SS-ITA-BSB-XLIV (Take I)
Posted: February 7th, 2010 | Filed under: Pop Culture | 31 Comments »
Sitting here at the stadium several hours before the Super Bowl begins. In case you are wondering — and I’m sure you were — I will be live blogging the Super Bowl for SI.com and CNN. Links to follow.
In the meantime … what the heck am I doing? Right. I’m sitting here thinking about stupid things. And so , we offer the first installment of …
Stupid Stuff — I Think About — Before Super Bowl — XLIV
How long do you think the Yellow Brick Road was on the ballot before the people Of Oz and Munchkin Land actually voted for it? And, even more to the point, WHY did they vote for it? How in the world did THAT bond get passed? One, that road had to be ridiculously expensive to build. Yellow brick all the way from Oz to Munchkin Land? That’s really wasteful.
Second, was there even a need for this road? I would have to assume to that the Ox Anti-Tax groups opposed it. And those groups were right. Think about it: does Dorothy pass a single person the entire way to Oz? Even one? No. Not one person on a bicycle. From what I can tell, not one person commutes from Munchkin Land to Oz. Dorothy is passing scarecrows and rusted tin men and talking lions. But not another soul. There is absolutely no need for that road. And it certainly did not have to be made of yellow brick.
Third, what about loss of life in the road’s construction? The human cost. The feeling seems to be that about that about 20,000 people died building the Transcontinental Railroad. And that wasn’t opposed by two fairly violent witches, crazed monkeys and guards under a wicked spell. Plus the railroad had to wind through woods with lions, tigers, bears (oh my) and very angry trees who throw apples about as hard as Brian Bannister.
All in all, I think the Yellow Brick Road is the most wasteful and pointless public works projects ever.
Unless you consider the last 10 minutes I spent writing a public works project.
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Thanks, Joe! Have fun during the game. I’ll be watching from a bar in Spain. Due to the time change, it’ll be Super Monday!
Go Saints!!!
I guess I should have written “Circle me Wizard of Poz”
Am I the only one who thinks “Wizard of Oz” just feels like a four hour movie? Every time somebody puts it on it’s like I enter a time warp and when I wake up the next day, they still haven’t reaching f$%^!* Oz.
Are you getting paid to be there right now?
Thats stealing money Joe.
Who Dat.
That road was part of the Wizard’s New Deal. With Oz in the midst of a terrible depression they had to get people and munchkins back to work any way they could. The YBR (as it was commonly referred to) was just one of the many public works projects put into effect.
You know, I never thought it would be useful but…I took a class freshman year and we read the Wizard of Oz (WoZ if you’re in the in crowd).
Its supposed to represent returning to a gold backed dollar or something. Because of the volatility of the currency in the U.S. and all that jazz.
Really stupid if you ask me. But since you were wondering why…..
I have always wondered where the Red Brick Road that also runs from the center of munchkin land goes.
Ah, read “Wicked,” Joe … The yellow brick road is military infrastructure, installed by the dictator Wizard. Voting? Bah!
But maybe it was a massive Keynesian stimulus project. You’re forgetting that the Munchkins went through the Great Depression, too.
The sincerity poll shows that people cannot follow directions. Jon Stewart? Really? You people are no worse than the kids that watch Jon Stewart to get their news, thinking that his show serves that purpose. All this, despite the fact that Stewart repeatedly tells his viewers that they are idiots if they watch his show to get the news. And my second point – like it or not, Rush Limbaugh is sincere. Of course, Glen Beck being higher in the poll just reiterates my first point that you people are crazy.
@Chris: Read the freaking poll question. Any understanding of what ’sincere’ means?
Remember we’re not judging politics, intelligence or likeability.
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It’s unlikely that the YBR was a New-Deal-like construction project. After all, the book was written in 1900 when L. Frank Baum was 44 (he died in 1919). The consensus critical opinion is that the YBR may well have refered to the Gold Standard–which Baum apparently supported. He seems to have been a Republican (although he supported women’s suffrage) and apparently supported William McKinley for president.
