In “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland,” Louis Carroll’s Mad Hatter asks Alice the riddle, “Why is a raven like a writing desk?” One would think that the question in the headline above is equally obscure (the Guthrie, in Minneapolis, is one of the most respected and celebrated regional theaters in the country) but it has an answer. Like the Colbert late night show, which has since its inception sought to exclude anyone who isn’t woke, obsessed with progressive politics or, since 2015, Trump Deranged, the Guthrie now aims at entertaining only that same audience, except in its case only the wealthy, white, upper-middle class demographic within that audience, or others willing to sit still for relentless leftist propaganda and cant.
A recent audience member for The Guthrie’s production of Henrik Ibsen’s “A Dolls House” wrote about his experience. “A Doll’s House” is about as moldy a feminist tract as there is (I once called the play the drama equivalent of Helen Reddy’s “I Am Woman” but much longer, and even more over-exposed (it was written in 1879, so its analogies with the real state of womanhood, especially in the U.S., have been increasingly forced as time goes by. (No, her husband did not stop Nora from having an abortion: she would never have dreamed of killing an unborn child.)
First, the performance began with one of those absurd land acknowledgments. The recording was read “by someone with the sonorous voice of a public radio announcer,” and stated “The Guthrie Theater would like to acknowledge that we gather on the traditional land of the Dakota People and honor with gratitude the land itself and the people who who have stewarded it through the generations, including the Ojibwe and other indigenous nations.”
I might have walked out at that, unless there was reason to think it was part of the play and intended as satire, or something. Such acknowledgments are flagrant virtue-signaling and pandering, of course, as well as signature significance for a theater that cares more about beating its patrons over their heads with woke politics than giving them good theater to watch.
As the artistic director of a theater that by policy refused to reflect any ideological biases, I kept any virtue-signaling announcements out of the house for 20 years, even after the Twin Towers Bombing. Obviously The Guthrie sees its role in the community differently: that smarmy message was not only broadcast over its audio system before Ibsen’s play began, it was posted on a link to the theater’s website and printed in the program.
“Guthrie gives it to us several times just to emphasize that people like me don’t belong there,” the writer suggests. Oh, I agree: as I just said, if I had been in his place I might have walked out. He also wrote that he wanted to shout out “It’s not too late to give it back!” after the announcement, but thought better of it. I would have shouted that, if I thought of it. I don’t pay for tickets to be proselytized: if you insult me with crap like that, I deserve the opportunity to respond. (My late wife could have assuaged any skepticism on your part as to whether I really would have done it.)
Then there were the director’s notes in the program. I took great care and pride in mine over the years; as Artistic Director, I wrote the notes for every production. My unalterable principles were 1) that if you have to tell an audience member what a play is about, then you haven’t done a competent job directing or producing the play, and 2) program notes are not the director’s opportunity to state his or her personal opinions on any social or political topic. The “Doll’s House” director, in contrast, wrote,
“[N]o matter the era, the play always seems to have relevance as an exploration of women’s roles in society and the quest for equality. And it’s no different in 2025. We’re still fighting for women’s fundamental freedom like reproductive rights, pay equity and protection from job discrimination, and the Equal Rights Amendment remains unratified.”
Pimping for the ERA in 2025 is the mark of an ignoramus. We are just beginning to crawl out from The Great Stupid fad of favoring women over men in employment, and the director apparently still believes the debunked “70 cents for every dollar” myth. She is, in short, a progressive dummy, and I don’t like to watch plays directed by dummies. I just had my law school class reunion. It was mentioned that there were just 8 women in my class Section of 125 students (there were 7 Sections). The Class of 2028 has 60% women. “A Doll’s House” is no longer about the lack of women’s rights; it’s a play about a woman married to an abusive asshole.
Niche theaters can do what they want. Major regional theaters have a duty to serve the entire community (they get lots of government money and local foundation grants on the theory that they do), but far too many of them, probably a majority, deliberately exclude the same Americans that CBS and Colbert exclude. It’s divisive, discriminatory, arrogant, stupid and wrong.
But it is the answer to the riddle…
Ethics Alarms 
Why is a raven like a writing desk?
They both have quills.
A raven is like a writing desk because they can both produce a few notes, although they are very flat.
jvb
As I’m guessing yow know, Carroll first wrote that riddle as nonsense, and subsequently, as a challenge, came up with several answers to it. I think that was one of them. What a creative, brilliant man he was. A pedophile, but still….
Yep. Much of “Jabberwalky” is delicious nonsense.
jvb
I have enjoyed the Guthrie theater many times but have not been there in more than a decade to see MacBeth.
they also do a production of the Christmas Carol every year, which is well-regarded.
they also did a series production of Richard II-Henry V last year.
they are not all bad.
and, for what it is worth, I was at my book club this afternoon and one of the lefty-ish members (who said Ibsen did not connect with her well) said she could not see the relevance of Doll’s House to the modern political scene.
another said the production felt odd as the main character seemed like two different people in the different acts
-Jut
As usual, EA has reporters on the ground.
