"24" Begins Another Interminable Season

I'm going to part from the general wisdom of my fellow bloggers to talk down a show which is perennially among their favorites: "24." The show, which began a new season this week with a 2-hour special, is based around the incredibly cool premise that everything happens in real time. It originally began by demonstrating the lengths to which a man would go in order to save his family: in the first season, Jack Bauer's wife and daughter are kidnapped by bad guys with a hidden agenda. The extreme measures Jack uses in order to rescue them are ones with which we are familiar, having seen them before in film and television. We too would do anything to save our loved ones. In the course of his family-saving heroics, Jack alienates his friends, his employer and--in an interesting twist--his country. Plot twists abound, including one in which we learn the identity of a mole in the Counter Terrorist Unit where Jack works.

However, the show inevitably moved past Jack's immediate family in the second and third seasons and this, combined with their emphasis on illogical ruthlessness on Bauer's part, was the show's undoing. This was the precise point at which you could see the suspense-laden drama of the first season turn into Jack Bauer torture porn for TV. The show still follows the same, formulaic pattern in which Jack stretches the law and truth in order to find the preordained "bad guys," while alienating his friends and co-workers, but without the familial urgency, all of his actions makes little to no sense. There are actually so many flaws with Jack's logic that list form is the best representation for them all:

1) Jack trusts whomever he trusts with all of his soul...until he doesn't trust them anymore. Once you are on Jack Bauer's good side, you could tell him that aliens with octopus heads have landed on the White House and he will scream into telephones and torture anyone in order to prevent the deadly alien invasion. However, if the show's writers see fit, Jack's child-like trust will suddenly transform into fits of rage where he points guns and sharp objects at the character and threatens their life and the lives of all of their family members. In later seasons, these turns happen with such frequency and such speed that one begins to suspect Mr. Bauer of bipolar disorder. One season, I kid you not, he fights through terrorists in order to bring a suspect into custody alive after...wait for it...shooting to death a friend and member of CTU for reasons I still can't understand.

2) Jack will fight to the death in order to save...the USA? The deepest mystery the show has managed to maintain throughout the later seasons is the real motivation for any of Jack's actions. They may reveal this at some future point as some incredible plot twist (Jack is actually a robot from the future!) but I won't hold my breath. Ostensibly, Jack is trying to save the USA from attack or collapse. But since his bipolar disorder prevents him from using logic and reason, he has trouble calibrating his responses to actions throughout the series. He tortures US citizens as easily as foreign ones, so he clearly doesn't believe that the US is defined by its citizenry. He's deposed at least 2 presidents and other major leaders of the country, so he clearly doesn't believe that the US is defined by its leadership. And since he ignores literally every law enforcement agency as superfluous, he clearly doesn't define the US by its institutions. So what the hell is he fighting so hard to protect? Write to me if you can figure this one out.

3) Torture is the panacea for all intelligence problems. Of all of the show's ridiculous memes, this could be the most ridiculous of all. In the later seasons, there isn't an ounce of counter-intelligence procured by Jack that doesn't have, at its source someone on whom actual force or the threat of force was not exercised. Let's leave aside the fact that many respected members of the intelligence community both past and present say that torture is far more likely to produce poor intelligence than any other form of intelligence gathering. Let's ignore the fact that, as mentioned above, Jack tortures friends as easily as he does terrorists. Even without all of that, the fact remains that this methodology makes Jack Bauer both boring and predictable. (Oh, Jack's got a suspect in his hands, I wonder if he's going to...yep there goes with the electrodes to the nuts...wow, he got another impossible lead which will provide just enough information to lead us to...sigh, the next suspect in his custody).

With all of that being said for the general failures in the show, this season is probably the most boring yet. With a repeat showing for most of last season's cast, we are placed in a familiarly gritty urban setting (New York, this time) with familiarly foreign terrorists and familiarly growling Jack Bauer. If you're into Kiefer Sutherland snarling at the camera for an hour while waltzing through a plot an 8-year-old could probably write, then you'll love this season of "24."

