Monty Python on The Huffington Post

Martin Lewis: Chris Christie Rips Off Monty Python, Troupe Threatens Suit

2009-11-01T18:17:24Z

UPDATE, 11:12 p.m.:
Having been exposed for their copyright theft and facing a possible lawsuit from Monty Python, the Christie campaign moved into damage control mode at high speed on Sunday night to try and limit the political fallout from their illicit action. Within an hour of the story appearing, the Christie commercial using pirated footage of a Monty Python skit was scrubbed from the campaign's website and their separate campaign site on YouTube. The only evidence left was the tell-tale wording on the clip's YouTube page "This video has been removed by the user"

Monty Python captured the video before it was removed. The Christie campaign should now be expecting the Spanish Inquisition...

Watch the ad:

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Chris Christie, the Republican candidate for Governor of New Jersey in Tuesday's knife-edge gubernatorial election, has been called out as a copyright thief. The 47-year-old lawyer, who was controversially appointed by George W. Bush as a U.S. Attorney in 2001 on Karl Rove's recommendation after being a top Bush fund-raiser in the 2000 election, has created an election commercial that steals copyright-protected material from British comedy troupe Monty Python -- without permission or credit.

The official campaign advert -- titled "Deja Vu" -- attacks incumbent New Jersey Governor Jon Corzine by using scenes from a famous skit on the "Monty Python's Flying Circus" TV show that features Michael Palin. The ad is on Christie's official YouTube campaign site, and has already aired on national TV.

But neither Christie -- a lawyer for 22 years -- nor anyone in his campaign bothered to seek any permission for using the copyrighted material in his election spot.

Alerted to the theft of their copyright, members of Monty Python are most unhappy. Michael Palin, who appears in the clip pirated for the advert, is especially displeased that his likeness is being used by the Republican candidate without permission.

"I'm surprised that a former U.S. Attorney isn't aware of his copyright infringement when he uses our material without permission. He's clearly made a terrible mistake. It was the endorsement of Sarah Palin he was after -- not that of Michael Palin."

Monty Python's Terry Jones says that the troupe is strongly considering suing the Republican for his copyright infringement:

"It is totally outrageous that a former US Attorney knows so little about the law that he thinks he can rip off people. On the other hand -- another of Bush's legal appointees was Alberto Gonzales and he didn't seem to know much about the law either...," Jones said.

There is a long history of Republican politicians stealing content by entertainers for their political advertisements and rallies. Three months ago, Jackson Browne won a financial settlement and apology from Senator John McCain for the politician's unauthorized use of his song "Running On Empty" in the 2008 election. Other musicians who have successfully protested the theft of their music by Republicans include Jon Bon Jovi, Don Henley, John Mellencamp and rock bands Foo Fighters and Heart.

Christie is no stranger to the world of crime. As the New York Times reported on September 23rd this year, Christie has family ties to the notorious Genovese crime family. As a child, he mingled at family parties with Tino "The Greek" Fiumara -- the brother of his aunt's husband -- described by the Times as "a fearsome and ranking member of the Genovese crime family: twice convicted of racketeering, sentenced to 25 years in federal prison, and linked by investigators to several grisly murders, including one in which a victim was strangled with piano wire."

(A United States Senate sub-committee investigating organized crime in the early 1980s attributed three murders to Fiumara, including the 1967 slayings of two brothers of one of his co-defendants in the 1980 trial. In 1983, Lt. Col. Justin Dintino of the New Jersey State Police called Fiumara "a callous killer who has resorted to violence with little provocation," and said Fiumara had ordered the murder of the godfather of one of his own children.)

Asked what he had learned from his family connection to Tino "The Greek" Fiumara, Christie says: "It just told me that you make bad decisions in life and you wind up paying a price. Really, for most of my life, he spent his life in prison. That teaches you a lot."

Asked in 2007 about the presence of organized crime in his home state -- such as the Genovese mob in which one of his family members is so prominent -- Christie said: "the Mafia is much more prominent on HBO than in New Jersey."

With Monty Python about to sue Christie for his copyright theft, he may have more in common to discuss with Tino "The Greek" Fiumara at his family Thanksgiving this year.

Chris Weigant: From The Pentagon To Monty Python: The Internet Turns 40

2009-10-28T19:58:37Z

Tomorrow is the internet's fortieth birthday. Its creators are even throwing it a birthday party at the University of California, Los Angeles, the origin of the first message ever transmitted over what we know today as "the internet," on October 29, 1969. If you're wondering what the first message ever transmitted was -- the digital age's "Come here, Watson," statement, as it were -- it consisted of two letters: "LO." It was actually supposed to be "LOG," as in "LOG IN," but the receiving computer crashed after receiving just the first two letters -- not a very auspicious beginning, it must be admitted. Still, for poetic reasons, "LO" seems pretty apt: "Lo! The Internet was created!"

The project, the first linkage of two computers over a distance, was paid for by the Pentagon. Specifically, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or DARPA. This was a Cold War agency created out of fear -- the fear that the Russians were ahead of us technologically. This fear was not unfounded at the time, since DARPA was a hasty response to the Russians launching the first man-made satellite, Sputnik, in 1957. Americans could tune in their ham radios to a little "beep...beep...beep..." signal that crossed over our skies, and thus know that the Russians had done something we hadn't managed to do yet -- which was not only downright ominous in those days, but also downright inconceivable to many Americans. This was the dawn of the "space race" between the two countries, which culminated with the landing on the moon in 1969 of two Americans. But it also culminated in the same year with what was then called ARPANET.

The internet's birth was in the depths of the Cold War, created for scientists to exchange some very hot data -- the design and testing of nuclear weapons, for instance. Its transformation from its militaristic beginnings to where it stands now should be seen as the greatest "swords into plowshares" story in the history of mankind. Because today, while its origins are at best dimly remembered, what it has morphed into has gone far, far beyond the original intent -- and changed our planet and our way of life as a result.

Technology has grown by such leaps and bounds since 1969 that it's hard to conceive how things were before we all had access to computers. The 1970s saw the dawn of the "personal computer" -- a phrase unthinkable a mere decade earlier, when computers had shrunk from boxcar-sized to merely pickup-truck-sized... but were not expected to shrink much more. But the rapid progress of the microchip ushered in a revolution in such shrinkage. The first small computers were merely hobbyist machines for scientists and tinkerers, but Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak saw their true potential, and changed the world with the introduction of what became the Apple II. IBM, while much slower to accept such a radical idea, eventually introduced its own version, the "PC," or "Personal Computer." Since then, computers have gotten faster and data storage has gotten much, much better, so that today the machine you are likely reading this on is more powerful than the machines they were designing nuclear weapons on back in 1969. Indeed, the computer in your cell phone may even be more powerful.

The concept of linking computers together grew by leaps and bounds as well. In 1983, DARPA in essence split the net into two parts, the military component (renamed MILNET), and what became the commercial, public internet. Also at this time, TCP/IP protocols were introduced, which also fed the eventual explosive growth. The non-military net was also at this time opened up to much wider use within the universities where it had originated.

Networking was fast growing in the early 1980s on two other fronts -- the Local Area Network (LAN) and the first subscription service for online access. It was the era of TokenRing, Ethernet, and AppleTalk; of AOL and CompuServe. It may stun younger users today, but back then people paid ten bucks per hour to access online services -- which were laughably crude by today's standards. Heavy online users would often pay hundreds of dollars a month to access text-only, non-web data over their phone lines.

It was also the era of the beginnings of information overload. This led to the introduction of "bulletin boards" and automated file searching. The real beginnings of what we call "the internet" today were a message-posting area of the net called UseNet; and the beginnings of the Google-type search engine were the humble "gopher" software of the time.

But the real explosion came about in the early 1990s, with two cornerstone events -- opening up the internet to commerce, and the introduction of the World Wide Web. The internet, now being called "the Internet" (previously the term had not been used -- the inventor of the concept, in an early-1960s paper, called his dream an "Intergalactic Computer Network," which I always thought sounded way, way cooler...) was about to grow beyond all conception.

The World Wide Web, still known to us today in that "www" prefix in web addresses, was dreamed up a Swiss laboratory for (once again) nuclear research -- the Conseil Européen pour la Recherche Nucléaire, or CERN. For the second time, nuclear researchers came up with an idea which quickly outgrew its original scientific data-sharing purposes. The combination of hypertext (clickable links) and a common file format which included graphics (the HyperText Markup Language, or HTML) were soon exploited by the world's first truly effective graphic "browser," Mosaic. From Mosaic, Netscape was born, and the rest is history.

Of course it hasn't all been wine and roses along the way. The internet (the term is now used increasingly without benefit of capitalization, a mark of how common an idea it has become) also gave birth to online fraud and other forms of online crime. Back when the internet originated, the Pentagon was interested in its advanced researchers having the ability to easily talk to each other, to better share information. This information had a goal -- to always always stay one step ahead of our foes. At the time, this was mainly the Soviet Union and, to a lesser extent, China. These days, some of the most prevalent data attacks come from malware (Trojan horses, DDoS attacks, viruses, worms, botnets, and all the rest) which originate all over the world, with an unhealthy portion coming from (you guessed it) Russia and China. Which brings us, in a way, full circle.

But for many of us, the internet will serve one very important function far, far into the future. I speak of the immortalization in digital history of Monty Python's Flying Circus. When contemporaneous comedy troupes will long have been forgotten, centuries hence, Monty Python will still live on in its anti-paean to a Hormel meats product -- the lowly "spiced ham" in a can known as Spam.

Spam was widely consumed in Britain during World War II, due to it not being rationed as most meats were at the time (which alone says something). Spam became prevalent as a civilian wartime staple as a result. Which explains the origins of the Monty Python sketch, where a man and a woman argue over a cafe's breakfast selections which seem to contain far too much spam for the woman's liking (example from the menu: "Spam, egg, Spam, Spam, bacon, and Spam"). The idea that spam is prevalent and unwanted was first applied in the infancy of online gaming, and in the early 1990s was used specifically to describe an unwanted email solicitation for money. Knowing the makeup of online gamers back then, it's easy to see that a Monty Python reference would have caught on quickly, as one thing all geeks unanimously agree upon (both back then and today) is the sheer awesomeness of Monty Python. Because the term spam is now so universally accepted to describe unwanted email (even Hormel has largely given up on trying to stamp such usage out), it follows that the story of its origins -- complete with the original Monty Python "Spam sketch" -- will live forever in the digital world. For which we have the Pentagon to thank.

