The Republican party has an interesting set of opportunities and challenges right now. While a fervent grassroots movement helped them seize an unprecedented number of seats in the House, the seated Republican establishment doesn’t like a lot of these new people or their new ideas, and is figuring out what to do about it. It’s notable that John Boehner was a relatively late convert to the Tea Party cause, and now must reconcile its directives with those of his mainstream.

It was with this in mind, as well as the recent calls for more probity in public discourse, that I recently came across this piece from conservative writer David Frum. Personally, I’m not a fan of Mr. Frum’s credentials — to wit, chief speechwriter for George W. Bush — but I find a lot here to agree with. Key takeaway #1:  the danger of closed information systems.  What was the difference between Barack Obama the candidate and Barack Obama the president? A closed information system:  The former got plenty of input and personal experience out on the road, while the latter relied on an inner circle that believed its own perceptions. This sort of isolation calls to mind President George H.W. Bush marveling over how a supermarket scanner could magically ring up his purchase of white tube socks without the cashier having to punch in the numbers. From posits that the GOP is becoming an ouroboros, simultaneously feeding itself and eating itself.  I actually find all five of the lessons he seeks to impart to the GOP interesting, the other three being:  “the market” must be distinguished from “the markets,” i.e., capitalism is important, but the wants and needs of Wall Street should not be paramount;  the economy is more important than the budget, and so restoring employment is more essential, now at least, than budget-balancing;  “the welfare state is not all bad”; and “listen to the people, but beware populism.” You begin to see why among so many in the GOP he’s become an apostate. Which is unfortunate. Purges should be the exclusive province of the extremist leftist states (think “Soviet Union” and “China”), not of mainstream American political movements.

Here’s another sort of purge going on:  that of the political parties losing their moderates. In Arizona, three moderate Republicans have stepped down, citing venomous attacks from Tea Party rivals. In the November elections, by and large which House Democrats lost? The moderates. I wonder how all those people telling pollsters that they’d like to see the parties work together feel about this.

Given the drubbing Ricky Gervais is getting for his turn Sunday night as host of the Golden Globes, you’d think he had turned up with a semiautomatic and bizarre notions about genocide. As someone who didn’t watch the show (I don’t care about awards — not even much about the ones I’ve won), I had to turn to the internet to see what the fuss was about. Below you can find clipped together the 10 minutes that comprise Gervais’ contribution to what in my mind was probably otherwise another endless awards show. After watching it, this particular Gervais fan finds himself sadly in agreement with LA Times television critic Mary McNamara, who writes that “The opposite of dull and deferential is not snotty and abusive.” I followed both of Gervais’ shows, the UK “Office” and “Extras,” and have seen his movies, and saw his live standup act a couple of years ago in Los Angeles. I think he’s terrifically funny. But context is everything, and most of the jokes below seem ill-fitted to the event — especially the snide remark at Steve Carell’s expense; it seems too genuine an attack, and Carell’s response seems fittingly genuine as well, as he gives Gervais a shove. As uncomfortable as it is to watch this from the safety of my laptop, imagine the vibe in that room.

I will say this, though: A lot of people who wouldn’t otherwise be talking about the Golden Globes, including me, are talking about it now. I suspect that one person who won’t be talking at the Golden Globes next year is Ricky Gervais.

But I think Cotton Mather preached this first.

I predicted further fallout, at least short-term, for the Republicans from the Arizona shootings. (Even though — let’s be clear — they aren’t the ones who showed up and sprayed the crowd with bullets.) So here’s the latest:  Speaker Boehner is backing off referring to HR2, the pointless and doomed vote to repeal the Affordable Care Act, as the “Repealing the Job-Killing Health Care Law Act.” In place of “job-killing,” he’s tried out “job-destroying” and “job-crushing.” “Maiming” is no doubt far behind.

If I had the time, I would search SO HARD for an error on this site. Because I’m sure there must be one somewhere.

It’s good to have volunteers. It’s not so good when they’re disgraced public officials accused of looting poor people of millions of dollars.

Which is another way of saying that Robert Rizzo has lost another job.

Here’s what I predict will be his next job:  making license plates. (And once again, the public will be paying for it.)

Finally, an answer to one of the most pointed questions around:  “Why do boys (including my own) like sticks?“

I know a lot of Americans are out of work. So it’s comforting to know that at least this one person is back hard at work, although for less money and in a new field. See?  There are jobs out there.

If, like me, you’ve been on hold seemingly forever waiting for the iPhone to come to Verizon, this might interest you:  the differences between the Verizon offering and the existing AT&T iPhone.

For 20 years now, I’ve taught a private playwriting workshop on Saturday mornings. Occasionally, someone will wander in unannounced off the street — sometimes it’s someone in the wrong place, sometimes it’s someone who’s early for whatever is following me, and sometimes, just sometimes, it’s a strange person off the street, in which case I have to deal with ousting them, sometimes physically. This has happened only twice at this location, and once at a theatre in West LA where I was once involved. This past Saturday, someone came in and sat down and wouldn’t leave, and at first I thought this was another of those situations — only, thankfully, to realize my error, apologize deeply, and invite the person to stay. (I had sent him the wrong email, and so he thought he’d been invited.) With a little time, the situation was calmed and we all returned to the work at hand.

Then I got into my car and heard about the Tucson shootings. Which had me wondering:  What if the visitor to my workshop had indeed been deranged, as I mistakenly thought so at first? And how lucky had I been in dealing with actual lunatics previously?

I don’t have any great platform that I seek to mount on this issue, and I haven’t figure out anything more than anyone else has. What I have done, though, is collect some thoughts over the past five days:

1. While lunatics are predisposed to do whatever it is they’re going to do, the recent atmosphere of political hate speech is unlike anything I’ve seen in my lifetime, and is no doubt further firing them up. I didn’t like what I saw at the health-care rally I attended two years ago:  lots of deep, menacing anger. I was genuinely worried for Congressman Adam Schiff, and couldn’t help wondering what he’d done to deserve this. The same went for President Obama, but he wasn’t there, while Schiff was.
2. At the same time, I think it’s a very very very bad idea to try to legislate away free speech, as this Democratic congressman is proposing.
3. I know it’s a cliche, but I have to say it:  I grew up shooting guns, and I never shot anyone. Neither did my father, or my his friends, or his friends’ kids, or my brother-in-law, or my nephew, or my nephew-in-law, or my son, or my other son, or anyone else I know. We should enforce the gun laws we have (and it sounds like Jared Loughner slipped through the cracks, in yet another instance). And we should restrict semi-automatic and automatic weapons. But further restrictions on guns overall? It’s not going to happen, and I’m not sure it should. If I hit you with my car, you aren’t going to restrict everyone else’s access to a car.
4. Six people were killed, including the 9-year-old girl (and I cannot imagine what her parents are feeling about this), and a score of people were injured. Who wasn’t injured? Sarah Palin. Someone should tell her. Her self-serving sanctimonious defense is nauseating.
5. Someone who is going to take a hit politically:  Republicans. However you feel about that, bet on it, at least in the short term. This is why they delayed the phony “repeal” vote of the Affordable Care Act. Republicans didn’t create the Tea Party, and so far the Tea Party includes only one crazed gun nut, and it’s always unfair to judge a mass movement by the actions of one lone person. But perceptions become reality, and the Republicans themselves are concerned that they can’t control Tea Party activists. Which is why some Republicans are leaving the party rather than face them.
6. We would all be better off if we’d just tone it down.