Forget it, Jack, it’s Minneapolis.
Regarding statements before artistic performances, I may have previously mentioned this episode. I attended a performance by the Jerusalem Quartet a day or two after the horrific Hamas rampage into Israel. The Jerusalems are young but old school. They just walk onto the stage, sit down, play, and then walk off after bowing to acknowledge the applause. I wondered a little bit what might be said in light of the October 7 disaster. This was in lefty Tucson and a series dominated by University of Arizona music faculty but, of course, funded in large part by the usual suspects: well to do and civically active Jewish families, and fortunately, well before the inexcusable pro-Palestinian madness had been organized and funded, so there weren’t any anti-Israel protesters on site. That horror was yet to come. The guy from the host organization got up to give his opening-of-the-season speech/solicitation for money, and then concluded by announcing a program change, something I’d never seen done and is simply unheard of. Programs are set upwards of a year in advance. Once I got over the confusion and near shock, I decoded what they were saying in response to the Muslim savagery. Bravo, boys, bravo. The first piece would be a Mendelsohn quartet.
And now for something completely different for the EA commentariat: Why, oh why, do baseball players never swing at pitches made when the count is three and 0? Batters work tirelessly to get a pitch they can hit. But they stand there with their bat on their shoulder while the pitcher invariably grooves a not super-fast fastball right down the middle of the middle. Why not just cream that near batting practice pitch? The odds of the pitcher throwing a fourth ball seem microscopic, but batters squander those pitches thinking they can’t pass up a likely walk? Has someone done the analytics on this? It seems absolutely lunatic.
There were managers who would fine a player, especially a young one, who swung at a 3-0 pitch. On the other side, a pitcher who threw a strike on an o-2 count might also get fined. Veterans and stars usually have the option at swinging at a 3-0 pitch. The theory is that you give the pitcher one pitch to walk you. It’s a pure percentage play.
But are the percentages favorable anymore. It seems every major league pitcher can groove an 0-3 strike these days. They never throw ball four anymore.
There were more than 13,000 walks in 2025. 12,000 in 1999. 11,000 in 1980. BBs have been going UP since the pitchers started throwing harder. Strike-outs have also been rising, and even faster.
Any data on how many 3-0 counts got to 4-0 counts and what the trend is since the 80s?
I’m sure it’s there.
Here is an analysis given by AI (probably ok since it mainly just involves ststs):
For 3-0 counts:
On base percentage: .730-.740
Walks: 59%
Batting average for balls in play: .353
95% of pitches are fastballs, typically down the middle.
Swing rate is 9.8%
===========
As Jack has said, many teams have specific rules for this situation.
“95% of pitches are fastballs, typically down the middle.”
Wow. What guess during an at bat is right 95% of the time?
Swing rate is essentially one out of ten but it yields a .353 batting average?
Seems to make my point.
That stat is wrong, and I don’t know its source. Everything I can find indicates that less than 50% of MLB pitches are fastballs, about 47% That would also be my estimate based on watching the games.
All the stats I quoted were specifically related only to 3-0 counts.
Basically Google’s AI is saying that almost all 3-0 pitches are fastballs.
On the other hand, if 59% of the results are walks, most of those fastballs would have to be out of the strike zone.
———–
And my source again was the AI portion of the search results asking about just 3-0 pitches. I thought the results seemed reasonable.
I misunderstood: Google’s AI is usually pretty accurate on baseball stats. It’s a useful tool for that.
Even Tim Wakefield threw fastballs on 3-0 counts. True, the knuckleballer’s fastball was about 80 miles per hour. It was also his change-up….
And another one: Don’t batters know that on a 3-2 count the pitcher is likely, to the point of certainty, to throw a high fastball just above the zone which the batter will inevitably swing at and strike out? Doesn’t anyone see this happening countless times in a game? I shout at the tv, “A high fastball out of the zone is coming! Don’t swing!” To no avail. Are the hitting coaches paying attention?
With rare exceptions (Greg Maddux), data shows that most pitchers don’t have that much control. But high pitches have always been effective because 1) they look hittable to the batter, because they are at eye level 2) they don’t look as high as they are approaching the plate and high pitches are generally regarded as more likely to go for extra bases IF you hit one square. Hence the ditty about hitting a knuckleball: “If it’s low, let it go; if it’s high, let it fly.”
All true. But why aren’t they told “DO NOT swing at high fastballs.” Sure, they look good, but they are fool’s gold. You’re being set up. Odds are way better to let it go and get the walk rather than swinging and missing it for a K.
The pitch I find fascinating is the pitch almost in the dirt that batters swing through.
Last night I saw one of the Mariners swing at a ball off the plate and nearly on the ground — my thought to the batter was that this wasn’t golf (yes the pitch looked that low).
A pitch or two later, the pitcher threw what seemed to be an almost identical pitch and the batter hit it out of the park.
MLB batters can look very foolish on one swing and clobber the ball on the next.