But in any case, tomorrow when you're reading your email, or deleting spam (90 percent of all email is now spam; an astounding figure, when you think about it), or browsing the web, or checking stock quotes, or doing your banking online, or reading an online news article, or writing a blog post, or researching a topic, or using a search engine, or playing an online game, or playing online poker for money, or even just looking at some porn -- take a moment to stop and raise your glass in a toast. Because the internet you are using to do all of these things is having a birthday, and it's the big four-oh.

Meaning we should all mark the occasion with a hearty: "Happy 40th birthday, internet!"

[Historical Note: For those interested, the very first "web page" is still available online, just to show how far we've come in less than two decades. It's pretty basic by today's standards, but the concept of "links" was brand new back then, keep in mind.]

Chris Weigant blogs at: ChrisWeigant.com

Jeff Kreisler: One Page In Cheating

2009-10-26T11:01:12Z

Not content to wait for "This Week In Cheating," a single newspaper page held enough cheating for a whole seven days. Business page B3 of the New York Times on Wednesday, October 21 held these four, and only these four, stories:

"State Street Bank Accused of Fraud by California"
They overcharged a couple pensions for fraudulent foreign exchange trades.
Their defense: "We just figured you were too dumb to understand... or, if you did, you wouldn't have the resources to come after us. I mean, we did bankrupt the State of California, figured that was better than hiring defense attorneys. Best defense is a good offense, am I right, health insurance industry?"

"Steps to Greater Accountability in Medical Education"
The continuing education courses doctors must take are really just drug company marketing pitches.
You mean there's an alternative motive behind the pass/fail class "How to make all boo-boos benefit Pfizer?" It's sorta like the Association of Bank Robbers and Stabby-Stabbers funding continuing legal education. "Yeah, um, see here, lawyers, there's a new rule, right: I'm now allowed to do whatever I want, right. It's from the case of You Scratch My Back v. I'll Scratch Yours."

"F.D.A. to Clarify Standards For the Front of Food Labels"
There's something fishy about Froot Loops and mayonnaise being called a "Smart Choice."
Well, it is a smart choice if you want your child to die. Still, it's better than the previous labels: "Part of a healthy breakfast... if that breakfast includes juice, eggs, fiber, and an angioplasty."

"Inquiry to Focus on Royalty Rates for Oil Shale Program"
The Bush administration - six days before leaving office - gave 30,000 acres of shale leases to oil companies for only a 5% royalty, instead of the standard 16.7%.
Why would anyone suspect Bush's Interior Department of improper behavior? Aren't they the ones who traded leases for sex & drugs? What's wrong with that? And surely Bush, an oil man, must have known that such a deal would be an unfair windfall to the oil industry, and why would he want that? I mean, um ... Obama's a socialist!

--

Jeff Kreisler's first book, "Get Rich Cheating," is a Boston Globe Bestseller and can be purchased in fine bookstores or online.
"You'll be laughing all the way to the bank, assuming other cheaters haven't forced it into bankruptcy yet." - Rachel Maddow (MSNBC)
"Catcher in the Rye for evildoers" - Penthouse Magazine
"A very funny book with a very timely message." - Terry Jones (Monty Python)
"This is THE book to read in the unemployment line." - Lizz Winstead (Co-creator of The Daily Show)
"Laugh out loud - roaring!" - CNBC
"A brilliant and brilliantly sustained satirical broadside. On just about every page, you'll find a pithy, pointed barb worthy of the late great George Carlin." - Tony Hendra (National Lampoon, Father Joe)

Bill Mann: One of the First American "Python" Fans Recalls Series' Early Days -- in Canada

2009-10-15T11:06:24Z

I'm lucky. I got to see Monty Python before most Americans - both on TV and live.

Over the years, this long-time newspaper TV critic has been asked: What's your all-time favorite series? Without hesitation: Monty Python's Flying Circus, the brilliant BBC series marking its 40th birthday this week with a series on the Independent Film Channel.

The timeless comedy was brilliantly written and acted, and that's largely why it still stands up and still doesn't look dated.

Why did I get to see Python before most Americans? I moved to Montreal in 1970 just as the Canadian Broadcast Corporation (CBC) was beginning to air the iconoclastic British import. (It finally premiered in the U.S.on PBS in 1975 -- after it had ended its BBC run.)

Plus, the Pythons did their only North American tour in Canada in 1972.

I was at Dorval Airport in Montreal when Python Eric Idle stepped off the plane, spotted downtown Montreal's distant skyscrapers, and announced, "Ah, this must be so the capitalists can be closer to God."

Python member Terry Jones told MSNBC's Keith Olbermann this week (I had no idea Olbermann was such a huge Python fan, but am not surprised): "We did the show without agents, without network interference, and without regard for ratings."

That, plus talent, of course, are the keys to the show's success - and precisely why it will probably never be matched in sheer intelligence and creativity.

When I first saw the then-new CBC import in Montreal, the show's offbeat title intrigued and confused me. The freeform show left me shaking my head at first (if I'd been doing recreational drugs then, it might have helped). I'd never seen anything remotely like it.

But I soon got hooked, and as a columnist at the Montreal Gazette, I also had the privilege of spending time with the Pythons during their 1972 tour, when they were greeted like the Beatles in some Canadian cities. I had never met a group of entertainers like this before: To start with, they were highly educated and articulate. For another, they were actually talented. In other words, they were a complete fluke.

It's been noted that television is an art form trapped within an industry. The Pythons, almost uniquely, circumvented the television industry.

I became a lifelong Python fan. Both our children were raised watching the series and memorizing Python sketches.

Oddly, I even had a role in bringing Monty Python shown in Hawaii for the first time.

It was 1976, and I had taken the job as TV columnist for far-off morning daily the Honolulu Advertiser. I made it a mission to persuade Mary Bitterman, who then programmed Honolulu PBS affiliate KHET, to debut the British show in Hawaii. She relented.

Over the years, I've found myself photographed with many TV stars. But only one of those photos is displayed on my office wall - one of yours truly with the Pythons, taken after their hilarious show in Montreal's Place des Arts.

Monty Python: Almost The Truth (The Lawyer's Cut) airs all next week on IFC, and it includes new interviews with the troupe's five surviving stars.

I wouldn't -- couldn't -- miss a minute of it.

For one time only, the stars were perfectly aligned for this series. Because of its unequaled mix of talent, intelligence, and artistic license, Monty Python's Flying Circus is, and remains, as good as TV comedy ever got. I don't think we'll ever see its equal.

The Monty Python Crew Takes Over 'Late Night'; Water-Fight, Chair-Stealing, General Tomfoolery Ensues (VIDEO)

2009-10-15T09:52:13Z

The Monty Python boys are not easy interview subjects. They talk all at once, mock the audience and tell people they're asking terrible questions. Fortunately, their humor more than makes up for their lack of cooperation.

Last night John Cleese, Eric Idle, Terry Jones, and Terry Gilliam appeared on "Late Night" to promote their upcoming documentary "Monty Python: Almost the Truth (the Lawyer's Cut)," a six hour history of the comedy group that will air in America on IFC starting this Sunday.

Fallon devoted (almost) the entire show to the troupe, who rewarded him by mocking his monologue and getting in water fights. But once the men settled down they shared the stories of their sketches and discussed the hiccups they faced while forming their legacy.

WATCH:

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Vulture's Monty Python Haiku Contest: We Have a Winner!

2009-10-14T09:46:16Z

After much deliberating and slapping with fish, your Vulture editors have finally selected a victor.

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Vulture's Monty Python Haiku Contest: We Have a Winner!

2009-10-14T09:46:16Z

After much deliberating and slapping with fish, your Vulture editors have finally selected a victor.

Read more: Monty Python, Home News

Monty Python's bright (and silly) side of life

2009-10-14T06:48:11Z

NEW YORK — Those who don't know Monty Python, and don't care, have been blessed with six hours they can spend on something other than watching IFC's new documentary series.

Of course, all Python disciples can look forward to comedy catnip in "Monty Python: Almost the Truth (the Lawyer's Cut)," shown from Sunday through next Friday (Oct. 23) at 9 p.m. EDT.

History. Hysterics. Silly walks. All bundled into an everything-you-wanted-to-know-or-rediscover chronicle of this legendary British comedy troupe, now marking 40 years.

It's not the first Monty Python documentary, but it's certainly the latest, longest and last (at least for now).

And its distinctive style is clear from its first moments. After the very silly, Pythonesque title sequence, each of the five surviving Pythons is heard from in fresh on-camera interviews (plus archived interviews with its sixth member, the late Graham Chapman), musing on their respective beginnings.

No soaring introductory pronouncements of what Python accomplished and represents. That will be spelled out, step by step, in the fullness of six hours, as interviews, film and audio clips decipher how Monty Python became the most groundbreaking, transforming wellspring of comedy in the history of the world (OK, maybe a wee exaggeration).

Chapman, along with fellow Brits John Cleese, Eric Idle, Michael Palin and Terry Jones, plus Minnesota-born interloper Terry Gilliam, were children during World War II. They were shaped by radio comedy as much as television. They bridled at, and feasted on, the uptight, tradition-bound 1950s culture of their youth. They harnessed the gloriously unhinged, subversive 1960s and used it as their launching pad.

On TV (notably "Monty Python's Flying Circus," produced for British TV), in live performances, recordings and feature films (including the incomparable "Monty Python and the Holy Grail" and "Life of Brian"), the Pythons' absurdist narratives and characterizations mixed raging intellect with shameless looniness. (IFC is including those two films, as well as "Monty Python Live at the Hollywood Bowl" and all four seasons of "Flying Circus" in its on-air "Python-a-Thon.")

Though the group has been effectively disbanded for years as each Python struck out to pursue his own projects, it lives on undiminished. As recently as 2005, "Monty Python's Spamalot," a lavish musical based on the 1974 "Holy Grail" film, became a Broadway hit.

Meanwhile, classic Pythonesque drollery enjoys eternal life. The mere thought of "the Knights who say 'Ni'" or "Eric the half-a-bee" or the gay lumberjack song will reduce any Python fan to helpless silly-state, never mind the passage of decades.

