MayerBlog: The Web Log of
David N. Mayer

Dog Days Doggerel – Take 3 

Still more observations on current developments in politics and popular culture, during these “dog days” of August, including updates on some previous posts:

n     Hard Times in the "Big Easy”

Amidst all the tragic news from the Gulf Coast of Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama in the wake of hurricane Katrina and the subsequent devastating flood waters, perhaps the saddest news item is the story of looting in the city of New Orleans.  You’ve probably heard the AP wire story:  With much of the city flooded, looters smashed storefront windows, grabbed TVs and other electronic goods, floated garbage cans filled with clothing and jewelry down the street – in some cases, in full view of police and National Guard troops.  On Canal Street (which actually resembled a canal), dozens of looters ripped open the steel gates of jewelry and sporting goods stores, then floated their loot down the street.  One man, who was seen exiting a clothing store with about 10 pairs of jeans draped over his left arm, was asked whether that was his store; in reply, he shouted “No, that’s EVERYBODY’s store!”  Looters at Wal-Mart brazenly loaded shopping carts with items including microwaves, coolers, and knife sets.  In many places, looters roamed in gangs, armed with automatic weapons.  One tourist from Philadelphia stood and snapped pictures in amazement, comparing it to “downtown Baghdad.  “It’s insane,” she said.  “I’ve wanted to come here for 10 years.  I thought this was a sophisticated city.  I guess not.” 

Crisis brings out the best in some people; in others, it brings out the worst.  These looters are criminals, they’re thieves and robbers, violators of other people’s rights – worse than savages, they’re not even human beings; they’re mere animals.  Many of them are criminals even in “normal” times; others became criminal, as law and order – and, with it, civilization itself -- broke down after flood waters filled the streets.  Sadly, some people are just evil in their nature; others become evil and do wrong when they see others do it.  Whatever the explanation, it’s the existence of such creatures that’s the reason why some government is necessary – why it is necessary to use force, in certain circumstances, to protect people’s rights (including their property).  And in the absence of government agents to protect law-abiding people from such wrongdoers, it’s also necessary for law-abiding people to be able to defend themselves (and their property) effectively, with firearms.  (When looters have automatic weapons, storeowners need them, too.  Naïve paternalists who would have government “ban” firearms – which means disarming law-abiding citizens, for criminals do not obey gun-control laws – would leave the rest of us helpless in the face of such armed thugs.) 

Perhaps all the looting in New Orleans should not be surprising, given the low regard that modern American society has for property rights – the most fundamental of our rights.  When a majority of the justices of the U.S. Supreme Court ignore the explicit language of the Fifth Amendment and allow local governments to seize people’s homes and redistribute the property to commercial developers (as the Court did this year in its Kelo decision); or when intellectuals draw a false distinction between “human rights” and “property rights” (it’s a false distinction because property rights are human rights) – it’s not all that surprising that a thief in New Orleans rationalizes his actions by claiming that the goods he steals are “everybody’s” property.  The intellectuals who helped contribute to this amoral climate are simply just another kind of looter. 

For over two centuries the people of New Orleans have lived in their “soup bowl,” with most of the city below sea level and only an elaborate system of levees and pumps protecting them from the constant risk of catastrophic flooding.  No doubt the city will rebuild, and its people resume their lives in “the Big Easy,” just as the people of Chicago rebuilt after the Great Fire of 1870.  But the first, necessary step is to reestablish the rule of law.

n     Three Cheers for “Price Gouging”

The news media (which seems to delight in telling negative news), in between its coverage of the latest tragedies from the Gulf Coast, has been speculating about the effect that hurricane Katrina will have on the prices of gasoline and other petroleum products in the U.S.   Given that the Gulf region hit by the hurricane contains roughly 4000 oil-and-gas operations, connected by 33,000 miles of pipelines, which together account for more than a quarter of U.S. oil production, it’s certain that Katrina will wreak some havoc with the nation’s oil and gas supplies.  Adding to the problem is the fact that many oil refineries in the region are also affected, meaning that refined oil products – including gasoline – will be at a premium.  Many experts are predicting that gasoline prices at the pump will stay in the $3 to $5 per gallon price range for some time to come. 

