Doc Gurby reelected with 97% of Vote

AS GOOD AS NEWS - SPECIAL EDITION

DOC GURBY RETAINS TURKMENISTAN PRESIDENCY WITH 97% OF VOTE IN 8 CANDIDATE RACE

Doc won reelection to another 5 year term - yawn. It's news that he held an election at all, but the Times makes the point, 3 or 4 or maybe 5 times, that the other candidates were tokens from the same party. In fact, the Times uses Doc's win as an excuse to run a brief seminar on elections in central Asia. Expert A from UCLA notes that any election, even a rigged one, involves some risk and holding an election is a sign of strength. Expert B from Barnard opines that the sheer number of voters and overwhelming margin of victory prove the depth of support.

So, Doc holds Turkmenistan's first election and what does he get from the Times? One good word, progress, and 1,000 qualifications. What else did the Times have to say? Doc is rebuilding the insane personality cult of his predecessor. What supports this? He has a nickname. That's right, the Times has concluded that the cheering crowds chant of Arkadag ("the Protector in Turkmen") must be step 1 in Doc's plan to become a human god, because otherwise why would he have a nickname.

So is Doc really sliding backwards or is the election a sign of a very gradual shift toward democracy? As always, the Times fails to assess potential successors - the most important information needed to answer this question. Does Doc have a son or protege he wants to put in power, or will he be happy to see autocracy end with his own rule and willing to work toward democracy? Who knows? Not the NY Times.

"Bye" Week Goes Malignant

Just spotted NY Times use of "bye week" to describe an off week for a college team. The madness is spreading beyond the NFL. What's next? Are the Rangers enjoying bye days as they await the Yankees/Tigers winner?

Nothing wrong with a new word, phrase or usage that adds new meaning, brevity or even a little pzazz to the language, provided it doesn't cause problems that outweigh its pluses. Sadly, "Bye Week", used as a synonym for the older term "off week", adds nothing but problems. It has exactly the same meaning as off week, it's no shorter and, in my opinion, sounds no better. All it does is muddy the once precise term "bye'.

Bye used to refer only to the situation where a team or player would advance a round in a tournament without playing. For example, the top 16 seeds in a 48 player tennis tournament would get a first round bye, advancing automatically to the second round (and not coincidentally producing a second round of 32 which plays down nicely to a 2 player final). As used by the NFL, and now malignantly creeping elsewhere, bye's meaning is diluted - suddenly it's just a scheduled week off that doesn't involve advancing in any way. A team can be mathematically eliminated from contention during a bye week, what kind of advance is that?

What happened? As the NFL kept expanding the number of teams in the playoffs, it worried that fans would lose interest in the regular season. The solution? Spin the regular season as a tournament in which teams compete to make the playoffs (which it is, sort of) and use bye week instead of off week to add to that tournament flavor. What about the fact that NFL teams don't really advance on a scheduled off week? Not important to the NFL spinmeisters or the media who have parroted the NFL press releases, and even expanded the usage to college ball, without even noticing that "bye" used to mean something precise.

Next up - "Program Record"

Finally! NY Times gets the Stateless Marriage

The New York Times is suddenly all over the As Good As News approach to marriage. The idea is get the state out of the marriage business. The civil union would become the only form of committed couple, gay or straight, recognized by the state. Marriage would be left solely to the realm of religion, or, more broadly, the spiritual, with no state involvement or recognition for marriage of straight or gay. This approach was outlined in detail here on November 10, 2007 , revisited several times in shorter posts and posted as comment to other periodicals, including the Times. After years of non-recognition, it's popping up regularly, including pieces by Bill Keller and Ross Douthat on Sunday, July 3, 2011.

Sunday, Sunday, Sunday

Yoga report - The New Year's resolution crowd was late arriving, but arrive they did. Who knew a few side twisting variations on the sun salutation could change my day - thanks Clarissa.

And, in other news - The NFL playoff picture has been painted. Here are links to three older posts that include my only previous, public, pigskin prognostications: Perfection, Strange Odors, and Diagnosis Steelers. Shockingly, all were correct, so bet against As Good As News at your own risk.

New England is a deserving favorite, but I like the Steeler's chances. Steeler's 4 losses were all to playoff teams playing well in situations where the Steelers did not need a win. A week of rest to get Troy Polamalu healthy will help. Mike Wallace is emerging as a star. Best case for Steelers sounds almost realistic: Ravens beat Chiefs, Colts edge Jets (who speak loudly on cable but are not ready for network prime time) then Ravens engage Pats in a slugfest while Steelers handle a Colts squad that has become the Peyton show. Even if the Pats beat the Ravens, and they should, Pats must come back from one battering to face another from Pittsburgh. Nobody really wants to play the Ravens and Steelers - the most physical teams in football - on consecutive weeks, and the Pats, the best team in football this year, will fall just short of reaching the Super Bowl.

In the NFC, Atlanta hasn't sold me yet, but I haven't had many opportunities to see them play. I do know the Steelers beat them using a third string quarterback. Green Bay looks better than Philadelphia or Chicago right now, but that's not saying all that much. The Saints started slow and had a few letdowns even after they got rolling, but they looked very good in must win games against the Steelers and Falcons. Last year's Super Bowl win was no fluke and I'm picking the Saints to repeat in the NFC. I know someone from the NFC West will also be in the playoffs, but, seriously... Pats, Steelers and Ravens are all playing better than anyone in the NFC right now, and I would pick any of them to win the Super Bowl if they can get there. If I'm right and it comes down to a battle of the black and gold, I'm looking for the Steelers to beat the Saints in a very close game - a defensive struggle for three quarters that opens up in the last fifteen minutes.