Why? "MPATTTLC" is marvelous at how it accounts for Monty Python in suitably comprehensive fashion. For any viewer with nothing better to do (and what could be better?), it's six hours gloriously spent.

Putting it together was a labor of love as well as persistence and filial pride for Bill Jones, the son of Python Terry Jones. He produced the miniseries with his partner and childhood chum, Ben Timlett.

First order of business: enlisting the five errant Pythons.

"It took a while to convince them," Bill Jones said in an interview from his and Timlett's London office. "Getting them all to agree on something is very difficult."

He said the recruiting process began more than two years ago, "and by the time they came on board, it was just nine months before delivery."

"At first, nobody wanted to do another Python documentary, me included," Terry Jones said pleasantly during a separate phone call. "Mike Palin got worried when they were going to pay: Nobody else had ever paid us to be interviewed for our own documentaries before. Somehow that made him suspicious."

Among the Pythons, Terry Jones can be conveniently singled out as the explosive Mr. Creosote in "Monty Python's Meaning of Life" and as the co-director, with Terry Gilliam, of "Holy Grail" (imagine how smoothly THAT went!).

"The whole idea of Python was to be totally unpredictable," Terry Jones said when asked to summarize the troupe's de facto mission statement. "We were trying to be undefinable." Indefinable? Too bad. "Pythonesque" is now defined in the Oxford English Dictionary.

But en route to inventing that ineffable quality, the Pythons traveled a sometimes chaotic path. Six erudite, irreverent and willful chaps were destined to butt heads, and the documentary is particularly fascinating as it charts their fractious creative process.

"I had always known that John Cleese and your dad would have big fights," Timlett said to his partner, Bill Jones, recalling their shared childhood. "I remember how he used to call your dad 'little plum.'"

"How the hell did they keep working together?" marveled Timlett. "It does seem a bit strange."

"It's not strange," Jones replied, "because they absolutely love arguing. It kept them interested in working together. They loved getting it all out."

As this miniseries demonstrates deliciously, no one got it out like the Pythons.

___

IFC is a subsidiary of Rainbow Media Holdings LLC.

___

On the Net:

http://www.ifc.com

___

EDITOR'S NOTE – Frazier Moore is a national television columnist for The Associated Press. He can be reached at fmoore(at)ap.org

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John Irving Returns, and Other Wild Culture Highlights From This Week's New York

2009-10-12T15:15:58Z

'Monty Python'! '30 Rock'! 'Modern Family'! Berkeley Breathed! And more!

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John Irving Returns, and Other Wild Culture Highlights From This Week's New York

2009-10-12T15:15:58Z

'Monty Python'! '30 Rock'! 'Modern Family'! Berkeley Breathed! And more!

Read more: Monty Python, Home News

Richard Zombeck: Bloody Peasants

2009-10-09T13:33:54Z

I saw Michael Moore's Capitalism: A Love Story earlier this week and it took me from pissed off to infuriated in the first 30 minutes.

After seeing the report on "Dead Peasant Policies" the word "peasant" has been rattling around in my head for days. Dead Peasant Policies are life insurance policies a company takes out on its employees in order to collect the payoff if and when the employee dies. So while your family and friends are hoping you make it home safely from work, your boss is hoping you don't. Nice to know that your death is in the company's financial interest isn't it?

The concept of peasants isn't foreign or new to me. I've been using the term in reference to me, colleagues, and employees for years. Every time my mother would tell my brother and I to clean the yard, our rooms, the cat box, or the bathroom we'd make jokes about being peasants and that she was the Queen of France. In fact my family in France were peasants and farmers, but it had a more respectable and romantic connotation. You know, because they're French. I also referred to my staff when I ran bars and restaurants as "the peasants."

The scene with King Arthur and the peasants from Monty Python and the Holy Grail has stayed with me since the first time I saw it some thirty odd years ago and maybe that's why I've used the term in jest:

ARTHUR: Well, I AM king...

DENNIS: Oh king, eh, very nice. An' how'd you get that, eh? By
exploitin' the workers -- by 'angin' on to outdated imperialist dogma
which perpetuates the economic an' social differences in our society!

Is that any different now?

A year ago the too-big-to-fail Masters of the Universe blew up the economy and sent all of us along with the Bush administration into mass panic.

Henry Paulson, former master of the universe turned government crony wrote his buddies a check for $700 Billion and we have no idea where that money went. Moore asks that very question in his movie. "Where's the money," he asks?

Elizabeth Warren, soon to be super hero and Chairman of the Congressional Oversight Committee answers that question.

"I don't know," Warren says, in her signature perky flabbergasted way.

Bless her heart. And she really doesn't.

She responded to that clip in an interview with The Washington Post:

Well, we don't know where the $700 billion is because the system was initially designed to make sure that we didn't know.

When Secretary Paulson first put this money out into the banks, he didn't ask 'what are you going to do with it?' He didn't put any restrictions on it. He didn't put any tabs on where it was going to go; in other words, he didn't ask. And if you don't ask, no one tells. And so we have a system that originally put more than $200 billion into the financial institutions basically saying just take it.

See? Screw up the entire monetary system and economy because you found new and interesting ways to play with other peoples' money and when it all goes bad, tap the peasants for the losses - no questions asked and no accountability. Not to mention that there's actually a chance that the bailout wasn't needed at all. But we still don't know where that money is.

We have Socialism for the big guys and the worst form of Capitalism for the rest of us, as former Secretary of Labor, Robert Reich pointed out during an On Point interview.

So now that they have our money and we'll be paying it back for years to come the fleecing and pillaging of the peasants continue.

$75 Billion of the peasants' money has been dumped into modifying loans for homes whose values were over inflated and the results are pathetic. Most of the banks and servicers actually continue to abuse and threaten the peasants. Ocwen Financial for example, who is receiving $500 Million has sent paperwork to less than 5% of its peasants.

Ocwen was Freddie Mac's poster child for the Making Home Affordable plan back in March, but when their shady practices ended up in court, "It successfully petitioned to have itself removed from oversight by the Office of Thrift Supervision, thus ending their supervisory agreement hatched just months before...," according to McClatchey.

Bank of America stands accused, by one woman's account of causing the death of her husband. Maybe they have a life insurance policy.

Meanwhile insurance companies are spending millions to lobby against a public option or any reform that might benefit the general population and want the government to fine the peasants that don't buy their crappy product. In fact if you're WellPoint Insurance Company, you fight reform and cut the benefits of the peasants who work for you.

And if that weren't enough pillaging, last week the Center for Responsible Lending reported that the banks, the same ungrateful aristocracy who last year were begging for help, looted the peasants for a whopping $24 billion in fees. Credit Card companies, in order to fight the economic slump are doing their part by raising interest rates and adding fees, cutting credit, and doubling monthly payments. The peasants make too much money as it is.

There's another scene that struck me deeply in Moore's film. One of the homeowners losing his home due to predatory lending and an out of reach mortgage, speculates briefly towards the end of the film about his empathy towards people who walk into "these places" with guns. He doesn't quite finish his sentence because he's choked up and seemingly in disbelief of his own feelings.

A couple of months ago I watched an episode of Flashpoint in which three men had lost their homes to predatory lending. One of the older men had lost his wife who had killed herself when their mortgage skyrocketed. They had taken the bank employees hostage in an effort to get their homes back. By the end of the show I had tears running down my face. Not because the acting was particularly good or because the episode ended on a positive note, but because I found myself empathetic to their cause. Because I found it in myself to find violence or the threat of violence to be a plausible means of negotiating and that somewhere in a place I don't care to visit again soon, I hoped that it might happen.

How much more can the peasants really take? Just how far can you push them before they take to the streets with torches and pitchforks?

And just how much more are they willing to push to find out?

www.shitheadery.com
fladdap.com

Ozon, Moodysson and von Trier On Tap For IFC Center's Fall Series

2009-10-06T12:45:18Z

New York’s West Village IFC Center, which just announced an upcoming two-screen expansion, has announced its programming for the fall.  In addition to a slate of first-run theatrical releases, the center is housing the New York International Children’s Film Festival, a tribute to doc distributor Docurama, screenings from the eleventh annual Stranger than Fiction documentary fest, “It’s a Wonderful Life,” and midnight screenings of films from John Hughes, Monty Python and Stanley Kubrick.  There will also …

A scene from Lukas Moodysson's "Mammoth." [Image courtesy of the Berlinale.]

Jeff Kreisler: This Week In Cheating: Ken Lewis' Pension

2009-10-01T18:18:40Z

Bank of America's Ken Lewis Gets A $53 Million Retirement Payment

The Cheater Says:
Guess his pension is just made up of all his employees and investors pensions.

After all, what's a pension? A system wherein the employee gives the boss money for "safekeeping." Good luck with that. Might as well give your little kids to the Catholic Church for "safekeeping." You're not getting either back.

Score another one for The Cheaters.

--

Jeff Kreisler's first book, "Get Rich Cheating," is a Boston Globe Bestseller and can be purchased in fine bookstores or online.
"Just by reading this book you'll earn an asterisk next to your name. You'll be laughing all the way to the bank, assuming other cheaters haven't forced it into bankruptcy yet." - Rachel Maddow (MSNBC)
"Catcher in the Rye for evildoers" - Penthouse Magazine
"A very funny book with a very timely message." - Terry Jones (Monty Python)
"This is THE book to read in the unemployment line." - Lizz Winstead (Co-creator of The Daily Show)
"Laugh out loud - roaring!" - CNBC
"A brilliant and brilliantly sustained satirical broadside. On just about every page, you'll find a pithy, pointed barb worthy of the late great George Carlin." - Tony Hendra (National Lampoon, Father Joe)

Vulture Giveaway: Win Two Tickets to the Monty Python Reunion!

2009-10-01T12:46:18Z

See all six — yes, six! — members of Monty Python, live and in person.

Read more: Monty Python, Home News

Vulture Giveaway: Win Two Tickets to the Monty Python Reunion!

2009-10-01T12:46:17Z

See all six — yes, six! — members of Monty Python, live and in person.

Read more: Monty Python, Home News

Iris Erlingsdottir: "Happy" Anniversary, Iceland

2009-09-29T03:46:11Z

This week marks the one year anniversary of the beginning of the end of Iceland's economic prosperity.