No kidding, DG. I guess they have to decide basically within the first ten or twenty feet from the time of release. It looks so obvious from behind the pitcher, but it must be something else entirely from in the batter’s box. I think much of hitting is guessing and a lot reading the ball’s rotation, release point, and other cues.
Having gone 0 for my young lifetime, I would never, ever question a pro player’s batting ability. I’m pretty sure hitting a baseball is the hardest thing in sport.
That’s the splitter. In the 50s and early 60s, Elroy Face was famous for throwing it most of the time; it was then called the forkball. The pitch fools batters because it looks like a fastball out of the delivery but 1) is slower and 2) it drops out of the strike zone, often into the dirt. A good splitter is never a strike, but it looks like one until it’s too late. Some pitchers have great success using it most of the tiem, mixing it in with just enough fastballs to keep batters guessing, Roger Clemens revived his career by throwing splitters in the second half of his career (well, that and steroids).
A bad splitter that the batter sniffs out is going to be clobbered.
Does anyone who thinks so fondly of the Indigenous peoples that once inhabited vast swaths of North America and longs for a world where they had not been invaded by Europeans in the 1700 and 1800’s ever wonder how they would have fared against the Luftwaffe in the 1900’s???
I mean, if we’re going to suppose an alternate history where Europeans never invaded the Americas but World War II still happened, and we’re assuming it goes differently because the United States wasn’t there to fight the Nazis, we’d also have to wonder how Germany lost World War I, and who invented the airplane, the telephone, and a few other technologies that would have influenced the history of the time.
I find it more useful to consider how the Europeans who sailed to the Americas could have been honorable and ethical in their dealings with the native people’s, and how that might have played out over the course of centuries. …There might be some occasional tension until they learn how to inoculate people against smallpox.
That’s Cloud Cuckoo Land. A more advanced civilization coming upon a Stone Age society that doesn’t even apply principles of property is going to lose. Always, every time. More Europeans came for free land, and the Native Americans could fight, quietly keep moving, or assimilate, which they would not do (and I don’t blame them.) Of course the Europeans regarded the Natives as inferior, nuisances, obstacles, pagans. It’s the history of mankind. There was no other possible outcome, and pretending there was is self-delusion. Sure it wasn’t fair to those living in the Americas, but ethics is seeking the best possible outcome for the most people possible in the real world, not an ideal one. Pretending that the impossible is a genuine option is why the Left is always angry, frustrated, irresponsible and incompetent.
I find it interesting that this issue only seems apply to a European diaspora. Superior technology beats the inferior. Bronze swords beat spears and iron weapons beat the bronze ones. What will beat American technology is the insatiable appetites for cheap Chinese trinkets who use the money we gladly fork over to them to acquire the materials needed to create a monopoly in ownership of the valuable materials necessary for future technologies. As we fight against Trumps tariffs on China we might want to buy Babel language software and start learning to speak Chinese.
We can apply the superior technology logic to Genghis Khan, who developed a superior war technology against which settled societies were ultimately helpless. This was primarily a technology of destruction (+ looting) — the Khanite culture (it was not a civilization) wasn’t interested in building because they were nomadic. The Fall of Civilizations series has a really good (and really long — almost 7 hours) account of this. Most of the series episodes are focused on the rise and fall of a specific civilization — Sumerians, Romans, Khmer empire etc. This one is kind of an anomaly because it recounts the fall of many civilizations at the hands of the Mongol hordes. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PdFwMDuAnS4
Having been in Mongolia three times, I can assure you that the Mongolians regard Genghis as a innovative, fair, brilliant, and civilizing force within the Mongol nomadic lifestyle, which still survives outside of the Capital. He’s still a hero there.
“He’s still a hero there.” Oh I know! “Mongolians regard Genghis as a innovative, fair, brilliant, and civilizing force within the Mongol nomadic lifestyle” All completely true! The costs of the Khanite empire were completely “exogenous” as the economists would say, and who, really, cares about the human cost to outgroups when there is such wonderful loot returning home to one’s own people? Did the Spanish care about the human cost of all that fabulous gold returning to Spain? …Well, there WERE a few “woke” priests who clearly took their religion WAY too seriously who spoke out against the brutal ways of your “Chris” but who wants to hear that drivel when you are getting rich? That’s like asking pirates to have empathy for those stupid enough to sail in their path — losers! As you say “It’s the history of mankind.” Does that make it ethical? Stupid question! would say (almost all) of the beneficiaries of plunder.
It’s like asking if death and rainbows are ethical. They are unavoidable, ergo neither ethical nor unethical. It’s wasteful to try to apply today’s ethics to a 12th century leader.
Ah so anything one considers inevitable/unavoidable has no ethical dimensions? Very interesting! Kind of shifts the locus of debate, doesn’t it? I’ll keep this criterion in mind when reading EA discussions….
Ethics is the study of how one achieves the most beneficial and benign society through values and conduct. That which is not susceptible to reform or change is beyond the purview of ethics. That’s why Imagine is not an ethical song. Well, that and the fact that its stupid and designed to make the dumb dumber.