Good grievance

The Festivus Pole is up at the Buttermilk Sky International Headquarters, and it's time to begin the Airing of Grievances.  Because everybody has at least one.

A comedian named Hari Kondabolu has produced a documentary which asserts that Apu, the Kwik-E-Mart proprietor on The Simpsons, is a negative stereotype.  Perhaps it's because he works impossible hours, puts up with Homer, and keeps a statue of the divine Ganesha in his store.  Perhaps it's because he is voiced by Hank Azaria, who is American and therefore has no right to imitate an Indian accent.  Perhaps Apu will be killed off, creating space for a new Indian character to be portrayed by, I don't know, Hari Kondabolu?  The Simpsons has been on the air for more than twenty-five years, but there is no statute of limitations on grievances.

Senator Chuck Grassley is fed up with the non-investor class of Americans.  As he told the Des Moines Register, "I think not having the estate tax recognizes the people that are investing as opposed to those that are just spending every darn penny they have, whether it's on booze or women or movies."  Or food or gas or student loans or the mortgage or medical bills or the phone bill or utilities or clothing or Christmas presents, he didn't add.  If these feckless losers elect Chuck to another term, I will have to conclude that Iowa farmers have sold their plows and till the soil by dragging their knuckles across the fields.  Also, isn't the correct term "death tax," Chuck?  The investor class are certainly celebrating your obscenity of a tax bill, investing their asses off -- the Dow is off the charts.  Chuck obviously thinks the rest of us live in Pottersville.  Your grievance has been heard, Senator.  Now you can go chuck yourself.

Three middle-age professional musicians have now come forward to complain that James Levine molested them decades ago when they were sixteen and seventeen, old enough to be in his master classes but apparently not old enough to say "Don't touch my penis, Mr. Levine."  Of course, this was reprehensible.  Of course, the Metropolitan Opera is fully justified in sacking him.  Of course, all the people and entities who investigated his behavior in the past and chose to brush off the rumors (Anthony Bliss, the Boston Symphony, the Munich Philharmonic, the Ravinia Festival) have a lot of explaining to do, except for Bliss, who is dead.  Of course, I am appalled and dismayed.  And angry and sorrowful and wondering if there is any end to this.  Garrison Keillor?  Geoffrey Rush?  I've given up trying to imagine who will be next to join the rogues' gallery.

As his lawyers adopt the "if the president does it it can't be crime" defense (because it worked so well for Nixon), and the rapist tweets his love to the Alabama child molester, maybe "booze or women or movies" isn't such a bad set of priorities.  Can I have crossword puzzles instead of women?