After World War II, Iceland may have been the poorest country in Western Europe. Centuries of abuse -- physical and economic -- by our colonial overlords (Norway, then Denmark) had weakened our financial institutions and stunted our economic potential. After receiving our full independence in 1944, we gradually clawed our way up the food chain, going from a remote backwater to the world's richest nation on a per capita basis in just six decades.

Unfortunately, our new house was built on foundations of sand, and when the economic fallout from the Lehman Brothers collapse began to hit the markets, Iceland's lack of solid grounding became evident. On September 29, 2008, the Icelandic government announced that it would nationalize Glitnir -- one of the three large banks upon which Iceland built its prosperity -- thus starting a chain of events that would lead to the collapse of all three banks, the Icelandic stock market, and the Icelandic króna within two weeks, and of the ruling center-right government within six months.

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) was called in, and has proceeded to impose austerity measures and to apply pressure on the Icelandic government to guarantee the banks' losses abroad. The new center-left government bungled the initial negotiations with the United Kingdom and the Netherlands regarding its responsibility for the banks' losses, but has now submitted a more realistic plan for repayment. Nevertheless, it has had to cut essential services, such as health care, and has not provided a clear plan for returning the country to solid footing.

"The Goddess of Justice" Halldór Baldursson, mbl.is

Investigations of widely-rumored fraud have not yet yielded any arrests, but an important legislative fact-finding investigation is due out in November. Páll Hreinsson, the Supreme Court judge chairing this investigation, has warned that "No committee has ever had to bring to its nation such bad news." It is also expected that the special prosecutor appointed to investigate possible fraud in the banking industry will start issuing indictments soon.

Nevertheless, Icelanders do not appear to have learned any lessons from this debacle. There is a great reluctance on the part of most Icelanders to accept any responsibility for our current situation. Those who participated in the madness truly believed that they had found the secret for printing money and blame our depression on the global economic downturn, and are waiting for the market to bottom so that they can buy up resources for a song and start over again, more powerful than ever.

Those who did not participate in the bubble truly believe that they should be exempted from any hardship. They are like the radical Jewish sect in Monty Python's Life of Brian sitting around asking what the Romans had ever done for them -- other than aqueducts, sanitation, roads, irrigation, education, wine, security, etc., etc., etc. They may have voted for the minority parties, worked outside of the banks, and resisted the urge to go on shopping sprees abroad, but they accepted the legitimacy of the status quo by failing to take affirmative steps to change it fundamentally.

This failure to learn is exemplified in three recent developments -- the new government's decision not to revise the current fishing quota system, the imminent loss of public control over Iceland's geothermal energy resources, and the reemergence of Davíð Oddsson as a player in the public debate over Iceland's future.

The event that many see as starting the economic corruption that permeated the business environment in the 2000s was the 1990 decision to grant fishing quotas to selected fishing vessel owners at no cost, even though the Icelandic constitution declared the fisheries to be a public resource. This decision made the lucky owners fabulously wealthy, and they showed their gratitude by sharing their wealth with Iceland's political parties, though of course not with the Icelandic people themselves.

When its status as the perpetual minority party seemed secure, the Left-Green Party declared that one of its principle aims was to restore the quotas to the Icelandic people and to auction off the fishing rights to ensure that the people to whom the fish belonged would receive a fair economic benefit.

However, now that the Left-Green Party has entered into a ruling coalition with the Social Democrats, that election promise has dissolved in the purple power koolaid that produces 180° position reversals, cowardice, and episodes of integrity breakdown, all on nauseating display on Icelandic state television last week as Fisheries Minister Jón Bjarnason told an interviewer that it wasn't up to him (the Minister, the boss), but a bureaucratic committee, to fulfill what he and his party had promised voters. Of course he had no way of knowing what the committee would end up deciding, the matter was completely out of his hands!

Iceland can only be said to have two natural resources of any importance -- fish and energy. The method by which Iceland distributed fishing quotas remains deeply flawed, but it is the politicization of energy that presents the greatest danger to Iceland's future. Whatever its flaws, at least the fishing quota system has ensured that Iceland's fisheries have been relatively well managed. The exploitation of energy in Iceland, however, it anything but well managed.

The recent flurry of activity surrounding the sale of HS Orka, the largest privately owned energy company in Iceland, shows that the old way of doing business has not changed much, if at all. A Canadian company, Magma Energy Corp., announced in July that it had signed an agreement to acquire a minority interest in HS Orka from Geysir Green Energy (GGE), a private geothermal development company with a majority stake in HS Orka.

GGE acquired its shares in HS Orka when the Independence Party-led Icelandic government decided to privatize the company in 2007. Not surprisingly, GGE -- which was headed by the same investors who already owned most of what was worth owning -- had greased the skids for this deal by "donating" ISK 30 million to the Independence Party a couple months earlier.

To no one's surprise, GGE is now in deep debt as a result of failed geothermal projects in Germany and elsewhere, and has been held on life support by the Icelandic banks, which are themselves essentially insolvent. A bank desperate for cash selling off a bankrupt debtor's assets to recoup a portion of the outstanding debt is, of course, nothing unusual.

However, to gain effective control over HS Orka, Magma has also struck a deal with Reykjavik Energy (RE) and two other municipal shareholders under which it gained an additional 32.32% share of HS Orka, while putting down only about 30% of the purchase price, with the remainder secured by a bond repayable in a single installment in seven years with interest at 1.52% per annum. The bond is secured by the shares acquired by Magma in this transaction. The deal will give Magma exclusive rights to exploit one of Iceland's most productive geothermal fields for the next 130 years.

This is precisely the type of deal that characterized Iceland's banks before the collapse, and it's sad to see that the municipal politicians have learned absolutely nothing from the failure of the neoconservative ideology. What's even more heartbreaking is the realization that this sale is also exactly the type of deal described by John Perkins, in his haunting book, Confessions of an Economic Hit Man, for stripping countries of control over their natural resources and placing them in the service of a few very large foreign corporations.

Iceland decided long ago to "diversify" its economy by enticing Alcoa and other aluminum manufacturers to set up shop in Iceland to take advantage of dirt cheap energy prices. The resultant hydroelectric projects have destroyed pristine wilderness, with little or no profit to Iceland's people, as has been documented by Andri Snaer Magnusson.

The HS Orka sale is an attempt by the aluminum interests to ensure that the government does not interfere with their plans for continued expansion, despite a lack of public support, and that it does not renegotiate the current contracts to charge a fair rate for the exploitation of Iceland's geothermal and hydroelectric resources.

The individual seen by most Icelanders as the architect of the bubble economy is Davíð Oddsson, the former long-time Prime Minister, leader of the Independence Party, disciple of Milton Friedman, and chairman of Iceland's Central Bank at this time last year. As Prime Minister, he led the charge for the privatization of public resources, including the banks and the energy companies. As Central Bank chair, he is credited with the United Kingdom's decision to invoke its terrorism laws to freeze the assets of Icelandic banks in the UK, after he stated during a radio interview the day before that "we do not intend to pay the debts of the banks that have been a little heedless."

"The Davíð's Scream" by Gunnar/Fréttablaðið

After the Independent Party-led government fell last winter, he was forced out of the Central Bank, and had, it appeared, decided to slink into a hole, one hoped, to mull over his multitude of mistakes and to seek atonement for the great suffering he had caused.

But like the proverbial bad penny, Davíð turned up last week as the new editor-in-chief of Morgunblaðið, Iceland's premier newspaper, whose ISK 3 billon debts were nationalized before a member of the fishing quota royalty then took ownership of the paper. Iceland's newspapers have never exactly been independent beacons of free thinking, but Morgunblaðið under the pre-Davíð editor (Ólafur Stephensen) had been praised by many people (of diverse political opinions) for fine reporting. Now, the Morgunblaðið staff has been purged of dozens of long-time staffers, and it is generally anticipated that an alternate Faux News-type universe will be fabricated to justify past misdeeds and to pave the road for a return to power by the power brokers behind Iceland's collapse.

Does this imply that Iceland is doomed to an economic and societal purgatory for the foreseeable future? I hope not, but I'm not optimistic. There are some indications that the worst criminals will be punished, and that some stolen assets will be recovered. The reality, though, is that most of the money lost in the past year is gone forever (or, more precisely, never really existed), and that most of the participants in the orgy will escape with a slap on the wrist, at most.

What we must avoid, however, is repeating the mistakes of the recent past. We can no longer accept a society in which a few selfish individuals control the fate of the entire nation, the obeisant public acquiesces without comment to gratuitous transfers of public resources to private interests, and the concept of personal responsibility is seen as a quaint concept applicable only to others.

This has been a very rough year for Iceland, and it's not likely to get better anytime soon. The public's anger continues to grow, and it would not be surprising if this winter sees a repeat of last winter's uprising. One would hope that we retained a few lessons from this painful debacle, but unfortunately and inexplicably, Icelanders seem hell-bent on self-destruction - again.

According to recent polls, a third of voters support the Independence Party, the architects and enforcers of the corrupt policies that devastated the country. Icelanders' story continues to be that of Bjartur of Summerhouse, the protagonist of Nobel prize author Halldór Laxness' Independent People, "the story of a man who sowed his enemy's field all his life, day and night."

Jamie Frevele: The SNL Shorts: Part 1 - The Beginning of Creative Anarchy

2009-09-21T11:29:23Z

If there is anything worse than being unemployed, it's being trapped in a terrible job and having to remind yourself that you're lucky to have one at all, even if it means driving for over an hour in traffic with a knot in your stomach and a lump in your throat twice a day, five days a week, then spending the day convincing yourself that you're not alone in this toilety economy. And, in my case, taking a few minutes to sob about it all in the ladies' room.

But at least there's "Dick in a Box."

What? Oh, yes -- that's how I make my day better, at least for a few minutes at a time when I can steal them from the crushing ennui. I watch the SNL Digital Shorts.

