...or should "Stop! In the Name of Love" become the new anthem of the Supreme Court?

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...or does America live in a perpetual state of outrage?

I love outrage. Being hot under the collar is what fuels most of the rubbish that appears in these blogs. Give me a good scandal involving Karl Rove, Glenn Beck or pretty much anyone named Cheney and I'm off to the races. I've even been known to malign the occasional Democrat albeit not too often. Nevertheless, despite the pushing and prodding from friends and readers (mostly the same folks) it has been difficult to generate much righteous indignation over the firing last week of Juan Williams by NPR.

For the benefit of anyone who decided to pass on the latest media dust-up, Juan Williams is a news analyst and commentator who was working for NPR and Fox News. His gig at NPR was his real job but as a black man with a sharp tongue and a less-than-liberal persona he was the darling of the Foxies like Chris Wallace, Tucker Carlson and Bill O'Reilly. African Americans who agree with the Fox crowd are as rare as schools actually attended by Christine O'Donnell. Anyway, the NPR crowd apparently hated Williams' cashing checks from Fox. The powers at NPR had repeatedly told Juan to keep his opinions to himself, especially the less liberal ones.


When Williams appeared on Bill O'Reilly's show last week and allowed that Muslims in religious attire make him nervous on airplanes, Vivian Schiller, head of NPR had heard enough. She told Williams to pack up his herringbone jacket with the patches on the elbows and his Meerschaum pipe and get out. She might have accused him of being off the reservation but one must consider the sensitivity of Native Americans.


Predictably, the wing-nut right was in full-throated rage by nightfall. Many were roaring about First Amendment rights of free speech heedless of the fact that the First Amendment only applies to government censorship. No matter. Why let facts urinate on a perfectly good bonfire? Fox was, of course, stunned and chagrined (or maybe chagrined then stunned). After all, hadn't poor Juan only expressed publicly what we all think? Should political correctness trump truth? Don't women in burkas and men in long beards and dresses make you rethink your trip to Duluth?


To the justifiably vexed I submit...Oh grow up! NPR had been hunting Juan Williams head for years. They didn't love his opinions (actually they didn't love that he has opinions) and they hated that he was consorting with Murdoch's Minions of Malice. NPR claims to be completely neutral and bias free. We may suspect that they lean ever so slightly to port but evidence is difficult to locate. (Ever since Alex Keaton's father, we assume NPR is a bunch of hippies masquerading as newspeople.) Because no NPR on-air employees are schlepping to MSNBC at night, few Liberal parallels are likely to surface. NPR has apologized to Williams (actually they apologized to everyone but Williams) but no one believes them and, oh yeah, he's still out.


Fox, never slow to make lemonade, has offered Williams a two million dollar contract to show up at the studio every day and trash NPR. They probably could have gotten him to do that for free. Anyway, Fox's largess prevents us from having to carry "FREE JUAN WILLIAMS" signs in front of NPR's headquarters. We can all be happy that Williams is the first on-air personality signed at Fox in two years that isn't running for President in 2012. Williams should be very happy at Fox. His contract includes 1) freedom to express his opinions, 2) four weeks vacation and, 3) no mandatory flights to anywhere in the Middle East. Also he never has to share an elevator with Dinesh D'Souza.

...or is no one really "great" anymore?

During the rare lull in conversation at Burke's Bar in Yonkers, NY, a good friend of mine, John Patrick Woods, occasionally posits the question as to whether there are any great men or women left in the world. (None of that sports and boobs stuff in my circle.) With no consensus definition of "great"available (The Guinness people are too busy recording the longest kiss or the tallest pile of leaves to help with loftier intellectual pursuits.), we are left with the old description of pornography to whit, I'll know it when I see it. If the majority accepts your greatness without much discussion, you're great.


We can agree on at least one living person: Nelson Mandela. Beyond that, who can say? If you expand the search to the twentieth century living or dead , you might vote for Martin Luther King, Jr., Pope John Paul II, Winston Churchill, Mohandas "Mahatma" Gandhi and maybe Franklin or Eleanor Roosevelt. If you expand the search into the eighteenth century you might include George Washington or Ben Franklin. The problem is if you need to make a case for someone's greatness, acclamation abates. One need not be perfect to be great but when do character flaws (King's romantic issues, Churchill's bigotry, the Pope's protection of pedophile priests) overshadow the achievements? If you have to think about it too much you have already made the point that there aren't many "greats".