Talk of such high gas prices prompts many pundits (and politicians) to further demonize oil companies – giving the tired old argument that oil company profits are too high – and to raise scares about retail “price-gouging.”  Only an idiot – someone utterly ignorant of basic principles of economics, and of the morality of free-market capitalism – would decry business profits or would think that “price-gouging” is a bad thing.  What the demagogues call “price-gouging” is simply a free market functioning as it ought to, with prices (which when set by the impersonal market forces of supply and demand) providing the fairest method of allocating scarce resources in the face of high demand.  Those who really value gas will be willing to pay higher prices for it; and in a free market, sellers should be free to set the prices for their goods at whatever level the market will bear – which is to say, at whatever price they can find willing buyers.  The alternative to market pricing – government-imposed price controls – always results in shortages; that’s the lesson we should have learned from the unhappy experience of national price controls over energy during the Nixon and Carter administrations in the 1970s.  (A lesson, apparently, not yet learned by Hawaiian legislators:  see “Aloha, Common Sense,” below.) 

If there’s a silver lining in the dark cloud of high gas prices, it’s another fortunate consequence of a free market:  Higher gas prices -- together with the capital they can raise through higher profits – will give energy companies the incentives they need to drill in higher-cost oil and gas deposits.  One of my sources in the oil industry tells me that we’ve barely scratched the surface (literally) when it comes to the world’s petroleum reserves. (Contrary to the popular myth, petroleum is a renewable resource – albeit one that takes thousands of years to form out of decayed organic compounds.  What we’ve extracted thus far is comparable to strip-mining, or superficial mining for coal; vast reserves of oil and gas lie further below the surface or interspersed in rock formations that are more difficult to access, comparable to deep coal-mining.)  There are vast reserves not yet tapped because the costs of extraction from, say, shale rock, are too high.  Higher prices make it economically feasible to exploit these deeper, less accessible reserves.  Thus, ironically, it may be argued that hurricane Katrina did what Congress recently failed to do, in its omnibus “energy bill”:  to increase production, by providing market incentives for new oil and gas drilling as well as increased refinery capacity.  Will policy makers take advantage of this golden opportunity to let free market forces work, or will we repeat the mistakes of the past -- by again having government interfere with market forces in the energy industry?  Only time will tell, but I continue to hope that politicians will resist the temptation to interfere and just let the market work:  “oil’s well that ends well.”

n     Thou Shalt Not Kill, Unless . . .

            Christian conservative broadcaster Pat Robertson made headlines last week when he suggested that the U.S. should kill Hugo Chavez, the Communist thug who’s the dictator of Venezuela.  Speaking on his program, The 700 Club, about Chavez’s claim that the U.S. government wants to assassinate him, Robertson said, “If he thinks we’re trying to assassinate him, I think that we really ought to go ahead and do it.  It’s a whole lot cheaper than starting a war.”  Robertson’s comments immediately sparked controversy, drawing condemnations from both government officials and other religious leaders.  Robertson subsequently apologized for his remarks, but added this explanation:  “When faced with the threat of a [dictator like Saddam Hussein] in our own hemisphere, would it not be wiser to wage war against one person rather than finding ourselves down the road locked in a bitter struggle with a whole nation?”  I seldom agree with Mr. Robertson, but he may be on to something here. 

n     Call Him “Professor Smith”  