I've always felt like Saturday Night Live's video sketches had a sense of creative anarchy about them, like some punks lifted a camera, busted out to film something, then brought it back and said, "Look what we did while you were working, suckers!" Not just for the current shorts, but going back to the show's first season. Gary Weis, the second SNL filmmaker after Albert Brooks, told me that when he was hired by his friend Lorne Michaels, he was given free reign over his films and "freedom to do what he wanted" with little censorship. Tom Schiller, who succeeded Weis in 1977, looks back on his time at SNL "as a 'golden period,' when I experimented and made, with a lot of creative freedom, my early short films." It's pretty clear that a great deal of creative freedom has been granted to The Lonely Island boys, Andy Samberg, Jorma Taccone and Akiva Schaffer, or else we would have never been treated/subjected to "Laser Cats." (One vote for "treated.") Maybe it's living vicariously through that anarchy that cures my work ills, since I am seriously on the verge of gutting a fish on my desk.

But from what did the SNL Digital Shorts evolve?

Brought on as a "new, hip Charles Kuralt," Gary Weis' films all had a "truthy" feel to them, meaning that they weren't necessarily out for laughs, but offered up material from real people that couldn't have been scripted, like Andy Warhol staple Taylor Mead talking to his cat. (Maybe you've never heard of "Taylor Mead's Ass." Well, now you have. You're welcome.) While Weis was not out to deliver sketch comedy, his short Beatles-inspired mockumentary about "The Rutles" with Eric Idle prompted a full-length version called "All You Need Is Cash." Yes, comedy nerds -- Monty Python and the Not Ready for Primetime Players actually joined forces at one point. And I own it on DVD. Jealous?

Tom Schiller, on the other hand, had an entirely different MO. While he was part of the original writing staff and made occasional appearances on camera, Schiller was always a filmmaker by trade and wanted to make "miniature movies," he says. "I wanted to create stylized short films that had the atmosphere of my favorite directors," including foreign directors Federico Fellini and Francois Truffaut, as well as vintage American films. While Weis' films found humor in truth and reality, "Schiller's Reels" were an escape from format and, sometimes, the present. Produced specifically to stand out from the rest of the show, they were often shot with an old-fashioned feel, in black and white or intentionally scratchy. He also put the show's then-rising stars in roles the audience had never seen them in before, like John Belushi as an old man, dancing (sadly, ironically) on the graves of his predeceased castmates, Gilda Radner lamenting the woes of fame, and Bill Murray as a bum-turned-Shakespearean actor. (Though he actually did become a Shakespearean actor in Hamlet.)

Schiller's Reels and later Schillervision served to buck conventional sketch comedy temporarily and hijack other genres, which makes them comparable to TLI's Digital Shorts. While some of the best Digital Shorts are pretty traditional commercial parodies ("Lettuce," for example, which is so great because it's played so incredibly straight), the most memorable ones do what Schiller's Reels did and take over genres, in their case, music videos.

One rule I learned from writing sketch comedy was "In this dimension, this is how this happens." In our current dimension, there was Color Me Badd. In the dimension created by TLI, Color Me Badd sang, with just as much sincerity and without a hint of tongue in cheek, about putting their cocks in gift-wrapped cardboard boxes. Why? Because they can. TLI wanted to take Color Me Badd, lift the tactful veil of cheesy lyrics and put it out there -- these guys want to show girls their junk. But besides creative anarchy, both Schiller and TLI fulfill artistic desires. I know I've always wanted to be shot in grainy black and white. And I know I've always wondered if I could do a rap video. I probably have no business doing either, and, really, do these other suburban white kids? Who cares? They can. And they did. (And so did I.) And some of you probably wish you could, too.

What all of these SNL filmmakers have in common is storytelling. We tell stories to entertain ourselves, maybe distract ourselves, and some of us want to tell stories for a living because we know how much people love it. And need it, especially right now.

And nowadays, we can all see so much more of it, whenever we want.

For your viewing pleasure:

"Dick in a Box"

And Tom Schiller's "The Acid Generation: Where Are They Now?":

The_Acid_Generation_-_Where_are_They_Now__by_Tom_Schiller

Tomorrow: Going Viral and Feature-Length

Michael Sigman: Field Notes From a Songwriter's Centennial

2009-09-08T14:19:20Z

Many a tear has to fall but it's all in the game...

September 24th is the centennial birthday of my late father, the songwriter Carl Sigman (1909-2000), who wrote nearly a thousand songs, including "It's All In The Game," "(Where Do I Begin) Love Story," "Ebb Tide," "What Now, My Love," "Enjoy Yourself (It's Later Than You Think)" and "Arrivederci, Roma." In the first of two parts, I offer some fun facts and observations on his first half-century.

Also born in 1909: Johnny Mercer, Benny Goodman, Gene Krupa, Maybelle Carter, Burl Ives, Colonel Tom Parker and, absurdly, Eugene Ionesco.

Johnny Mercer, the genteel Georgian who would become one of the greatest American songwriters, lived down the street from my dad in the Crown Heights section of Brooklyn, and became his mentor. Johnny would show up at the Sigman apartment most nights around dinnertime to enjoy generous helpings of kreplach, blintzes and chopped liver on rye bread, courtesy of my grandmother. Carl's first published song, 1937's "Just Remember," was a collaboration with Mercer. Returning the favor, Carl gave Johnny the famous line "Or am I breathing music into ev'ry word" for the immortal "And The Angels Sing."

Carl's first monster hit -- "Pennsylvania 6-5000" by Glenn Miller and His Orchestra in 1940 -- referred to the phone number of big band hot spot the Hotel Pennsylvania, which you can still reach by dialing that number.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i0m6i1HQxN8

As part of his contribution to World War II, Sgt. Sigman wrote "All-American Soldier," still the theme song of the 82nd Airborne Division.

Some funny song titles from the early years: "I Left The One I Love On One Of The Thousand Islands, But I Can't Remember Which One," "The Big High Mountain With Nothing On The Top," "Our Horses Are Falling In Love." And who can forget that ode to the hot dog, "Pickle In the Middle and the Mustard on Top"?

The lyrics for the bridge to "Crazy He Calls Me" -- a late '40s ballad made famous by Billie Holiday and later recorded by Tony Bennett, Linda Ronstadt, Sam Cooke, Rod Stewart et al -- came to Carl when he pictured a sign from the wartime Army mess hall that read, "The difficult I'll do right now; the impossible will take a little while."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-pDVHBW46PM

In 1947, Carl had the top two songs on Your Hit Parade. No. 2 was Sigman-Hilliard's "Civilization (Bongo Bongo Bongo)" by Danny Kaye and the Andrews Sisters, while Vaughn Monroe's "Ballerina" topped the chart. Carl wrote the melody for "Ballerina" -- Bob Russell contributed the lyric -- and at least a half dozen of his friends swore he composed it on their pianos.

In 1948, Carl married Louis Prima's gal Friday, Eleanor (Terry) Berkowitz, whom he met in the Brill Building while writing songs for Louis. But the Sigman-Hilliard collaboration didn't miss a beat -- Bob was there when my dad proposed, and accompanied my parents on their honeymoon.

"Enjoy Yourself (It's Later Than You Think)," a New Year's Eve perennial and still my mom's voicemail message, has been assayed by Bing Crosby, Doris Day, reggae immortal Prince Buster, ska stalwarts The Specials, alt-country great Todd Snider, the apparently stoned-out-of-their-minds Wingless Angels -- produced by Keith Richards -- and, just last month, the Jim Kweskin Jug Band.

Carl and his friend the composer/orchestra leader Percy Faith wrote "My Heart Cries For You" at the race track. It took ten minutes. Guy Mitchell brought it to the top of the charts in 1951, and Elvis Presley and Ray Charles are among the hundreds who've covered it since.

My dad's biggest hit -- "It's All In The Game" -- began as classical violin solo composed by Charles Dawes, making it the only No. 1 song to have been co-written by a vice president of the United States. (Dawes served under Calvin Coolidge.) In addition to Tommy Edwards' classic 1958 chart-topper, it's been a country hit for Merle Haggard and an r&b hit for the Four Tops. Other interpreters include Louis Armstrong, Liberace, UB40, Jackie DeShannon, Cliff Richard, Elton John, Johnny Mathis, Barry White, Nick Lowe, Isaac Hayes, Bob Dylan, Keith Jarrett and my personal fave, Van Morrison.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HNz-Am3Qm5s

My father never "went to work." Instead, the meditative calm of the golf course often served as his muse. From a very young age I'd reply to the question, "What does your father do?" with, "He plays golf." If someone asked what he did in the winter, I'd say, "He bowls."

"Ebb Tide" was Carl's personal favorite of all his songs. In his memoir Chronicles Bob Dylan writes, "I used to play the phenomenal 'Ebb Tide' by Frank Sinatra a lot and it had never failed to fill me with awe. The lyrics were so mystifying and stupendous. When Frank sang that song, I could hear everything in his voice -- death, God and the universe, everything." Lest we get swept away, my parents, my brothers Jeff and Randy and I laughed till it hurt the first time we heard Jerry Colonna's "Ebb Tide" send-up, where he drowns before his passion is consummated.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ehnCc-huX4

Carl wrote all kinds of songs. He collaborated with jazz greats Duke Ellington ("All Too Soon") and Tad Dameron ("If You Could See Me Now"), added lyrics to the vintage ragtime tunes "Fidgety Feet," "Panama" and "Sensation," wrote folk songs for Burl Ives --"River Of Smoke," "(O-Lee-O) The Bachelor's Life" -- and even came up with a protest song for lefty activist Tom Glazer, "Money In The Pocket."

For the '50s TV series Robin Hood, my father wrote words and music to the theme song, which began with the memorable lines "Robin Hood, Robin Hood, Riding through the glen." This being the week of all things Beatle, it's worth noting that the hit recording of "Robin Hood" was produced by "fifth Beatle" George Martin and sung by Martin's friend Dick James, who later became the Mop-Tops' publisher. What's more, Monty Python -- the Beatles of comedy -- parodied the song in "Dennis Moore," a famous sketch from Flying Circus season three.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rD0Q6wNM4S8

My dad shunned publicity, sometimes with a deft assist from my mom. When I was around 10, a strange woman, daughter in tow, came to our door and asked if her little girl could watch my dad write a song. Mom's deadpan reply: "He does most of his writing on the john."

Next week: Where do we begin? Sinatra sings Sigman; Surviving the British Invasion; Big in Iran, and more.

