Absurd

NEW YORK -- Knicks guard Stephon Marbury testified yesterday in the case of a fired team executive who has accused coach Isiah Thomas of sexual harassment, calling the lawsuit absurd while downplaying an encounter with a drunken intern. After hearing about the lawsuit brought by Anucha Browne Sanders, "I laughed," Marbury said in U.S. District Court. "It was more of a joke than anything." Browne Sanders says she is owed her vice president position back and at least $10 million for enduring a sexually harassing workplace for five years.

As a businessman I read The Sun to be informed and educated, not for snide and misinformed comments such as those in commentator Matt Patterson's piece on the nomination of Thomas Perez as labor secretary ("Why do we need a labor department?" March 22). It was difficult to determine whether the author meant to be taken seriously. To suggest that we don't need an agency to look out for the interests of workers, when their jobs have so often been shipped overseas and their salaries are stagnant at a time of record corporate profits that primarily benefit shareholders, is simply foolish.

BIG INVESTMENT FIRMS are making a mockery of the state's property tax sales, which until recently were orderly auctions that helped Maryland jurisdictions clear up delinquent real estate bills.Investors violate the spirit, if not the letter, of the bidding process by offering absurd sums of money -- a trillion dollars and even "infinity" for tax-delinquent properties. Successful bidders win the right to pay the taxes and then to seek reimbursement from the property owners plus legal fees and interest rates ranging from 12 to 24 percent.

"Love, Sex and the IRS" is a 1970s farce by Billy Van Zandt and Jane Milmore that has more going for it than its intriguing title. Bowie Community Theatre's cast and crew transform what might seem dated into nostalgic sitcom gold, coaxing giggles from the audience at the improbable plot. Ensconced in an apartment building that does not permit unmarried couples to rent units are a pair of male roommates — Jon and Leslie. Unknown to Leslie, they are listed as a married couple on their joint tax returns filed by Jon. Having saved money for four years, Jon learns that an IRS auditor will visit, forcing Leslie to pose as Jon's wife, complete with high heels and tight dresses.

The Bowman Ensemble's double billing of two one-act plays, Eugene Ionesco's 1950 classic "The Bald Soprano" and a brand new play by Bowman artistic director Matthew Ramsay, "Mr. Positive," makes for an evening devoted to the theater of the absurd.It also might seem absurdly bold for a young Baltimore playwright to link himself so directly with Ionesco. The surprise of the night is that while it's easy enough to make some negative observations about "Mr. Positive," Ramsay does deliver plenty of laughs in his surreal comedy of manners.

A Baltimore County man who has been implicated by the Web site The Smoking Gun as a key informant in baseball's steroid scandal has denied any association with the federal government's investigation into illegal performance-enhancing drugs. In an exclusive interview with The Baltimore Sun yesterday, Andrew Michael "Mike" Bogdan admitted to helping the FBI in a real-estate fraud case as part of a plea agreement. But he said he did not use his close friendship with former Orioles outfielder Larry Bigbie to assist the FBI in nabbing one of baseball's primary steroid distributors.

Flannery O'Connor 1925-1964After graduating from Georgia State College for Women, Milledgeville, O'Connor studied creative writing at the University of Iowa. Her first novel, "Wise Blood" (1952), explored, in her own words, "religious consciousness without a religion." The work combines the keen ear for common speech, caustic religious imagination and flair for the absurd -- all traits that were to characterize her subsequent novel and collections of short stories. She is regarded as a master of the short story and one collection in particular, "A Good Man is Hard to Find," is a classic.

A lot of past medical practices strike us as instantly absurd -- all that nasty bloodletting, for a start. But time was when otherwise sensible professionals didn't think twice about applying cures that flew in the face of logic, not to mention common sense or common decency. One of the most egregious of treatments, prescribed for women who didn't seem themselves after childbirth, became the subject of an influential short story in the 1890s -- The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gillman.

PARANOIA often blurs the boundary between the rational and the absurd.When a U.S. Department of Education official recently observed that universities cannot sponsor race-exclusive scholarships, the ensuing uproar forced the administration to recant.After the blizzard of criticism, Michael Williams, the Education Department official, declared that his view had been "legally correct" but "politically naive." Not only was his view legally correct; it made sense.In the swirl of America's racial maelstrom, common sense and logical reasoning are early casualties.

What's absurd is tolerance for acts of torture President Bush's response to Amnesty International's report criticizing U.S. treatment of detainees at Guantanamo Bay was to characterize it as "absurd" ("`Gulag' charge absurd, Bush says," June 1). What is absurd is this administration's penchant for flouting the international rule of law, detaining individuals without charges, trial or access to due process. What is patently absurd is the U.S. interrogation and detention policies and practices that condone torture and mistreatment of detainees.

The greatest commencement address ever is now more than three decades old. And it's safe to say it will never be surpassed or even equaled. It belongs to the ages. In 1979, its author summed up the condition of modern man by noting that, quote, more than at any other time in history, humanity is at the crossroads: One path leads to despair and utter hopelessness; the other, to total extinction. Let us pray we have the wisdom to choose correctly. Unquote. Bang. That's all she wrote.

