Musical Wanderer

Reading of American soldiers killing civilians in Afghanistan brings horror to anyone.  Murder of innocents is what the other side does, not us.  Though we kill thousands via bombing and drone strikes, there are no repercussions or trials for killing by remote technology, only fascination and exhibits in the Smithsonian .  Our outrage is reserved for those who murder in person. One day while popping around wikipedia, I ran across an article of American war atrocities in WWII.  Inhuman actions by Americans in the war against Japan are well known today, partially due to the lack of quarter given by either side in the ferocious fighting on the islands of the Pacific.  The volume of atrocities performed by the Japanese upon prisoners as well as the peoples of Asia overshadow the American acts.   Less known are the acts by Americans in the European war.  Again the inhumanity of the Germans drastically overshadows American actions, which were in turn...

I have a strange idea for casing West Side Story to make it current, though it would make the show very uncomfortable for viewers.  Today it doesn't cause much strife, as it is very familiar between the popularity of the movie version and frequent school and community productions.  When it premiered 55 years ago, it was a very controversial topic, as the US had not started to confront its racist tendencies. The original story featured conflicts between Irish Catholics and Jewish immigrants from eastern Europe and their expression via gang struggles in the city.  During the formative stages, the creators seized the popularity of Latin American music and changed the heritage of the immigrants from Jewish to Puerto Rican.  Jewish Americans were more assimilated in the population after the Second World War than recent immigrants from Puerto Rico, so the conflict was more raw. The problem is creating the conflict between the Jets and the Sharks.  There aren't ma...