            My friend and colleague Brad Smith continues to be the subject of media attention, as he returns to teaching at Capital University Law School, after spending five years in Washington, D.C. on the Federal Election Commission.   The most recent article, “Mr. Smith Leaves Washington,” written by the Cato Institute’s John Samples for the August 24 online issue of  The American Spectator, praises Smith for his refusal to “grow in office” – that is, his refusal to abandon his principles (and his common sense) and succumb to the corrupting influence of political power.  Despite holding one of the three designated “Republican” seats on the FEC, Smith refused to go along with the Republican party’s about-face on so-called “527” groups and instead adhered to his free-speech principles, which the GOP abandoned last year (in Smith’s words) “for some perceived, but wholly uncertain, political gain.”  Samples also credits Smith for calling the public’s attention to the threats posed by campaign finance law to free speech on the Internet, noting that the hearings held by the FEC in July on that subject “would not have happened without Smith’s warnings about the implications of [the] McCain-Feingold [law].”     

n     Divide and Conquer 

            As I reported in my previous entry (“The NCAA PC Police”), the NCAA has responded to Florida State University’s complaints about the organization’s planned ban on American Indian imagery and nicknames by schools at postseason tournaments.  The NCAA moved quickly on Florida State’s complaint:  apparently without going through its formal appeals process, it simply granted an exception from the new rule to FSU, in light of the fact that the Seminole Tribe of Florida has OK’d the school’s use of the nickname Seminole.  This quick response to FSU’s bitching might be seen as an illustration of the principle “The squeaky wheel gets the grease,” but I think it’s more like a “divide and conquer” strategy on the part of the NPCAA to protect its outrageous rule. 

            The NCAA rule, besides being silly, also reveals an amazing ignorance on the part of this organization, supposedly dedicated to collegiate sports, about the nature of athletic competition.  As Investors Business Daily noted in a recent editorial, “Just when did being called `brave’ become a racial slur? . . . Whether it be the `Fighting Illini’ of Illinois or the Atlanta Braves, names of sport teams, college or professional, have been chosen either to identify with a local tribe with a proud and historical legacy, such as Florida’s Seminoles, or to identify with an admired attribute as applicable to sports as to history.  Bravery and a fighting or warrior spirit are attributes designed to inspire athletes, not denigrate an ethnic group.  Just as when the U.S. Army named its attack helicopters Blackhawk, Apache and Cheyenne, it was to indicate prowess in battle, not a racial putdown.”   

The question remains -- What about the other 17 schools on the NCAA’s list of schools with “offensive” Indian nicknames – schools that might not be as politically powerful as Florida State?  Some of them, which like FSU derive their nicknames from specific tribes (like the Central Michigan Chippewas, the North Dakota Fighting Sioux, or the Utah Utes), probably are already in negotiations with the tribes for permission to use the names.   (Expect those tribes to try to extort some “wampum” from the schools.)  Schools with the misfortune of having generic American Indian names, however, seem to be up shit’s creek without a paddle in their birch-bark canoes.  The NCAA ban, as I’ve said before, is an outrageous abuse of the organization’s authority, an effort to micromanage – in the name of “political correctness”—something that has nothing directly to do with collegiate athletic competition.  Add to the NCAA’s iniquity the fact that it’s also now guilty of inequity.

n     More “P.C.” Tyranny 

            The NCAA ban on American Indian nicknames is just one example of the pernicious effect the so-called “political correctness” movement has had on freedom of speech on the nation’s colleges and universities.  Among other things, “P.C.” dogma helps institutionalize what some free-speech advocates decry as “the heckler’s veto”: the ability of some people to silence the speech of others merely because they find it offensive.  

            In yet another example of the heckler’s veto at work, this time in the broadcast media, a radio talk-show host has been suspended from his job because of comments he made on his show.   At issue is a comment made on Washington, D.C. talk-radio station WMAL by mid-morning host Michael Graham, who said that “Islam, sadly, has become a terrorist organization.”  Graham’s comment was immediately assailed by the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), which instigated a campaign to pressure the Disney-owned WMAL to fire Mr. Graham, on the heels of the station’s suspension of him about a week after his on-air remarks.  As Joel Mowbray noted in a recent column in The Washington Times (“U.S. Islamic group takes aim at talk show host,” National Weekly Edition, August 22-28), all the CAIR-generated furor has obscured the context of Graham’s remarks.  This is what he actually said: 

“Because of the mix of Islamic theology that – rightly or wrongly – is interpreted to promote violence, added to an organizational structure that allows violent radicals to operate openly in Islam’s name with impunity, Islam has, sadly, become a terrorist organization.  It pains me to say it.  But the good news is it doesn’t have to stay this way, if the vast majority of Muslims who don’t support terror will step forward and reclaim their religion.”

