Month: January 2011

Blood libel.

Seriously?

A little story: one that I am told is absolutely true. Now maybe it is, maybe it isn’t…but it makes the point.

In a town in Eastern Europe long ago, there was a small community of Jews who resided there and more or less kept to themselves. But their very presence was an irritant to many in the village, particularly so to one villager–a rabid anti-Semite–who decided the best thing to do was target the rabbi and turn the whole of the village against him.

And so, in the dead of night, the villager smothered his own six month old infant in the crib. Then he took the child’s corpse, stole over to the rabbi’s house and buried the child in a shallow grave.

Upon the morning, the alarmed mother discovered the absent child. Her screams summoned the entire village and the husband, “sharing” his wife’s ire, suggested that the Jews be investigated first since there had been tales of how they loved to use the blood of Christian children in their secret rites. So they converged upon the rabbi’s home and the newly turned earth of the grave was quickly discovered.

The rabbi was promptly hung and the rest of the Jews either killed or driven from the city.

Here’s an offer I will make you, on behalf of myself and my fellow Jews: I will continue not to use gun imagery and language in my discourse so that no one can possibly accuse me of having anything to do with acts of violence, and you keep your mouth shut about blood libels so that no one can possibly mistake you for being one of us.

PAD

…catch it on one of its repeats tomorrow. In the second section, Jon Stewart and Larry Wilmore (Senior Black Correspondent) discuss Huckleberry Finn and some of the comments are like things that were said here, plus stuff that Wilmore says is just common sense brilliant. A must-see for anyone who was interested in the subject.
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PAD

“The Green Hornet” marathon is going on on SyFy right now. Again, the best two, in my opinion: “The Preying Mantis” at 2:30 PM, featuring a climactic “gung fu” (as they say it) battle between Kato (Bruce Lee) and a Tong overlord (Mako); “Bad Bet on a 459-Silent” at 8 PM in which the Hornet (Van Williams) is shot by a cop and, consequently, basically screwed because the bullet needs to come out and all the hospitals are on the lookout for him. Episodes run until 11 PM EST, although you should feel free to skip the two part “Invasion from Space” at 10 PM. So painfully campy that it’s as if they got an order from the network saying, “Make it more like ‘Batman’ and this was their attempt to do so.

PAD

That’s the question being bandied about. Is it possible that Palin bears responsibility for the Arizona shooting spree?

No…of course not.

Our society is slow to embrace the concept of personal responsibility. We want to pass the buck, look for scapegoats and, when all else fails, sue. No one forced the scumbag to shoot anyone, and he’s the one to be held accountable, not Sarah Palin. Otherwise we’re on a slippery slope. Do we blame J.D. Salinger for the death of John Lennon because the douche bag who shot him claimed he was motivated by Catcher in the Rye?

That said…

What else did she expect?

Continue Reading “Is Sarah Palin Responsible for the Arizona Shooting?” →

Big in the news lately is that a publisher called NewSouth Books is releasing a new edition of Huckleberry Finn with the racial epithets deleted. The rationale is that now the book won’t be banned or challenged and can therefore be taught in schools.

I suppose my short feeling on this change is, quick: What’s the name of the president of NewSouth Books? Or the editor in chief? Yeah, I don’t know either. Now: Who wrote Huckleberry Finn? His pen name and real name? Yeah, we all know that. So where does the former get to rewrite the latter?

My longer feelings on the matter are as follows:

Continue Reading “Huckleberry Hounded” →