The trust relationship between this workstation and the primary domain failed.

I received the above error message the other day as I tried to run Windows on my iMac. The message was generated from the Windows side – Macs don’t talk this way.

It is not the most ridiculous message I’ve ever seen on a computer screen, it is just the most recent ridiculous message I’ve seen on a computer screen.

Why do the geeks of the world talk this way? Or, more importantly, why to they talk this way to us? It’s fine with me if they want to gather in their geek circles and rate the latest pocket protectors and talk about RAM and ROM and megahertz – they can use whatever language they want in the midst of their secret rituals. But when it’s time to talk to the public, come on, folks, get real.

“Trust relationship”? I have no trust relationship with my computer, especially not with its dark side, the Windows side. And what exactly is the primary domain? Mordor? Hogwarts? Tora Bora?

Does anyone who is not a geek really understand what a domain is, or why it’s called that? Can’t we get past this arcane, insane geekspeak?

This might be my favorite example:

WFP-01270 The information in the bean is not valid. Detailed errors should be wrapped within this exception. WFP-00742 A detail list was specified for IsAllDays, when DisplayTime and/or AmountInTime was missing or null.

Nothing left to say after that. Except, how come we never get this message:

Another modest proposal

The dust has not fully settled around the health care law and the Supreme Court’s decision, but the screaming has died down a bit so I thought I’d throw my two cents out there.

I don’t understand the argument that it’s wrong to force people to have health insurance. We have long forced people to carry car insurance, or pay an uninsured motorist fee. Seems to me that’s exactly what we’re asking folks to do with health insurance. Why is that a problem?

I don’t get it, but I’m willing to work with the mostly-Republican opposition to the individual mandate. How’s this for a compromise: ok, you don’t have to carry health insurance, and you don’t even have to pay a fine. But you’d better be able to pay your medical costs, or you won’t be medicated, operated on, sewn up or made well on the public’s dime.

You see, therein lies the problem. Every state has laws that say a hospital cannot turn away a patient because she doesn’t have money to pay the bill. The patient gets fixed; the public pays the bill. Why? We don’t do that with any other product; why is health care so special?

Imagine walking into a Toyota showroom and demanding to be given a new Prius even though you have no money, or demanding a new refrigerator from Sears with no way of paying for it.

It doesn’t work that way.

But in health care, it does. You’re sick, you go to the hospital, you get fixed. By law, money doesn’t enter into the equation. Let's change that.

Let’s agree with the Republicans: no one has to have health insurance, but, to be clear, that means no one gets treated if they can’t pay for it.

And while we’re at it, let’s demand folks take responsibility for their own actions. Why should health insurers have to pay to repair damage a smoker did to his lungs, or a diabetic did to his feet by refusing to diet? Why should a hospital have to spend good time and money treating a bullet wound in Mr. Stupid who was cleaning a loaded gun? Why should they have to call in a plastic surgeon to fix up the face of a driver who wasn’t wearing a seat belt?

I’m with you, my Republican friends: the government has no business telling us what to do. Let’s bring back personal responsibility!

"Italians aren't surprised at all."

Maybe I’m more Italian than American. I am sorry to say that the Penn State report doesn’t surprise me a bit. Just as in the devil-dominated Catholic church, the men at the top of the Penn State hierarchy cared most about their institution and its reputation. Concern for the abused children was totally absent, just as it has been in the long, sad story of priestly pedophilia.

The above quote came from a 2007 piece Morning Edition re-aired today (“A Tale of Two Cities: Author Donna Leon's Venice”). Sylvia Poggioli interviewed the American living in Venice and writing crime stories set in her adopted home. Leon said

The Italians that I know are pretty cynical about any chance of justice in this country. People in other countries are surprised when people do bad things and get away with it. Italians aren’t surprised at all. This is the way things are.

As I said, I’m not surprised. The most absurd thing I have ever read was written by poor Anne Frank; they are the last words in her famous diary: “I still believe, in spite of everything, that people are truly good at heart.”

Maybe those words didn’t stretch credulity back in the 40s as much as they do now. I believe that, because of everything I’ve seen and read, most people are selfish, power-hungry, driven individualists who want what they perceive to be best for them and their concerns, and to hell with everyone else.

Joe Paterno, hero to many, was yesterday shown to be a sham. His actions were deceitful and unprincipled, as were those of his cronies in the Penn State halls of power.

Is anyone surprised? Really?

Live! One night only!

New York bid adieu to another great dancer Saturday night as Ethan Stiefel (right) took his final pliés and pirouettes with American Ballet Theatre at the Met. It was another sold-out house and another long, long curtain call. If anything, Stiefel may have been more loved than Angel Corella. He was perhaps not as flashy, but he had a grace and dignity that was charming. He traveled easily between modern dance and the classic 18th century story ballets that are the backbone of ABT, and he traveled convincingly on a Harley, as the documentary Born to Be Wild: The Men of ABT, showed us.

I had a chance to meet him while he was the Dean of the Dance Department at North Carolina School of the Arts. Ransom was the head of the conducting department and they worked together at least once. Alas, my travel plans didn’t meld with Ethan’s, so we never did meet, but the almost-connection left me feeling a renewed allegiance to this attractive, blond Midwest phenom.

I’ve been thinking about star turns I have witnessed over the years, as I finished a long-dreaded project: cataloging and filing the hundreds of Playbills and Stagebills that have accumulated around the house. Many of them (364) are of Ransom’s performances, either as a conductor or flutist. Many are of concerts and operas I attended in which he was not involved; over 220 are from theatre productions I’ve seen, from regional theatres to Broadway. 90 more were from dance concerts, like the two recent ABT performances.