Much Ado About Nothing

In case you've been living under a rock for the past 24 hours, Lane Kiffin has bolted his head coaching job at Tennessee for a much cushier position at USC. This has generated much consternation in the sports-writing world, with commentators heated up about Kiffin's consistent violations of NCAA rules while at Tennessee. Stewart Mandel writes about how untrustworthy a coach Lane is, while Jay Marriotti worries about future NCAA violations at USC. At first glance, this is all very troubling and could spell a short and rocky college coaching career for the arrogant Kiffin.

However, college sports (and much of life) is not about the rules. The last time a top program was hammered by the NCAA with real sanctions was the early '90s, when my own Maize and Blue were punished for the Chris Webb violations. However, even at that time, Michigan could hardly be called a basketball dynasty school. And nothing on the order of USC in football. The idea that the NCAA would actually bring harsh penalties to big name coaches and big name programs is naive at best. With the ousting of Jim Leavitt and Mike Leach, we have found out that successful coaches are not immune from the consequences of their actions. But those were firings based on specific, verifiable evidence of harm to the students. When a school essentially sends escorts to recruit high school players, or pays them thousands of dollars in benefits there is little evidence of harm to the student. There is plenty of harm to the college game and the damage that this does to high school players in general, in terms of recruiting, is regrettable but nothing that the NCAA would have the guts to really act on.

So do I think that the Kiffin-USC marriage is going to end in failure? Probably not, but because of reasons that have nothing to do with Kiffin. A) USC is a recruiting goldmine. It's situated on the coast, with beautiful weather, pretty girls, and famous alumns. It also has a national audience the probably eclipses that of most top programs (note that this is my guess). And B) One of the stories that's falling under the radar is the return of Norm Chow to the USC staff from UCLA. Add to that the fact that Monte Kiffin is coming in to coach the defense and you have the coaching formulation for an excellent USC team on both offense and defense.

I wish that poor coaching style and open cheating wasn't rewarded but, until the NCAA actually does something about the latter, Kiffin looks set to lead USC to a pretty impressive season next year. I would say next few years but with his resume, who know where he'll be then?

Entering the Fray

Hey Guys. This is my first foray into this blog so I thought I'd keep it light-hearted and start out with some simple observations on the political front /sarcasm. One up front admission: I'm as liberal as can be. I don't believe in the motivating power of punishment, which sums up the essential difference between conservatism and liberalism. I believe we lose little and gain much by helping our fellow man. And, as has been observed countless times before, governments are the best--and sometimes only--security that small minorities have against the cruel majority.

With that out of the way. Let's talk about what's on everyone's mind: the political upheaval in Congress. As The Daily Show observed on Thursday, the Democratic retirements announced last week are few in number compared to the Republican ones. Yet, as other political pundits have observed, this is to be expected when comparing the majority and minority parties in an election year. One clear message that comes through the noise is that these retirements are demoralizing for the Democratic constituency, but politically uninformative. The Democrats have, at the moment, neither gained nor lost any votes in the senate relative to the scenario in which these retirements did not occur.

The momentum that is causing this negative coverage of Democratic resignations actually began with the Tea Party protests, the genesis and popularity of which are simple to explain. Since the Reagan Administration, where America first swallowed wholesale the fairytale that "government is the problem," polling has consistently showed higher favorables for personality candidates than political incumbents. That is, when a voter believes they know a person's character without knowing their politics, they are happy with them. Once that same politician begins to vote, however, these favorable views tend to diminish. The reason for this is obvious. People appreciate ideological purity more than they do practical solutions. Once someone latches on to the idea of tax cuts, they can purely cling to this slogan without pondering the consequences. "Cut government spending!" Okay, but which programs would you like to eliminate? Thus, since this Tea Party has yet to test itself politically, it is polling well with the Americans that fancy themselves politically involved without taking the effort to actually become politically involved.