Joe,
Is there an large, open container of glue in the press box? I think you’re definitely catching some second-hand fumes from something. Pre-Super Bowl and you’re thinking of a fictional bond issue. (My theory: maybe Clay Chastain’s more persuasive grandfather lived in Oz)
I just finished shoveling out from 2 ft of snow ( I’ve been poppong ibupropin like Bouton poppin greenies) our power’s been back on for a couple of hours, and this makes it all worthwhile!
Thanks Joe & Geaux Saints!
this is why I love reading this site.
Chris H,
If you don’t think Jon Stewart is being sincere amidst the mockery and tomfoolery, you just aren’t paying enough attention. A person can be sincere while making d*** jokes.
You’re the one who apparently can’t follow directions. The question is about the sincerity of the individual, not about the legitimacy of the news presented.
I (and based on results, I presume others) find Rush to be little more than the political version of Howard Stern. That isn’t sincere. It’s saying wild and crazy (and stupid, usually) things because it gets him in the news and makes him money.
I’m confused; how hard is Brian Bannister? Because if the apples are as hard as him, I’m guessing they’re rather mushy.
1. Mean old lady is legally permitted to take away Toto the dog to be euthanized.
2. Toto escapes the basket. Dorothy and Toto run for it.
3. Tornado hits. Dorothy gets whacked in the skull.
4. Everything in Oz is a dream.
5. Concussed Dorothy wakes up, filled with renewed love and appreciation for home.
(The movie ends.)
6. Mean old lady arrives at the gas chamber and discovers that her basket is empty. Mean old lady bicycles right back to the farm, re-collects Toto, and makes sure that he is killed good and dead.
How could doubt Jon Stewart’s sincerity? He practically broke down and cried on the air when Scott Brown won. It was hilarious if a bit sad and pathetic.
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And how much of a waste is the winding beginning part of the road? That giant spiral in Munchkinland is as wasteful as Tom Pendergast’s 15 foot thick concrete sewer at Brush Creek. It must have been a labor concession for the Munchkin Mafia.
As a Kansas native, I can’t say how much I hate that movie and how many times I have been asked about freaking Toto and Dorothy.
The bonds for the road were covered in the sub prime bailout.
and who do you think built the Yellow Brick Road, man? Independent contractors – just like on the Death Star. They didn’t appreciate the Wizard’s ruse.
You guys are missing the bigger picture here. Dorothy saved Oz. Dorothy found her way to the Emerald City via the Yellow Brick Road. Without the Road, she’d be wandering in a field somewhere rather than defeating the Wicked Witch. Therefore, the Yellow Brick Road was of vital necessity in the survival of the Land of Oz. That’s why they built it.
(Of course there’s also the whole William Jennings Bryan/William McKinley thing, but the question is as easily (and more facilely) asked and answered within the textual framework of the Land of Oz itself)
Love the Clerks reference by The Navigator. Kevin Smith is Joe Posnanski’s slightly less intelligent but more successful cousin.
Didn’t the Yellow Brick Road end in the middle of nowhere? So yes, it was win-win for the government. Waste money and accomplish nothing worthwhile.
[...] From the realm of the slightly absurd, Joe Posnanski, author of The Machine, thinks “the Yellow Brick Road is the most wasteful and pointless public works projects ever,” and Douglas Adams ponders Puddle Thinking at [...]
“Ox Anti-Tax” should probably be Oz.
Interesting that you cite those issues. Of course, in the books they were silver slippers; ruby provided better contrast for the new technicolor technology used in making TWoO (I’ve read a LOT of books about the making of The Wizard of Oz, which I still feel was jobbed out of best picture). And many people think Oz was a political satire in the vein of Jonathan Swift:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_interpretations_of_The_Wonderful_Wizard_of_Oz
cites a long held possibility that IIRC I first read in the forward to the book when it was reprinted in the 1970s, that the book was a diatribe against allowing free silver (the silver slippers) to lure folks away from the solid economic base of gold backed money (the yellow brick road) and would eventually lead to the disaster and fraud of greenbacks (the Emerald City). Always nice to sneak a little politics into your fairy tales, eh? Supposedly both the Lord of the Rings and The Chronicles of Narnia may have been retellings of the life of Jesus, although both authors denied it. But I digress.