Jeff Kreisler: This Week In Cheating: Drugs

2009-09-05T12:42:21Z

The drug industry is closely watching a trial in NYC - the first of about 900 state & federal cases - over the side effects from Merck's Fosamax. Merck, you may recall, also produced Vioxx, which garnered a $4.5 billion-ish settlement for about 200 court cases. Despite the litigation, Merck company stock has actually been upgraded to "strong buy"... for plaintiff's attorney.

Across the pharmaceutical hallway, Pfizer will pay $2.3 billion to end allegations that it illegally marketed Bextra... just like it illegally marketed Neurontin... just like it'll illegally market 'Stop Hitting Yourself.'® Stop Hitting Yourself.® Why are you hitting yourself?

So, let me get this straight: Pfizer is the one who'll lie to you, but Merck's the one that'll kill you? Got it.

The $2.3 billion is less than three weeks of Pfizer's sales, so, it's unlikely to stop their practice. In fact, a recently released document shows how drug companies use their marketing power to sell ineffective, but expensive, pills on an uninformed and vulnerable public. Well, duh... as all cheaters know. People Are Dumb.

Amy Schulman, Pfizer's general counsel summed it up best:
"The vast majority of our employees spend their lives dedicated to bringing truly important medications to patients and physicians in an appropriate manner."

What she left unsaid is that a small minority of their employees... don't. That small minority squeezes every last dollar out of our worthless lives, and that small minority is in charge.

Kudos, drug industry. You've cheated yourself quite rich.

--

Jeff Kreisler's first book, "Get Rich Cheating" (HarperCollins), is a Boston Globe bestseller and is available online or in most bookstores.
"You'll be laughing all the way to the bank, assuming other cheaters haven't forced it into bankruptcy yet." - Rachel Maddow
"Catcher in the Rye for evildoers" - Penthouse Magazine
"A very funny book with a very timely message." - Terry Jones (Monty Python)
"Laugh out loud - roaring!" - CNBC
"A brilliant and brilliantly sustained satirical broadside." - Tony Hendra (National Lampoon)

Alter-Egos: 10 Comedy Characters Who Have Had A Life Of Their Own

2009-08-28T17:25:25Z

Comedians have created and pulled off countless characters over the years (just think of your favorite sketch groups or shows, such as Saturday Night Live, Monty Python or Kids in the Hall, for plenty of examples). But every once in a while, a comedian creates a character so memorable that the alter-ego takes on a life of his/her own, so much so that the comedian's ego is fed by the alter-ego. Here are 9 more comedy acts, who, for better or worse, are known for being someone else.

Sharon Glassman: What is Work? Balancing Creativity and Cash

2009-08-27T11:46:21Z

James P. Othmer is an ex full-time-ad guy turned full-time author.

Or maybe he's an ad guy turned author between full-time jobs?

No one can say. Least of all, James Othmer.

But it sort of doesn't matter. Because however the future plays out, Othmer has found his personal happiness in the here-and-now, writing for - and about - work.

After writing two work-related novels, Othmer has written a work of non-fiction that examines the What's, Hows and Why's of advertising.

He doesn't have an axe to grind, just a magnifying glass wielded with affection. And he's a whiz with a fact and a pencil. All of which makes Adland (Doubleday, September 15) a really fun read, in a Mad Men meets Monty-Pythonesque way.

"Would you make cigarette ads?" he writes in the book's opening pages. "Would you make cigarette ads if they had huge "YOU WILL DIE IF YOU SMOKE THESE!" warnings plastered across the bottom? Would you do antismoking ads paid for by big tobacco?"

In a less postmodern decade, Adland might have functioned on one level, as an informative and education insider's tale of a volatile industry.

But today, when so many industries have adopted advertising's "here today, screwed tomorrow" playbook, Othmer's story has dual appeal - as a portrait of a changing industry and a template for readers torn between a drive for professional success and a pull toward human happiness.

This makes Adland and James Othmer a great resource for anyone whose professional life makes them want to sing the from theme song from Alfie:

James and I spoke during his working summer vacation. He offered these tips for anyone trying to find their true career, and balance creative passions with paychecks:

Discover What You Want to Be When You Grow Up:

In the old days, tomorrow was something that happened after today. In the new work model, we can make choices about what we'll be doing tomorrow. A great way to know if you're on the right track is to ask:

Do I want to do what my boss is doing?

If the answer is yes, congratulations! Keep going.

If the answer is no, Othmer advises going "off on a ramble" while you keep your day job.

Test-drive an activity that you've always dreamed of doing. Like being a pastry chef (take a course) or leading outdoor tours (enroll in a few).

Ramble with the full passion you'd bring to that kind of career. The emotional shift in focus may allow you to earn your living in one way while finding fulfillment in another - or it may lead you to a new career entirely.

Don't Measure Your Creative Success in Dollars

After Othmer wrote his first novel, his agent was so sure it would sell - and sell big - that she took him to a lavish sushi lunch to celebrate the bidding auction she was sure would follow. High on sushi and praise, Othmer awaited the auction - and the riches that would prove he was a literary success.

There was just one problem: no one bid on his book.

Othmer got a short, sharp lesson from that experience: "Don't go to the lunch."

The only part of the creative process that he can control was the creative, he decided. And so he set out to write a book he truly loved, assuming it would be never published.

Once again, he was proved half-right. The book he wrote delighted him. And it ended up getting published, too.

He continues to write this way, and loves it.

"I have a great agent and a great publisher who believes in me."

And most important: he believes in what he's doing.

"I get great satisfaction from writing," he says.

Become your own Futurist.

A friend of Othmer's called him to say she was sure she was going to be let go from her job.

But that didn't mean her career was over, he insisted.

The key to finding a new career you love with the skills you have? Imagine you're looking five years into the future. What big business trends can you imagine? How might your "old" skills fit into these new models? Now work backwards and seek out the companies who need that "new" you.

Fire Yourself (Mentally)

Imagine you've been let go. What is the first thing you're going to do? Othmer asks.

Who will you call?

What will you search for first in your address book?

These people, actions and first ideas can offer you great clues to next career steps that your normal mind may be ignoring.

Another way to bridge the gap between creative satisfaction and income is humor.

Recently, Othmer told me, he was audited by the IRS. Uncle Sam refused to believe he could travel as much as he did to research his books and make so little money from them.

There was no way a person would work full-time to for so long for little return, the audit implied. And that stung.

"It's kind of insulting the way writing and creativity is looked at," Othmer admitted.

But James Othmer had the facts on his side. He went into his attic and pulled out five novel drafts and three folders of almost-yes letters, sorry-but-no letters and maybe-sort of letters and brought them downtown.

At which point even the IRS had to admit. Othmer was working his brains out. He might not be earning the big bucks for his work as he had before. But he was working in a job that made him professionally and personally happy. And no one, not even the IRS, could tax that.

Save the Date: One-Night-Only Monty Python Reunion

2009-08-19T13:46:14Z

John Cleese and the rest of the Python crew (even the dead one!) come together in NYC for an epic event

Read more: Monty Python, Home News

John Cleese's Divorce Leaves Third Wife Richer Than He Is

2009-08-18T07:55:58Z

John Cleese isn't laughing about the $19.7M divorce settlement he reached with his third wife - a sum that will leave her richer than the Monty Python star.

"What I find so unfair is that if we both died today, her children would get much more than mine," the Oscar-nominated comedian told London's Daily Telegraph. "At least I will know in future if I go out with a lady they will not be after me for my money."

Barrett Brown: Intelligent Design, Online Edition

2009-08-06T20:53:50Z

Back in the dark days before ubiquitous Internet, disinformation was sustainable. When you were told that Marilyn Manson is actually Paul from The Wonder Years, it would have been difficult to prove otherwise; one would have had to find someone's old VHS tape on which they'd recorded one of the episodes, check the credits to figure out what that actor's name was, and then find someone's copy of Antichrist Superstar and look for the same name on the liner notes. And it was unlikely that you would find old Wonder Years episodes and Marilyn Manson albums in the same place. It was easier to just half-believe that Paul was Marilyn Manson.

Life is different now, if less interesting. Consider William Dembski, the mathematician and theologian who rose to the top of the nascent intelligent design pack in the late '90s after claiming to have proven that certain aspects of biology can be attributable only to the intervention of one or more intelligent entities. As for who or what those entities might be, Dembski is coy when addressing a potentially secular audience, claiming that there "are many possibilities." Among these possibilities, we may determine, is that Dembski is lying; in a 1999 interview with the Christian magazine Touchstone, Dembski stated unambiguously that "[i]ntelligent design is just the Logos theology of John's Gospel restated in the idiom of information theory." With ID being increasingly under attack as theology clothed in science, Dembski has since been more hesitant in giving due credit to either John or the Logos.

Bits of information are no longer compartmentalized like so many scattered VHS tapes and gothic rock album liner notes, which is why Dembski and company can't get away with trying to portray ID as a scientific theory with no religious intent while having already admitted that same religious intent to sympathetic Biblical literalists. But that crowd doesn't seem to understand this fundamental aspect of the Internet, that Google waits in watch of dishonesty. And thus it is that Dembski's blog Uncommon Descent is among the most interesting things that the Internet has to offer. More importantly, it provides us with a sense of how the leaders of the ID movement would run things if they were ever to run anything other than a blog.

Dembski began blogging in 2005, perhaps as a means of procrastination; 2005 was also the last year in which he and his movement colleagues bothered to put out a new issue of their own scientific journal, although their lack of output hasn't stopped them from criticizing mainstream journals for declining to publish their work, non-existent though it may be. Some choice moments in the years since:

* In conjunction with his friends at the pro-ID Discovery Institute, Dembski decided to commission a Flash animation ridiculing Judge John Jones, the Bush-appointed churchgoer who, despite being a Bush-appointed churchgoer, ruled in the 2005 Dover Trial (known more formerly as Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District and even more formally as something longer and more formal) that intelligent design could not be taught in public school science classes. The animation consisted of Judge Jones represented as a puppet with his strings being held by various proponents of evolution; aside from being depicted as unusually flatulent, poor Judge Jones was also shown to be reading aloud from his court opinion in a high-pitched voice (Dembski's, it turned out, but sped up to make it sound sillier). The point of all of this, as The Discovery Institute explained, was that Jones had supposedly cribbed some 90 percent of his decision from findings presented by the ACLU, and that this was a very unusual and terrible thing for Jones to have done. On the contrary, judges commonly incorporate the findings of the winning party into their final opinion, either in whole or in part, and Jones' own written opinion actually incorporated far less than 90 percent of the findings in question. For his part, Dembski agreed to reduce the number of fart noises in the animation if Jones would agree to contribute his own voice. Jones does not appear to have accepted the offer.