Among those who offered testimony in opposition to the legalization of same-sex marriage in Maryland was Peter Sprigg, senior fellow with the conservative Family Research Council, resident of Montgomery County and the "Sprigg" in this exchange with Chris Matthews onMSNBC's "Hardball" in 2010: Matthews: Do you think we should outlaw gay behavior? Sprigg: Well, I think certainly - Matthews: I'm just asking you, should we outlaw gay behavior? Sprigg: I think that the Supreme Court decision in Lawrence v. Texas, which overturned the sodomy laws in this country, was wrongly decided.

The following letter was sent to Randy Cerveny, President of the Harford County Education Association. A copy was provided for publication. My wife is a teacher at Church Creek Elementary School and has been a member of the HCEA for several years. Up until recently, my wife and I have given very little thought to the current (or future) bargaining agreement between DOE and the HCEA. Admittedly, it took this bonus "crisis" for either of us to really pay much attention. In the past several months we have become acutely aware that there are fundamental differences in opinion between the two sides on this issue.

What presidential candidates say or don't say in televised debates can be very revealing about them. In Rick Perry's unfortunate case the other night, his inability to remember the third of three federal departments he would eliminate has him on a damage control campaign that could go on endlessly. Making the rounds of the television news and talk shows from early morning to late night on the day after his infamous gaffe, Perry offered himself as more a good-natured clown than a wicked knave.

That little post-game meeting Monday at MetLife Stadium between Rams owner Stan Kroenke and head coach Steve Spagnuolo has been wildly and widely misinterpreted. More than anything, Kroenke was oblivious to NFL protocol. Head coaches are obligated by the league to take media questions after a brief cooling-off period. After the Rams' 28-16 loss to the New York Giants, Kroenke intercepted Spagnuolo before the coach could meet the press. It isn't uncommon for Kroenke or any NFL owner to visit with coaches after the game.

I enjoyed reading Steven Grossman's recent op-ed in which he cleverly pointed out the absurdity of anti-science, creationist-thinking public figures who have a propensity for blaming natural disasters on political enemies ("Hurricane Irene: an almighty wind?" Sept.1). For example, big spending government, gays, lesbians and pro-choice folks were among those who, through the years, have been accused by elected officials (Rep. Michele Bachmann) or televangelists (Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell, etc.)

Just when you think you've seen it all, along come something new and fresh to reaffirm your faith in human mediocrity."Robot Jox," now at the Westview, is just such an inanity, a live-action Saturday Morning Cartoon. It takes the bad acting, ludicrous plotting, and absurd conceits of those crummy little half-hour shows and gives them flesh and spirit and vividness. Now on the big screen, for millions of bucks: the bad, the ludicrous and the absurd.Gary Graham, who looks a little like Mick Jagger, plays a tough old "robot athlete" who sits in the head of a 50-foot metal man and engineers slo-mo mechanized-karate against another such creature with a nasty Russky in the cockpit, as a way of settling international disputes without nuclear war.The movie, sadly directed by the great horror film maker Stuart Gordon, responsible for the artful atrocity called "Re-Animator," is strictly a case of high kitsch and low budget but it lacks the dangerous edge of "Re-Animator."

When We Can't See the Forest for the Bushes, by Pat Oliphant (Andrews McMeel Publishing, 128 pages, $14.95). Pat Oliphant, a native Australian, has stood firmly among the top three or four cartoonists in the U.S. since he began at the Denver Post in 1964. Now syndicated in more than 300 newspapers, his pen has never been sharper. In this collection of cartoons from October 2000 till a year later, he gives absolutely no quarter to anyone. Perhaps the closest thing to a lovable image in this collection is the enormous bear that represents the economy, which is alternatively tweaked, goaded, wrestled and ridden by a tiny, obdurate and over-spectacled Alan Greenspan.

It's frustrating that a respected columnist like Ron Smith has taken to writing articles that are full of sweeping generalizations, absurd speculation and overheated rhetoric ("As Obama's fortunes sink, his media admirers panic," Sept. 2). Take this sentence: "Mr. Obama's weakness has his devoted champions in the Big Media sweating bullets. " Who is this "Big Media" with capitalized letters he's talking about? Is she, perhaps, the star of a new Tyler Perry movie? I say this humorously in order to point up Mr. Smith's confusing attempt to create a mysterious behemoth aimed at scaring the public.

In case you hadn't heard, Michele Bachmann is running for president as a self-proclaimed "constitutional conservative. " The Minnesota congresswoman, who is surging in the polls, believes the label is a strong selling point for her among Republican primary voters. She's probably right. But what, exactly, is a constitutional conservative? Ms. Bachmann, who boasts two law degrees, recently defined it this way: "I believe our founders knew what they were doing when they designed a limited government with specific, enumerated powers.