As Mowbray notes, “Plenty of people can – and should – take issue with the framing of the religion itself as a `terrorist organization.’  But his surrounding comments have more than a ring of truth.  Islamic theology is used to promote violence.  And in many parts of the world, radicals have taken control of Islam – and the moderates have been effectively silenced.”  And, as Mowbray goes on to point out, CAIR – which is always anxious to slam critics of radical Islam in the name of defending the religion against supposed defamation – has refused to condemn Islamic terrorism.  (That’s perhaps not surprising, reports Mowbray, given that “CAIR was founded in 1994 by two former high-ranking officials with the Islamic Association of Palestine, a rabidly anti-Semitic organization known as Hamas’ biggest political booster in the United States.”)  It seems that CAIR found Mr. Graham’s comments particularly offensive because they were true!

n     A Tale of Two Constitutions 

            The people of Iraq continue to struggle with the problem of drafting a constitution – a truly difficult task for the fledgling republic.  Complicating the task are two unfortunate political facts:  first, that the Iraqi people are not used to representative democracy (the provisional government that’s working on the draft constitution is the first freely-elected government Iraq has had, ever, in its thousands-year-old history); and second, that Iraq is an artificial nation, compounded of bitterly-divided political, ethnic, and religious factions whose consensus is essential to the success of the new national constitution.  The major stumbling blocks have been the issue of federalism (the division of power between the national government and Iraq’s 18 provinces, and specifically, the degree of political autonomy to be vested in the provinces), the status of Saddam Hussein’s Baath Party, and the status of Islamic law.  As of last week, negotiators still had failed to reach agreement on the critical matter of federalism; after missing a self-imposed deadline to reach a consensus, the Iraqi assembly decided not to vote on the draft constitution and instead send it directly to the people for a vote in a planned October 15 referendum.  The constitution requires ratification by voters in most of the Iraqi provinces (including those provinces dominated by Sunnis, the group most unhappy with the draft constitution); two-thirds of voters in at least three provinces could torpedo the constitution, thus requiring the political process to start all over again:  parliament would be dissolved, elections would be held for a new provisional government, and the process of trying to draft a constitution for a permanent government would begin anew. 

            A White House spokesman last week was cautiously optimistic, noting that drafting a constitution is not easy and that even America’s Founding Fathers had a difficult time.  The comparison to the United States, however, is not apt.  The framers of our national constitution had it relatively easy, in a number of critical respects.  First, the people of the United States were united as one people – they had won their independence from Great Britain by uniting their colonies in a provisional national government, the Continental Congress, and had adopted our first national constitution, the Articles of Confederation – even though, under the Articles, the states retained a great deal of autonomy.  (The United States continues to be unique among the nations of the world in its political structure:  one nation, composed of a single people united by shared values and a common legal system, yet politically organized by states.)  Federalism was not problematic to the framers of the U.S. Constitution:  indeed, it helped resolve one of the basic disagreements at the Federal Constitutional Convention.  Delegates from the more populous states wanted a national government of broad powers, with the people of the various states represented according to their population; delegates from the less-populous states, fearing domination by the big states, wanted to retain the Articles of Confederation system of a national government of limited, enumerated powers, with the states having equal votes in the Congress regardless of their population.  The “great compromise” at the 1787 Convention – which created a bicameral Congress, with the states represented by population in one house (the House of Representatives) but equally in the other house (the Senate) – also incorporated a true federal system, with governmental power divided between the national government (limited to those powers enumerated in the Constitution) and the states.  