* One of Dembski's hand-picked blog co-moderators, Dave Springer, once received an e-mail to the effect that the ACLU was about to sue the Marine Corps in order to stop Marines from praying; outraged, Springer posted it on his blog in order that his readers could join him in being affronted. After all, the e-mail had told him to. "Please send this to people you know so everyone will know how stupid the ACLU is Getting [sic] in trying to remove GOD from everything and every place in America," the bright-red text exhorted, above pictures of praying Marines. "Right on!" Dembski added in the comments. It was then pointed out by other readers that the e-mail was a three-year-old hoax; the ACLU spokesperson named therein did not actually exist, and neither did the ACLU's complaint. Springer was unfazed by the revelation. "To everyone who's pointed out that the ACLU story is a fabrication according to snopes.com -- that's hardly the point," he explained. "The pictures of Marines praying are real." Dembski himself had no further comment.

* Dembski has spent much time and energy pointing out that Charles Darwin made several racist statements back in the 19th century, even going so far as to call for a boycott of the British ten-pound note due to Darwin's picture being displayed thereupon. Incidentally, Dembski has spent most of the past decade working at universities within the fold of the Southern Baptist Convention, which was founded in the 19th century for the sole purpose of defending slavery.

* Springer, the aforementioned aficionado of e-mail forwards, once noted that he stopped reading an article by a critic of intelligent design because it contained a cartoon depicting the famous Black Knight routine from Monty Python and the Holy Grail. "Anyone who needs to resort to Monty Python in a scientific argument can be safely ignored as not having any legs to stand on," he announced. Springer can be forgiven for not being aware that Dembski himself has referenced Monty Python in the context of a scientific argument more than once. Somewhat more inexplicable is that Springer himself has done the exact same thing, making reference to the very same Monty Python routine and doing so in the very same context as did the article he was criticizing -- twice. I mean, come on.

* Upon being told that University of Texas Professor Eric Pianka had given a speech in which he'd supposedly asserted that the world would be better off if most of humanity was killed via a global contagion, Dembski announced on his blog that he had just reported Pianka to the Department of Homeland Security out of concern that the elderly biologist was planning to somehow contribute to the destruction of humanity. The FBI interviewed Pianka but took no further action, having perhaps determined that the recipient of the 2006 Distinguished Texas Scientist award was not actually planning on killing off the majority of the world's population.

* Seriously, it was the exact same Monty Python routine.

As much as he puts into his blog, his professorships, and his voice acting, Dembski is still as prolific an author as ever. His latest effort, set for release later this year, takes on the wave of pro-atheist books that have seen publication over the past couple of years. Among the pundits whom he'll be countering is Christopher Hitchens, contributing editor at Vanity Fair and author of God is Not Great. If you happen to spot Hitchens drinking, it's probably just to calm his nerves.

Updated!

Uncommon Descent contributor Clive Hayden has launched a devastating counterattack against your humble correspondent, referring to me as "Barrett Clown" in one of the few instances that he manages to spell "Barrett" correctly. Although the post is a bit on the abstract side, I shall attempt to decipher it by way of the Logos.

Me: Oh, mighty Logos, hear my call, homina homina homina.

Logos: Yo yo, you be holdin'?

Me: Dude, shhhh. I need to know what Clive Hayden is trying to say here.

Logos: His basic point is that the 1,000-word article you wrote about Uncommon Descent does not include an entire refutation of specified complexity.

Me: Of course it doesn't; I've already written a whole book about that. Clive even mentions it. Dembski trashed it a couple years back without refuting any of the points therein, such as his participation in the blatantly fraudulent activities of the Discovery Institute that came to light with the theft and publication of that organization's once-secret mission statement, the Wedge Document, which itself contradicts what Dembski and his fellow Constantine fetishists have been telling the public about what intelligent design is really intended to be.

Logos: He called you "Barrett Clown," man.

Me: I know, what the fuck?

Yet Another Update!

Hayden denounces me as "a comedian;" I would note that we're now represented in the Senate, as we should be. Comedians are the greatest people in the world.

He also asks an astonishing question:

He must really dislike certain outcomes of evolution. Whence comes the discernment between competing worldviews that are all outcomes of evolution? If evolution, to Barrett, admittedly produces false worldviews, such as religion, then why trust it in any other regard?

I don't trust evolution any more than I trust gravity or attractive women. I don't make any claims to the effect that evolution only produces swell things and makes everyone smart and honest. I'm not all totally in love with evolution; I just think it's the case. And I'm amazed that Hayden would ask me to account for the results of the process to which I ascribe when it is he and his fellow intelligent design advocates who attribute divine purpose to nature, not I. And what's up with those airline peanuts, amirite?

Note to the Folks at Uncommon Descent

I posted a comment to the blog post at Uncommon Descent concerning me at 5:59 EST; it was a response to the latest silly, fact-free attacks on me, this time by Gil Dodgen. It is still "pending approval" three hours later, even though several other comments posted after mine are already published and visible. Your blog is already notorious for "disappearing" inconvenient comments, but I believe that this the first time in the history of the internet that an author has been barred from leaving a comment on a post about his own work.

Final Update (Hopefully)

After four hours and some ridicule, the folks at Uncommon Descent have finally approved my comment. Truly, this is a great day for open debate!

Epilogue

I recently promised Uncommon Descent gadfly Clive Hayden and other proponents of the movement that I would respond to several questions and accusations put forth on that blog over the past few days.

Several intelligent design supporters have accused me of slandering William Dembski by asserting that he is lying when he expresses his alleged opinion that the intelligence behind design could be one of many things, including something "natural." The crux of their argument is that it is entirely appropriate to speak on this from a theological context on some occasions and in a scientific context on others. I agree. But it is not appropriate or honest to go in front of a mainstream audience and try to give the impression that he is agnostic on the identity of the designer, when he has already told a sympathetic Christian audience that it is absolutely certain that the designer is Christ, and that science divorced from Christ is invalid.

Dembski has done this repeatedly. Aside from the incident I mention in the above article, he did it again during a CNN debate with Skeptic founder Michael Shermer. After explaining the stunning complexity we see among the components of the cell, Dembski is asked by host Daryn Kagan, "Are you explaining that by saying it's God that answers those questions?" He responds, "No, what we're saying is that there's an intelligence involved." Nonsense. Dembski can validly claim that intelligent design need not be religiously motivated, but he cannot claim, when asked if he explains "specified complexity" with reference to God, that he does not. He does. He doesn't do it when talking to Daryn Kagan, but he does do it whenever addressing a Christian audience.

I would evoke a favorite metaphor of the intelligent design crowd - that what they do when seeking to detect design is much akin to what a police investigator does when trying to solve a crime by way of forensics. Imagine that Dembski is a detective who has spent years studying a crime scene. He determines that the crime was perpetrated by a certain Jesus H. Christ, and even writes several reports to the effect that he is absolutely certain that this is the case. Then he talks to someone whom he'd like to convinced of the soundness of his forensic methodology, but he knows that this person is disinclined to agree that Christ was the perp, so when asked if he explains the crime as having been performed by the perp in question, he says, "No, what we're saying is that there's a criminal involved" and then goes on to list a couple of possibilities without even mentioning Christ. That detective would be lying. Dembski, too, is lying.

At least one intelligent design proponent notes that, had I written the above article in the U.K., I would be on my way to court "to defend a libel charge right now, and with the prospect of having to pay the full costs of the other party and the court too, in addition to damages." I doubt that Dembski would be foolish enough to put the question of his honesty in front of a court.

Clive Hayden, meanwhile, asks that I engage him in a discussion on the subject of evolution and how it relates to each person's efforts to verify his worldview. I am disinclined to do so insomuch as that Hayden appears to have difficulty with his memory to such an extent that to debate him further would be much akin to arguing with a persistent amnesiac; when I mentioned two of Dembski's offenses against logic and civility, Hayden claimed that he had "no idea" what I was referring to even though the incidents together formed some forty percent of the argument I made against Dembski in this very article, which, of course, was the topic of his own blog post. Even when I reminded him of this, he refrained from answering the related questions I put to him, choosing instead to allege that I have written nothing of substance on the subject of intelligent design. How he could possibly know that is a mystery insomuch as that he has not read my book on intelligent design and appears to have had some difficulty comprehending the only article of mine on the topic that he has attempted to read.

Yet Another Damned Update

Mr. Hayden is not satisfied with my responses thus far.

I answered your questions, now you answer mine, and don't weasel out of it by talking about my memory. Can you not answer my questions? Can you not? It certainly appears that you cannot. If you can, do it here and now. Evasion won't work Barrett.

I have responded to this particular question several times both here and on the Uncommon Descent blog, just not to Mr. Hayden's satisfaction. I would remind him again that, contrary to his claim that he has answered my questions, I have just explained yet again that he has not. I asked him if Mr. Dembski's behavior with regards to Judge Jones and his decision to report a fellow professor to the Department of Homeland Security as a potential terrorist constitute "mudslinging." He originally claimed not to know of these incidents, and though I've since held his hand through this twice now, he has still failed to answer the question. Hayden does not want to discuss any of the matters that I discuss in the actual article; he is quite willing to write a lengthy post attacking the article, but he knows perfectly well that it is not to his advantage to respond to any of the charges within, as they are all valid and, taken together, they demonstrate that William Dembski is a degenerate hypocrite who reported an enemy to the government and alleged improper conduct on the part of a judge without first checking to see if the judge had actually done anything improper. Hayden makes for a fitting representative.

Moderately Relevant Update!

I've got a new piece up at Vanity Fair, this time attacking Charles Krauthammer instead of the intelligent design yahoos.

A Block Past It

2009-08-02T16:30:55Z

ROCK HACKSHAW: Look, I have always felt that the hard-core readers of the Daily Gotham blog are latte-drinking Park-slopers, who balance their lap-tops on their knees, as they sip on sidewalk cafes. My hard-core readers (not the same as readers of other contributors here on R8) are probably people who drink rum without chaser, in places where the tables are chained to the floor/lol.

