This is good news all around.  For CNN, which has turned into a really awful source of news recently, it’s good news:  the channel is clearly trying to position itself as a non-ideological alternative to Fox on the right and MSNBC, sort of on the left (why is Chuck Scarborough still there?), and Dobbs’ rantings weren’t exactly in line with that strategy.  For viewers, one can only hope that Time Warner will plug something useful into his slot.  And for Lou himself, he can now feel free to embrace without guilt the most unhinged conspiracy theories that have got his unnaturally golden hair tied into knots.  Lou Dobbs Tonight just won’t be the same without Lou Dobbs, and for that we can all be thankful.

For those unfamiliar with the plot, West Side Story is as classic and unapologetic a romance as you’ll find.  Based on Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet and re-imagined as a blood feud between rival white and Puerto Rican gangs in the 1950s, the innocence of the lovers and passion of the songs can leave even the most heartless cynics longing for their first love.  The Romeo and Juliet parallels, which I vaguely recall knowing about when I was younger, were far more striking and apparent this time around.  The balcony scene between Tony and Maria (so reminiscent of the famed scene between Romeo and Juliet), the congruities in the fatal feuds between Mercutio-Tybalt and Riff-Bernardo, and even the penultimate scene with the apothecary, which mirrors Doc’s Pharmacy in WSS, all are performed with the foreshadowing of knowledge that the story ends in tragedy.

This revival departs from the original in several ways.  Much has been said, a good portion of it critical, about the decision to translate the dialogue between the Sharks into Spanish, including two of the show’s more memorable songs:  “A Boy Like That” has become “Un Hombre Asi” and “I Feel Pretty” is now “Me Siento Hermosa.”  As someone who is currently trying to learn Spanish through sappy Dominican bachata songs and wishes more Americans were multi-lingual, I support this change.  Moreover, it has always struck me as odd that audiences are supposed to buy in to the idea that British-inflected English is the default language of all non-Anglo-Saxon peoples, ancient and modern, who appear on film and stage.

That said, we’re talking about musical theater here–a medium in which audiences willingly accept the idea that people break into song at multiple moments in the course of an average day and will, without a nod in the direction of prior coordination, dance in perfect syncopation with one another.  To a gang fight.  Slavish adherence to reality isn’t really something that musical theater is known for.  So asking the same crowd to accept that a Puerto Rican immigrant might feel comfortable speaking in English instead of Spanish doesn’t seem to me like that big a deal.   Other reviews have criticized some of the gang members as too fey and boyish to be convincing; again, we’re talking about musical theater here, folks.  You’re not gonna find too many Gerard Butlers hitting those high notes in “Tonight.”

In terms of scene stealers, Josefina Scaglione as Maria is incredible–she has recently appeared in Cinderella, Hairspray, and my dreams.  Newly arrived from Argentina, she plays Maria alternately as a naive ingenue who at the same time, as Ben Brantley’s NYT review so aptly puts it, “has the confidence associated with young women who are beautiful, willful and unacquainted with sorrow.”  Her voice is full yet innocent, with enormous range.  Karen Olivo is also impressive as Maria–she has previously played Mimi in Rent, and contributes to some beautiful harmonies in “America” and “I Feel Pretty (Me Siento Hermosa)” that I don’t recall being present in the original production.  As Tony, Matt Cavenaugh shows great range but gives the sense of rushing through some of his songs, like “Something’s Coming,” the first time we see him on stage.

The choreography is teriffic, especially for the scenes in which much of the cast appears on stage and through the course of the song flows into countless permutations of small groupings, then appear as individuals, and finally together as a mass–scenes like the dance at the gym, “Tonight” done as a quintet, and “A Place for Us.”  The set and lighting are similarly well done and incorporated seamlessly into the production.  The costume design is a little too bright and peppy for me considering that WSS is, at heart, a dark story–one other review said it looked like a Gap ad, which sounds about right.

This being the first review I’m doing here, I haven’t really worked out a ratings system yet, but suffice it to say that West Side Story is a great show and this revival is well-worth your time–great music, some excellent performances, and a story that could break your heart.

The New Republic has an interesting chart up today showing how the debate over escalation/”muddle through-ism”/withdrawal in Afghanistan has created some strange bedfellows across the political spectrum.

I’m not sure I’d agree with TNR’s placement of some of the people along the left-right axis.  Rory Stewart, while a registered member of the Conservative party in Britain, is hardly a right-winger by US political standards.  Hillary is similarly difficult to characterize–certainly on domestic policy she is left-of-center, but she has been an enthusiastic supporter of every US military action in the last fifteen years or so.

On the whole though, TNR’s coverage of the Afghanistan debate has been some of the best around in the past few months–see, for example, Stephen Biddle on the case for doubling-down and (far more convincingly, at least to me) A.J. Rossmiller, Andrew Bacevich, and Michael Cohen on the case for waiting or withdrawing.

(h/t Andrew Sullivan)

In the annals of truly atrocious people in recent history, Charles Taylor, who presided over the massacre of not only large swaths of the population in his native Liberia but also throughout western Africa, ranks among the atroc-iest.  Pioneering ever more repulsive methods of war-making, Taylor can lay claim to being among the most prolific African tyrants in recruiting child soldiers, encouraging his men to hack off the limbs of enemies and civilians alike, and promoting the rape of women, all tactics he embraced in the campaigns that he backed in Liberia and Sierra Leone.  One of the ways in which it has long been believed that Taylor funded his wars is through smuggling diamonds that were apparently, according to prosecutors his ongoing trial at the Special Court for Sierra Leone in the Hague, concealed in mayonnaise jars.  Taylor, for his part, has denied involvement in any Hellman’s-related smuggling activity:

“There are no diamonds running in and out (of Liberia) by the mayonnaise jar-full,” Taylor said on what was expected to be his last full day of testifying in his own defense at his war crimes trial.

I’m inclined to believe him, if for no other reason that if I was an evil dictator smuggling diamonds into my country, mayonnaise jars would seem a terribly small and especially smelly method of bringing them in–you can’t imagine brides across the world clamoring to wear a gem that reminds them less of everlasting love than a tuna melt.  On a more serious note though, I don’t think that denying involvement in diamond-smuggling is a particularly effective defense for Taylor, whose penchant for the gems is well-known and well-documented.  His statement recalled this creepy exchange from Jon Lee Anderson’s excellent 1998 piece in the New Yorker about the then-newly-elected Taylor:

“There is gold everywhere in this country. Diamonds! You just have to dig and you find gold,” Taylor said enthusiastically. The President waved toward a husky man who was standing uncomfortably out in the sun on the driveway about ten feet in front of us. Taylor introduced him as Jenkins Dunbar, the Minister for Lands, Mines, and Energy. “This is the man who is going to find us oil, which will be our salvation,” Taylor said. “Aren’t you, Dunbar?  When are you going to find that oil? It better be pretty soon!” Dunbar froze, laughed nervously, and quipped, “Soon, very soon, Mr. President. If it’s there, you can be sure we’ll find it!”