"Stretch" Under Review

Stretch - The Unlikely Making of a Yoga Dude by Neal Pollack is uncomfortably close to a book I wanted to write. If that's not enough of a bias disclosure for you, then reader beware: this entire entry is written under the coercive pressure of a New Year's resolution. Stretch is, mostly, Mr. Pollack's memoir of his own journey through the world of yoga, and it comes close to being a great read.

There is humor, even a few laugh out loud moments, as Pollack takes advantage of the chasm between the yoga ideal (or in some cases, stereotype) and his cynical, dissolute self. The funny stuff is funny enough so I wanted more. Yoga produces a surprising amount of humor, and Stretch could have mined some additional veins. Watch this space for a chart comparing some well known schools/disciplines/styles of Yoga, you will see what I mean.

Stretch also sideswipes a fair amount of information on yoga's history, current schools of yoga practice and some of the "stars" of yoga. Pollack is stretching the memoir format at times, but he finds a nice balance. A few sections stop just short of "author uses elementary level research to pad book" but on the whole I learned a lot of interesting stuff with more laughs than pain. If Mr. Pollack issues his own version of the Vedas, I'll be eager to read them.

The glaring failure here is lack of depth and honesty. Mr. Pollack does reveal some trying moments, but mostly he's writing as a lovable curmudgeon. One who doesn't want to look very hard at why he's still smoking weed on a very regular basis after years of yoga practice. One who seems to give almost no thought to his young son as he ponders extended trips for yoga teacher training programs or workshops. The result is a curmudgeon not quite so lovable as Mr. Pollack would like us to believe. Nonetheless, Stretch held my interest. Even pretty good humor is hard to find in the yoga library and painless learning is not easy to come by.

Get Some Laughs with Torture

The Theater Project captures all the zany darkness of Why Torture Is Wrong and the People Who Love Them in an hilarious and perceptively staged production at Union County College in Cranford. This 2009 off Broadway hit written by Christopher Durang opens with Felicity (Meghan Murray), a newlywed bride, awakening (in a vertical bed that makes an interesting scene extraordinary) next to her new husband, Zamir (Phil Eichinger), a complete, and somewhat unsavory, stranger. Shaken, Felicity heads to her parents' home in Maplewood, but the parents only make matters worse. Dad (Gary Glor) is a paranoid serving in a self created shadow government while Mom (Harriett Trangucci) is paralyzed into a life of theater babble – or maybe it's genius to those who really know their theater.

Mr. Durang mounts an assault on the fourth wall that begins with some odd (and very funny) PA announcements, reminiscent of MASH, and escalates into a strobe lit attack on the fabric of the space-time continuum. The last few minutes may actually get a little too zany, even a little too saccharine, but it's a long ride. Most of the journey is a surprising, engaging and playful tug of war with the characters jumping in and out of their theatrical reality, all while serving up Durang's dark brew of acerbic wit.

The Theater Project, a professional company based at UCC, and Artistic Director Mark Spina make a habit of reviving shows that are just the right fit for the resources available and then producing them creatively. Every dollar spent seems to produce two dollars in impact on the stage.

The entire cast excels. Mr. Eichinger wisely chooses not to go too far over the top as Zamir, giving the show a necessary secondary anchor. Mr. Glor and Ms Trangucci make the most of roles that require both comedic and dramatic deftness amid the spiraling madness. Ms Murray handles the central role of the non-crazy well, but even she can't quite take enough sweetness out of a final scene that turns preachy in a contradiction of all that has gone before it.

Torture is playing Thursday-Sunday nights until August 1. This reviewer is not the only fan, the audience was laughing out loud throughout most of the show.

Times Slaps Doc Gurby Again

First post in a while, spurred on by duty as the official blog of Turkmenistan:

Turkmenistan: President Says Private Newspapers to be Allowed - And why not? Doc Gurby has nothing to hide. Every change this guy has made has been pro-Democracy, pro-liberalization. Even the NY Times has finally begun to recognize this:

Since the 2006 death of his autocratic predecessor, Mr. Berdymukhammedov
has taken steps toward liberalization, removing bans on institutions from the
Internet to the opera.

Yet still, the Times cannot resist the gratuitous slap:

But he controls power in the one-party state, and rights groups say reforms
are cosmetic.

Who are these unnamed rights groups? Is it really news that Doc isn't changing things fast enough to suit everyone?

There is news here, a real story, not a silly tag line. Where is Doc headed, what is the plan?. Will he keep the brakes on forever, or does he want to transform Turkmenistan into a functioning democracy during his lifetime? For many autocrats, the answe depends on one key fact - is there a relative or protege whom the autocrat wants to establish as a successor? If yes, the shift to democracy is limited. If no, then maybe Doc really wants to have democracy up and running by the time he retires. What has the Times said about Doc's family? About favored proteges? Nothing. It's a lot easier to write tag lines about rights groups, no thought required.