The only way that we liberals can make true political progress in the face of this lazy opposition is if we stop typing our angry messages into the ether of internet comment forums and start making phone calls and donations in favor of legislation and causes in which we believe (causes that make more goddamn sense than "cut taxes and government spending," like ending Don't Ask, Don't Tell, and Universal Healthcare). An ironic message on an internet blog, I know, but (IMHO) a true one nonetheless.

Review of 3 Idiots

Often times it is easy to see all the problems with Bollywood movies. The predictable stories, the cheesy love songs, and the inevitable happy endings. 3 Idiots takes all of these elements and reminds us why we love Bollywood. Namely, Bollywood takes us to a place where all of that fantasy becomes reality. We want to be lost in a world where true love is all around us and we make fun of everything. The movie finds a way to do this but also touches our hearts with somber stories of slum life, disapproving parents, and broken love.

Between the main characters and all their individual stories, everyone will certainly find a way to relate to the story. Aamir Khan plays Rancho, the man who comes into school with the audacity to change not only the system of teaching in India but also everyone’s attitudes toward life. The headmaster, Virus, finds the true joy of learning; his daughter, Pia(Kareena Kapoor), sees that the cheesy love stories in Indian movies exist because true love does make us dream of the perfect kiss in the rain. Fehran realizes that to truly excel in something, you must enjoy it, and he learns how to love his disapproving parents while disobeying their greatest wish of him becoming an engineer. Raju comes to understand that joy and honesty with himself are better motivators than fear, and living in the present is the only way to find success in the future. Tied into all these stories are experiences of slum life, superficial love, paralyzed family members, coma, suicide, dead siblings, and even how bad we feel when our best friends outdo our best efforts.

The movie brings you in with relate-able stories then gets you to laugh. The funny scenes start right at the beginning when Fehran fakes his death to stop a plane and continues all the way through the ragging scene; Silencer’s speech where a couple words are changed; and a wonderful wedding crasher scene. Even at the very end of the movie Silencer hilariously ends up getting electrocuted by kids when he attempts to pee on Ranchos school and soon after drops his pants to respect Rancho, which coincidentally is the most symbolic scene in the movie. Here Silencer represents success as he chases after Rancho who represents excellence. Herein lies why it is so easy to love the movie.

3 Idiots’ true perfection is in the way that it finds a way to make you laugh during each of most intense scenes, even the sad ones. The mastery is most prevalent after the headmaster tries to tear apart the 3 idiot’s friendship. He forces Raju to decide whether to expel himself or Rancho from school. Facing the most difficult pressure he has ever felt in his life, Raju jumps out the 3^rd story window. His best friends rush him to the hospital where he bleeds and falls into a coma. Rancho, Fehran, and all his family and friends do everything they can to keep happy thoughts in his head and snap him out of the a coma. Rancho immediately starts out by creating lies about how his mother has purchased ten beautiful saaris, and that the headmaster has forgiven him. Fehran begins to wake when all his classmates throw darts at a picture of the headmaster and in the happiest moment of the movie, he finally awakes when Rancho develops a lie about how his 28-year-old sister is finally getting married, and with no dowry, and to his best friend Fehran! (Fehran’s terrified face during this interaction is priceless) The whole scene is incredibly and innately depressing because one of the most lovable characters in the movie is near death but Rancho’s jovial and novel attitude toward the situation makes you smile with tears in your eyes.

We want to crash weddings, pee on our evil teacher’s doorstep, and dance in the shower. Rancho’s journey lets us experience childish joy through a story of very mature and complicated subjects.3 Idiots is a comedy, and a drama, and will keep your emotions flowing the whole time.The characters bring you in with the very relatable stories of the college guys drinking making fun of each other, to true love, to sad stories. After even the American Indian youth relate with this Bollywood masterpiece, it makes you cry and laugh throughout it all while having fun the whole time. No American movie would ever let us dream of a world where Raju gets an engineering job after being the worst student in the class, or that the love of our life would blossom in the exact way we dreamt it. Rarely does a movie come along that takes what we hate about Indian movies and brings them together to remind us that we love Bollywood for its fantastic world that sweeps us off our feet and brings out every one of our emotions in two and a half hours of greatness. 3 Idiots does just that.