would be to simply blame Fannie, Freddie, Barney Frank and his congressional cohort for the housing crisis cum global economic collapse, it's pieces like this at The Big Picture that remind me that crappy decision making by hordes of people and institutions in the private sector is the real culprit:

• More than 84% of the subprime mortgages in 2006 were issued by private lending institutions.
• Only one of the top 25 subprime lenders in 2006 was directly subject to the CRA;
• Only commercial banks and thrifts must follow CRA rules. The investment banks don't, nor did the now-bankrupt non-bank lenders such as New Century Financial Corp. and Ameriquest that underwrote most of the subprime loans.
• Mortgage brokers, who also weren't subject to federal regulation or the CRA, originated most of the subprime loans.

Blinded by greed anyone?