            In contrast, as noted above, the Iraqis are not united as one people.  Although the country we today call “Iraq” has a long history – going back thousands of years to ancient Mesopotamia (the Greek word for “the land between the rivers”), touted in the draft Iraqi constitution as “the cradle of” the alphabet, arithmetic, and the law – the modern nation is an artificial entity, created largely by the British government when it controlled it as a protectorate after World War I and in recent years held together as one nation under the brutal dictatorship of Saddam Hussein and his Baathist regime.  The Iraqi people today are essentially divided into three groups:  the Kurds, an ethnic group that dominates in the northern “Kurdistan” provinces (brutally repressed by the Hussein regime, who have enjoyed a great deal of autonomy since the mid-1990s under cover of U.S.-enforced “no-fly” zones); the Shiite Moslems, who comprise the majority (some 60% of Iraq’s population) but who also were repressed by Saddam; and the Sunni Arabs, who resent the loss of the top-dog status they enjoyed under Saddam and who largely boycotted the Jan. 30 election for seats in the current National Assembly.  (As a result, although the Sunnis comprise about 20% of Iraq’s 27 million population, they hold only 17 of the 275 parliament seats.  Some Sunnis have gone underground, supporting the terrorist “insurgency.”)  One problem with the draft constitution’s complicated provisions regarding federalism (which allow provinces to hold referenda and form a “region” that would enjoy limited political autonomy, with their own separate parliament, ministries, and budgets) is that many Sunnis (who are concentrated in provinces in the center of Iraq) fear that power and wealth will flow to the oil-rich provinces in the Kurdish north and the Shiite south.  

            Yet another critical difference between the United States Constitution and the proposed Iraqi constitution – and a critical difference in the legal history and cultures of the two countries – is the fortunate fact, for Americans, that our legal system separates religion and government.  The vast majority of Iraq’s people are believers in Islam, and Islam (unfortunately) is a religion that tends to lead to theocracies in virtually all countries where it dominates.  (Historically, Christianity has had the same problem for many centuries, whenever church and state were in the same hands; but the United States – despite what many religious conservatives might say, in their ignorance of history – had the good fortune of being founded, not as a “Christian nation,” but a nation based on the individualist philosophy of the Enlightenment, which sees religious belief as a private matter over which the government has no legitimate powers.  Thus, the U.S. government is constitutionally barred from establishing an official religion or even from making any laws “respecting an establishment of religion”; it is also constitutionally compelled to respect individuals’ freedom of conscience.)  The draft Iraqi constitution declares Islam to be “the official religion of the state” and identifies Islam as “a major source” of legislation; it also prohibits laws that contradict the “undisputed” teachings of Islam, as well as prohibiting laws that contradict “democratic principles” and basic human rights.  (Those provisions are compromises designed to placate both Sunnis and Kurds, who fear that some Shiites want to make Iraq into a hard-line Islamic theocracy like Iran.  Still, whether Islam is recognized as “a” source of law or “the” source of law, giving it official status to any degree raises the danger of religious tyranny.) 

            Notwithstanding these differences, there is a common lesson to be drawn from the experiences of both the U.S. and Iraqi constitutions – a lesson that ought to be heeded today by policymakers in both countries (and all over the world, including Europe, where political leaders are struggling with similar problems in trying to formulate a constitution for the European Union).  That lesson is simple:  the more powers given to a national government, the more difficult it is to achieve a consensus of support among the diverse peoples who are to live under that government.  To make a successful constitution for a nation, framers ought to limit its powers as much as possible.  A national government ought to be limited to those few, definite powers that only a national government competently can exercise (such as defending the nation from external attack or resolving disputes between people of different states or provinces); all other powers ought to be reserved to the governments at the state or local level or – better yet – retained by the people (that is, not given to government, at any level, at all).  The United States Constitution embodies this principle in its most important provision, the Tenth Amendment.  (See my previous entry on “The Constitution’s Forgotten Foundation,” Sept. 13, 2004.)  Without a comparable provision, no national or federal constitution is likely to succeed. 