Since Oz was ruled by the Great and Powerful Wizard, there was no democracy. Lands not under his control were in the power of witches. If the Wizard wanted a yellow brick road built, it was built. The book “Wicked” has something to say about this, but as that wasn’t written by Baum (and IMO was also not written in the spirit of Baum’s many Oz books) I can see why you might discount it.
After due consideration, Jon Stewart probably is the most sincere guy there. He’s the one guy on that list who tells you to pay attention to other networks. He freely admits that he is in it for the jokes, but the best jokes have their basis in facts. For example, Jon Stewart knew that Richard Reid (the shoe bomber, who was arrested and Mirandized by the Bush administration) was not an American citizen, and Newt Gingrich not only didn’t know that but criticized Obama for doing exactly what Bush did in an identical situation (a botched plane bombing). The Daily Show was the first American media outlet I saw that reported on Dick Cheney, er, Halliburton being given no-bid contracts in Iraq, and he properly attributed his information to the BBC; you never see attributions on Fox News. And when Stewart ripped James Cramer a new one for not reporting real financial news when the economy was collapsing, it was completely sincere. So I believe that when Stewart sees hypocrisy, people lying knowingly to further their political or financial agenda, he is sincere in his disgust.
Stephen Colbert has admitted that he tells his guests he is an idiot (or, rather, the character he plays is an idiot). Since it’s clearly a role, it cannot be sincere. Everybody else on that list is a shill for their network and political bias. Admittedly, many of the organizations are centrist. Only really rich guys own television networks, and rich guys are politically conservative. What happens instead is that news organizations seek the truth, and the truth tends to be embarrassing to big business more than to the little guy. After all, does Joe Car Assembler have any newsworthy story to cover up? But Toyota’s brakes, that’s newsworthy. So a lot of news seems to have a liberal bias because of who gets shafted. A closer look would show that John Edwards got lots of infidelity air play, as did Tiger Woods. The media likes to display whatever is popular; witness the endless hours spent covering Princess Diana’s death. As Walter Cronkite said in his autobiography, there is no liberal media. One of his first exclusive stories as a cub reporter was killed to protect the newspaper’s advertising revenue from the factory he had investigated.
The other thing that media tends to have is people that can write well. Not many folks get reporting jobs who cannot write properly. Thus, there tends to be a bias towards educated people because most good writers went to college. Educated people tend to be able to keep bigger ideas in their head. Rush Limbaugh spouts simple solutions that would never work, and a lot of folks who like simple solutions (including many who just wished they could work) find him easier to read and understand. And maybe he is sincere, in his weird racist hypocritical about drug using way. But more likely he’s following George Burns’ famous secret to success. “Sincerity is everything. If you can fake that, you’ve got it made.” Limbaugh is no different than other great actors, who also fake sincerity even though they know they’re playing a part (and these days, talking to a rubber ball in front of a green screen where all the background will be added later).
And here’s where Jon Stewart is sincere. When his bad jokes and puns get a good response, he takes time out to acknowledge it. He’s a comedian, and he knows that education is secondary to entertainment in his job. He likes doing both. He’s as good as they come (these days) in doing both. But in tha sense he’s following in the footsteps of many great talk show hosts, not to mention “Weekend Update” or “TWTWTW”. Fake news is funniest when it riffs on the truth, because the people that laugh aren’t being fooled. So I’ll give Stewart sincerity points.
I know why it was built, becasue road projects never get second guessed no matter how expensive they are.
We only do that for the “Commie public transit” stuff.