ROCK AGAIN: Gatemouth is one-fifth black, four-fifths Jewish and usually full of Scotch.

For the record, .my drink of choice is Liberty Ale from the Anchor brewery (it makes me hoppy) or a dry white wine called Abymes (for me an ideal wine is one, where after I take a sip, I can strike a match on my tongue--some say I have similar taste in women), although on special occasions I like a fine Belgian ale like Rodenbach Grand Cru or a Thomas Hardy barley wine; at holiday times, I mix Brooklyn Black Chocolate Stout with a decent framboise, usually Lindemann's. Not much into hard liquor (if I have a Mojito, it is for the mint), but very much into hard drinking--In the mornings, I favor good strong generic coffee, usually Maxwell House, Folgers, or Chock Full O' Nuts (speaking of Room 8) brewed dark until it has the consistency of Brooklyn Black Chocolate stout...what the fuck is a latte?

Like the way we vote, the way we drink is a cultural choice; yes, it is also matter of whether you like the flavor, but I'll bet my bottom dollar that the flavors we favor are usually a matter of what we have been allowed to taste during the course of our lives and lifestyles.

I mean, I actually like gefilte fish and kishka (intestine stuffed with fat and carbs). Which brings us to the recent White House Beer Summit.

As an expert who has studied the matter of gourmet beers long into endless nights of extra credit assignments, I think can safely pronounce that, when it comes to beer, Skip Gates is a poseur and Barry Obama a fake. By contrast, Sergeant Crowley displays at least a small measure of courage, which may sometimes prove useful in his line of work.

Let me explicate:

Most mass market American beers are light lagers with all distinctive elements brewed out of them. Of these common denominator beers, Budweiser is the lowest and, not coincidentally, the most popular.

In the words of the words of the members of the Philosophy Departments at Monty Python's Australian University of Walamaloo, American Beer is like making love in a canoe because "it's fucking close to water."

Obama's beer of choice was Bud Light, which is prototypical mass market American Beer, but with more water added.

Conclusion: Either Obama doesn't like beer, or he didn't drink the beer he likes.

Gates' choice of Red Stripe, a Caribbean brew, is clearly not a matter of taste, but identity politics. This is confirmed by his other choice, Beck's, a European beer most notable for its resemblance to American mass market light lagers, though with a somewhat higher price tag.

Conclusion: Gates' choices are meant to convey cultural solidarity and cosmopolitan sophistication, though any sophisticated European would probably laugh at the latter choice and consider Gates an Ugly American.

By contrast, Sergeant Crowley's Blue Moon is an American version of a Belgian witbeer, perhaps not the best ever brewed (that would be the late lamented Celis White, made by the late lamented Belgian brew master Pierre Celis, in Texas, because they had the mineral lime in the water, and they spoke English real slow), but a noble and successful attempt at a local Hoegaarden.

The Sergeant is brave because one can be sure he will be the object of endless ribbing for drinking a beer with a slice of orange floating in it, something our president was surely not going to brave in public, lest he render himself into a less gloomy version of John Kerry, who represents both Skip and the Sarge in the US Senate.

Conclusion: This is a man who drinks what he damn well pleases, though I have my doubts he'd order a Crème de Menthe frappe if he suddenly got the taste for mint and the bartender was out of rum. Still, in my mind, drinking the beer with the orange, because you want the beer with the orange, is more an act demonstrating machismo than it would be to forgo such a choice.

Unfortunately, Sergeant Crowley appears sometimes to do what he damn well pleases in the other aspects of his life as well. The temptation to show a street punk on a corner, with or without a crowd watching, whose corner it is, is not merely an act of machismo, but maybe be one of self-preservation, both in the long and short-term.

But when the black (or white) man showing you some lip, and possibly disrespecting your mom, is a slightly lame fifty eight year old who is inside his own home and has committed no crime, is it not better public policy to say, "I'm no bigot sir, I am just doing my job attempting to protect your property, and you are a very rude man behaving like a child, and you should be ashamed of yourself." And, following that, is it not the best course to leave?

I am not so sure that "stupidly" is the best adverb to describe the alternative action undertaken by Sergeant Crowley, since the Sergeant's response did not seem to stem so much from failure of the intelligence as it did from wounded machismo.

I think the fact that his being falsely labeled a bigot triggered rage in a cop unafraid of being called an orange-eating-Nancy-boy speaks well for the Sergeant's character on just about every measure but his ability to do his job properly.

On the other hand, what would one expect? We need Police because our society is far less than perfect. The job entails risk and physical stress, and does not pay exceedingly well. As such, it disproportionately attracts people who enjoy asserting their authority without it being questioned.

Who else would take such work?

And, undoubtedly, working in a municipality where one is often treated like the cleaning person by one's condescending employers probably tends to grate upon the local constabulate, possibly most upon those members of the force confident enough in their own sophistication to drink a beer with a slice of orange.

I do not mean here to disdain Gates. Throughout this sad affair, Gates has been portrayed as one of America's leading "black intellectuals."

Hogwash.

Henry Louis Gates is one of America's leading intellectuals. Period. No modifier is necessary. No one called Jonas Salk or Albert Einstein "one of America's leading Jewish scientists."

Moreover, he is often a contrarian. In 1993, Gates published in New Republic an article about hate speech called "Let Them Talk." Sadly, this brilliant work is not available for free on the web. But, in an interview Gates said the following, which only scratches at the surface of his penetrating analysis:

"People do bad things, things they know that are bad, for what they feel at the moment were good reasons. One is to institute speech codes. Trample all over the First Amendment, the right of free speech, because we decide that using certain language hurts our fellow human beings--it demeans their humanity. While that might seem like a good idea, the long-term consequences on the right to free expression are far greater than whatever immediate hurt or pain a woman would feel for being called a bitch or a black would feel for being called a nigger. If we're talking about actual physical harm, laws against that exist already. It's not worth it to me to assuage the pain by killing off the First Amendment.
Speech codes are symbolic acts. They let a group of people say, "This symbolizes that we at the University of Wisconsin are not the sort of community where we would tolerate someone saying the word 'rigger."' Well, big deal. But there are other symbolic consequences, like what's the effect on freedom of inquiry. I think we're all bigger and more secure than that. I think we have to allow people to say even unpopular things and nasty things in order to protect the right of us to attack our government and say whatever's on our minds."

As a result of this incident, the complicated, nuanced Henry Louis Gates who wrote that article has been replaced in the public mind, a place where he barely existed last month, by a caricature of the likes of Cornel West.

As has been pointed out, Gates' views are refracted through his own set of experiences--that of a bookish black man growing up in the part of Appalachia where Barack Obama drew a lower percentage of the vote than did John Kerry and where they don't even sell Blue Moon.

How was Henry Louis Gates, who had lived that life in those places and was now living this life in his place, going to respond to a cop trying to question whether he had the right to be inside his own hard-earned home?

Refracted through our own experiences, we taste things differently.

Gates couldn't see the Officer was just doing his job.

The Sergeant couldn't see that Gates' anger encompassed incidents which occurred before he'd been alive, in places he'd never traveled, in skin he never wore, in shoes he'd never walked in for a meter, let alone a mile.

I can't understand why people don't like the taste of Gefilte Fish or express disgust about the congealed fish fat it floats in.

And, try as we might (or not) to be better individuals, we sometimes see slings and arrows directed towards our own identity differently than we do the slings and arrows directed at others.

I've been accused of reacting more seemly towards anti-Semitism than towards other forms of bigotry, based on things like my dismissal of the Sharpton-Ferrer cartoon imbroglio as bring about stupidity rather than bigotry, something I also extend to the latest war of words concerning Congresswoman Maloney. This, despite the fact that I've written articles condemning a Jewish politician for an act of anti-black racism, and condemning both a Jew and a black Baptist for acts of inflaming hate against Muslims.

But perhaps I just didn't get it. Perhaps I don't even get it now.

In the same way, Sergeant Crowley, apparently an exemplar of colorblindness (though not of even temper), didn't get it when Professor Gates responded with outsized outrage upon the State intrusion upon his Castle.

In the same way Gates didn't get it when he parsed semantics to insist "It is true that the two things nearly everybody knows about Farrakhan - that he extolled Hitler as a great man and deplored Judaism as a "gutter religion" - are, strictly speaking, false." Not even the part of the sentence which followed stating, "but it hardly absolves him of the larger charge of anti-Semitism" could entirely make clear that Gates was hardly Farrakhan's apologist.

These are both good men--Gates might even be a great man; but almost by accident, they had simultaneous bad hair moments that have turned into a national occasion for reflection or avoidance of the same.

I have often wanted to write a book about race in America. My contention, borne out in the recent election, is that we are really not so far apart. The swirls and whirls of individual communities within our society, especially as reflected in our different culture-camps and Culture kamfps are often daunting, but mostly we just don't understand each other by a very small margin.

I wanted to write a book called "A Block Past It." The title comes from a joke; I think from Myron Cohen, the great Jewish dialect comedian and storyteller (I hope it was not Jackie Mason, the great Jewish bigot and reactionary).

Police come to break up a fight between two old men, one black and the other Jewish. The cop says, "why are you two fighting?" The old black man says "He called me a Black Bastard!" The Old Jew responds "He asked me where is the Riviera Hotel, and I said you're a Block Past It!"

My contention is that we are not separated by great distances, or even a few miles. We are only "A Block Past It."

But often that distance might as well be light years.

Well, better light beers than light years.

I can forgive the President for making the political decision to quaff the watered-down version of watered-down beer, and I can forgive him the political decision to pull back from his statement that the police acted "stupidly," by issuing an apology rather than a clarification like "I did not mean the police acted in an intellectually deficient manner, I merely meant to say that they reacted in a way that was both bullheaded and ill-advised."

Obama may have told the truth, somewhat in-artfully, using a word that was arguably true about the actions of both the Sergeant and Gates, however understandable. However, for the President to state this, rather than to hold his tongue, was probably "ill-advised."

So, in the end, Mr. President, let the bloggers decide who acted stupidly and let the cop be the one to drink the beer with the fruit in it.

Read more: Monty Python, Home News