n     Aloha, Common Sense 

            For those familiar with the 50^th State’s laws, it seems that Hawaii is far from the “paradise” it seems to tourists.  Not only did the state pass the horrible land-redistribution law that the Supreme Court cited in support of its horrible eminent-domain decision this year, but now the state’s preparing to impose a cap on the price of gasoline.  Malia Zimmerman, editor of Hawaii Reporter and co-founder of the Grassroot Institute of Hawaii (a free-market think tank), in a recent op-ed in the Wall Street Journal notes that while many of the people of Hawaii are too young to remember Richard Nixon as their president or the gas crisis of the early 1970s, they soon will be seeing “more Nixon-era-like lines, gas shortages, and even rationing,” as a result of the state legislature’s “thoroughly misguided attempt to stem the rising price of gas.”  The law, set to take effect Sept. 1, ties the price of gas to the wholesale price of gasoline at three price points on the U.S. mainland.  Experts expect the law, ironically, to increase consumer prices because it doesn’t apply to the markup applied by retailers or gas station owners.  It also is expected to cause more shortages (especially in remote areas), the closure of one of two oil refineries, the halting of wholesale marketers’ operations, and reduced investment in the state after the caps go into effect.  “Owners of gas stations on remote neighboring islands say prices will likely soar after Sept.1, from just over $3 a gallon to more than $4.”  (“What a Gas! (But Hawaii Isn’t Laughing),” August 25). 

            Ms. Zimmerman asks rhetorically, “Why bring back price controls more than 30 years after Nixon tried them and failed miserably, causing shortages, rationing, inflation, and an economic crisis?”  She points to the Democrat-controlled state legislature – “made up primarily of liberal Democrats with no economics training, no business background, an open disdain for the free market, and a lust for price caps (except on state taxes)” [Hawaii’s state tax on gas is one of the highest in the U.S.] – but she notes that a Republican was co-sponsor of the bill and that Gov. Linda Lingle (elected in 2002, the state’s first Republican governor in 40 years) has refused to use her emergency powers to halt the gas caps.  It seems the politicians are eager to “do something” about the high price of gasoline, and that it’s easy for them to demonize big oil companies like Chevron.  “Living in Hawaii often feels like being part of a bad social experiment,” Zimmerman sadly concludes.  “If lawmakers truly wanted to reduce gasoline prices, they’d eliminate or drastically reduce state and county gas taxes.  Instead, they continue to pass laws like the gas cap that not only will be ineffective, but will hurt Hawaii’s consumers and businesses, and most likely raise the price of gasoline even higher.” 

            Let’s hope other states don’t decide to follow Hawaii’s example.  The long history of government-imposed price controls is inevitably the history of a failed policy with unintended consequences far worse than the high prices that prompted the controls in the first place.  (Consider not only the failure of Nixon-era price controls and how they exacerbated the energy crisis of the 1970s, but also the failure of Parliament’s effort to control wages when it passed the infamous Statute of Labourers in the wake of the Black Plague in 14^th-century England, or even the failure of price controls in ancient imperial Rome.)  When it comes to ignorance about basic principles of economics -- not to mention blindness to the lessons of history – don’t underestimate the capacity of politicians to pass short-sighted laws like Hawaii’s.