Collecting all this data reminds me again that I forget things at a remarkable rate. I marked many of the records “NMAA,” shorthand for “no memory at all.” Ex: Zoë Wanamaker, Claire Bloom and Stephen Spinella in Electra. Three terrific actors in a play by Sophocles! How is it I have no image whatsoever in my mind’s eye?

I’ve seen many greats on the Broadway stage: Robert De Niro, Maggie Smith, Morgan Freeman, Peter O’Toole and Lily Tomlin just to name a few. If you’re interested, you can see the whole list below.

I have the program for the first concert Ransom and I ever attended together: the London Symphony Orchestra at the Barbican; all Tchaikovsky: Hamlet overture, Piano Concerto 1, Symphony No. 6, Pathétique. One of the first stories I tell about us is about that concert: as the music was ending, I was on Cloud 9. I was in London, hearing the LSO, with this gorgeous man who was my (very) new boyfriend (2 weeks in); after the concert we were on our way to a party to meet Lenny Bernstein — it was all just perfect, and the music had been divine (including the piano concerto, probably the first piece of classical music I ever knew). I turned to Ransom and was about to say how great it sounded when he looked at me and said, "god, that was terrible!" "Oh, right," I thought, bowing to his far-better knowledge of music. Is that the sound of a bubble bursting?

There are other great memories: Jennifer Holiday stopping the show, and our hearts, with “And I Am Telling You I’m Not Going” from Dreamgirls; the 5,000th performance of A Chorus Line; the incredible 10-hour Nicholas Nickleby; Tom Stoppard’s brilliant Arcadia four times; Lincoln Center’s wonderful South Pacific; Brian Dennehy and Christopher Plummer dueling it out in Inherit the Wind; and on and on.

I’ve said it before and I will likely say it again: I am very glad to be a New Yorker!

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Some of the theatrical stars I have seen:

Alan Alda (Art)

Alan Cumming (Cabaret, The Three Penny Opera)

Alec Baldwin, Jessica Lange (A Streetcar Named Desire)

Angela Lansbury (Sweeney Todd)

Audra McDonald (Carousel, Porgy & Bess, Henry IV, Master Class)

Bebe Neuwirth (Damn Yankees, Chicago, Sweet Charity)

Bernadette Peters (Gypsy, Into the Woods)

Brendan Fraser (Elling)

Brian Dennehy (Death of a Salesman, Inherit the Wind, Long Day's Journey...)

Cheyenne Jackson (Finian's Rainbow)

Chita Rivera (Kiss of the Spider Woman)

Christain Slater, Edie Falco (Sideman)

Christopher Plummer (Barrymore, Inherit the Wind, King Lear, Macbeth)

Denis O'Hare (Cabaret, Elling, Inherit the Wind, Take Me Out)

Derek Jacobi (Breaking the Code)

Elaine Stritch (Showboat)

Ethan Hawke (Coast of Utopia, Henry IV)

F Murray Abraham (Angels in America)

Gary Sinese (The Grapes of Wrath)

Glenda Jackson (Macbeth)

Glenn Close, Richard Dreyfuss and Gene Hackman (Death & the Maiden)

Harvey Fierstein (La Cage aux Folles)

Hume Cronym and Jessican Tandy  (The Petition, Love Letters)

Ian McKellan (A Knight Out)

Jean Stapleton (Arsenic and Old Lace)

Jeff Daniels (Redwood Curtain)

Joan Allen, Marsha Mason and Jeremy Irons (Impressionism)

John Lithgow (The Front Page)

Jude Law (Hamlet)

Julie Andrews (Victor Victoria)

Kathleen Turner and Charles Durning (Cat on a Hot Tin Roof)

Kevin Kline (Henry IV, Ivanov)

Liam Neeson (The Judas Kiss)

Liev Schrieber (Talk Radio)

Lily Tomlin (The Search for Signs of Intelligent Life…)

Maggie Smith (Lettice and Lovage)

Martin Sheen, Michael York and Fritz Weaver (The Crucible)

Matthew Broderick (How to Succeed..., The Producers, Night Must Fall, The Starry Messenger)

Matthew Morrison (The Light in the Piazza, South Pacific)

Morgan Freeman (Driving Miss Daisy, The Gospel at Colonnus)

Nathan Lane (The Common Pursuit, The Producers, The Frogs, Love! Valour! Compassion!)

Patrick Stewart: (A Christmas Carol, Ride Down Mt Morgan, The Tempest)

Patti Lupone (Anything Goes, The Old Neighborhood)

Peter O'Toole (Pygmalion)

Philip Seymour Hoffman, Vanessa Redgrave (Long Day's Journey…)

Raúl Esparza (Company, Leap of Faith

Reba McIntyre (Annie Get Your Gun)

Rex Harrison (The Circle)

Richard Benjamin, Paula Prentiss (Power Plays)

Richard Chamberlain (My Fair Lady)

Richard Griffiths and Daniel Radcliffe (Equus)

Robert De Niro and Ralph Macchio (Cuba and His Teddy Bear)

Robert Sean Leonard (Arcadia, Born Yesterday, Breaking the Code, Invention of Love, Long Day's Journey…, The Music Man, You Never Can Tell)

Ron Silver, Joe Mantegna and Madonna (Speed the Plow)

Rosemary Harris (An Inspector Calls, The Royal Family)

Sam Waterston (A Walk in the Woods)

Tyne Daly (Gypsy)

Victor Garber (Art

Zoe Caldwell (Master Class)