n     From the Country that Gave Us Massage and Welfare Socialism 

            An editorial in last week’s Wall Street Journal reports, “If you find yourself in Malmo, Sweden, and happen to see a homosexual, an imam, and a gypsy walk into a bar, it’s not a joke.  These are just some of the people who can be borrowed – yes, borrowed – from the local library for a 45-minute chat in a nearby pub as part of an effort to fight discrimination” (“Not a Swedish Joke,” August 25).  It seems that the someone at the Swedish library dreamed up this “Living Library” project, basing it on the notion that prejudices are grounded in ignorance and the (hopeful) expectation that they can be overcome by giving bigots the opportunity to come face to face with the subjects of their prejudice.  The Malmo library also offers a Danish man and a journalist.  And, the Journal editorial also reports, a library in the Dutch city of Almelo, inspired by the Swedish example, plans to start its own human lending program, featuring a Muslim woman, a gay man, a lesbian, a gypsy, a politician, a hard-drug user, and a German.  The Journal editors, noting the daily reports of widespread anti-Americanism in Europe, wonder why neither of these libraries have “a Yank” in stock.  If this idea should spread to the libraries of America’s colleges and universities, I wonder if they’d loan a conservative or a libertarian.

n     All Roads Lead to Rome 

            The new 12-part mini-series Rome premiered on HBO Sunday night, August 28.  While not quite at the level of quality of the classic 1970s BBC series I, Claudius (which had not only excellent actors but also excellent scripts, based on the sophisticated novels by Robert Graves), Rome certainly has excellent “production values”:  with a production budget of $100 million, it’s the most expensive TV series ever made, with an enormous set at Rome’s Cinecitta Studios that covers more than five acres and recreates ancient Rome with gritty realism.  Benefiting from Hollywood’s new-found interest in ancient epics since Gladiator won the Oscar a few years ago (consider not only last year’s films Alexander and Troy, but also USA’s four-hour Spartacus miniseries in 2004, TNT’s four-hour Caesar miniseries in 2003, and ABC’s awful six-hour Empire series this summer), the HBO Rome series is definitely a cut above those other TV projects in its seriousness.  As Robert Bianco noted in his recent review in USA Today, “Every detail in its re-creation of ancient Rome may not be correct, but the spirit and the overall picture ring true – and the entertainment value resounds.” 

            Unlike Empire (which told an entirely fictional story that coupled a historic character, Octavian – Julius Caesar’s grandnephew and heir, the future emperor Augustus – with an entirely made-up gladiator character, whose functioned as Octavian’s bodyguard), Rome tells the largely historically accurate story of the conflict between Julius Caesar (played by Ciaran Hinds) and Pompey the Great (played by Kenneth Cranham) for control of the Republic.  Alongside this historic conflict are two engrossing backstories:  first, the ambition of Caesar’s niece Atia (played by Polly Walker, the character is aptly described by Bianco as a combination of “the political drive of Claudius’ Livia with the sex drive of Dynasty’s Alexis”), who’s pushing her son Octavian (Max Pirkis, “one of the show’s real finds,” as Bianco also notes); and second, the friendship of two Roman soldiers, the old-guard centurion Lucius (Kevin McKidd) and the “cheerful brutish” common soldier Pullo (Ray Stevenson).  Bianco notes, “McKidd and Stevenson are a wonderful pair, with more than enough chemistry to compensate for the sometimes soapy nature of their plebian story line.  The problem is with the aristocrats:  Walker [as Atia] is too colorful, and Hinds [as Caesar] is not colorful enough.”  And as Bianco adds, “this is not a series for the squeamish or the prudish,” with its violence (blood and gore abound) and sex (including full-frontal nudity, male and female).  According to executive producer Bruno Heller, it’s “the Western id unleashed” in a pagan society – something that, given the censorship that prevails on broadcast TV, only a cable channel like HBO can bring into American homes. 

            If, as I hope, the series is popular and sparks another round of programming focused on ancient Rome, perhaps writers and producers might develop scripts from the many well-written (and reasonably historically accurate) novels about ancient Rome that have appeared in recent years.  These include the novels of Colleen McCullough as well as the historical murder mysteries of Lindsey Davis, John Maddox Roberts, Steven Saylor, and David Wishart.  With so many good books in print, any of which would make splendid sources of stories for screenplay adaptations, it’s sad that Hollywood continues to make so many films and television programs written by screenwriters who are ignorant of history.

 | Link to this Entry | Posted Monday & Wednesday, August 29 & 31, 2005 | Copyright David N. Mayer