This invariably leads my over-educated comrades to a discussion of those throughout history that have had the suffix "the Great" affixed to their name. Mr. Woods has identified some twenty-five such persons whereas Wikipedia lists 112. Most such as, Shapur the Great (Persia), Photius the Great (Constantinople) and Gwanggaeto the Great (Korea) were either local "greats" or pronounced "great" in their own lifetimes usually by their own pronouncement. Several are names you know: Peter the Great, Catherine the Great, Herrod the Great, Pope Leo the Great, Charles the Great (aka Charlemagne), Fredrick the Great, and on and on. Many of us know the names but only historians (and educated patrons of Burke's) know why the moniker.


The title was apparently first used by the Persians. Cyrus II tried it on about 350 BC but Alexander III was the first to have it stick. Since then the name has been attached to butchers, thinkers, statesmen, theologians, popes and one apostle. (Apparently James the Great was so designated to distinguish him from James the Slightly Below Average.) Interestingly, there is only one woman in the group. How or why Catherine II made it to the enduring ranks of the Greats is open to question. She rose to power in a conspiracy against her husband Peter and spent the next 24 years trying to "reform" Russia. No friend of the Conservatives, she vastly increased the size of local governments and attempted to reduce the power of the nobility. Think Nancy Pelosi in a really big bouffant.


Catherine also appears to have the honor of being the last in the line of "Greats"...if you don't count Jackie Gleason, Wayne Gretzky, and Mohammed Ali. After 2,500 years and 112 so-called "greats" we seem to have lost interest. Modern communication technology insures that anyone's greatness last only as long as it takes for the penis pictures to surface. No one looks "great" in those.

...or are we witnessing "Jackass, the Culture"?

At a time when strikes are rampant in Europe, ten percent of Americans are chronically out of work and Nevada is in danger of electing Sharron Angle to the Senate (insert shudder here), the number one movie at the box office last week was..."Jackass 3-D". Don't get me wrong. I like a good groin-kick as much as the next guy...as long at it happens to the next guy. Still, I worry that when choosing a movie, the viewing public rejects "Waiting for Superman" and "Secretariat" in favor of a film devoted to men doing some of the dumbest stunts imaginable. This has to be like watching someone stick a fork in a toaster for 90 minutes. How entertaining can this be?

Apparently pretty entertaining. This is the third iteration of the Jackass franchise and the first one in 3-D. That's quite an oeuvre for a bunch of guys (no women appear dumb enough to do this stuff) whose creative process sounds like "so dude, suppose we have a guy dressed as Santa climb to the top of a giant tree then chop the tree down?" Artistic committee consensus "way cool!"

At first glance these movies are a feature-length ad for the dangers of smoking dope. No sober person would actually try any of these stunts. They're dangerous, pointless and were it not for the performers yucking it up during and after the tricks, might not be that funny. Silly, seemingly life-threatening shtick is only funny in context. When a film character is trapped in a portable john and taken for the ride of his life, that's funny. Mechanically strapping a "actor" into a toilet and slingshotting the thing with bungee cords is contrivance. If you remove the character of Mr. Bean or Inspector Clouseau from the film equation, you are left with a quickly tiresome series of pratfalls.

Anyway, these movies are popular and who am I to dictate to America's youth? After all, we laughed at Pinky Lee and Red Skelton. We thought All in the Family was "edgy" and watching Sanford & Son made you a liberal. Come to think of it, with the world in its current state and the job prospects of today's high school and college graduates maybe all the next generation has to look forward to is a good kick in the balls. They won't even need the glasses.

...or should some devices (bow and arrows, nail guns, cameras) never be pointed at oneself?

On Tuesday of this week (that's today) Minnesota Vikings quarterback Brett Farve, fresh from a victory over the Cowboys on Sunday, will participate in a little one-on-one with NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell at the NFL's headquarters in New York. During this meeting Mr. Farve will discuss: 1) his overall health, 2) the health of his family and, 3) allegations that he "sexted" a photo of his man-parts to a female employee of the New York Jets while he was working as Jets quarterback in 2007. He will be required to explain why a 40 year old married man would feel the need to photograph his nether region and send the result via phone line to a woman who had shown a reluctance to date him. This cringe-producing confession will, in all likelihood, never become public but, armed with my well-developed insight into stupid behavior around women, I'm prepared to offer a possible scenario:

Well, Mr. Commissioner, you're probably wondering why a guy like me with a trunk-full of awards and millions of fans and groupies (not to mention a wife) would decide that the best way to win a woman's heart would be an 4"x 2" picture of Mr. Happy? That's a good question. In hindsight maybe a candygram would have been better. I considered flowers and jewelry but those things just didn't convey the message. After all sir, you have to admit that nothing says love like a snapshot of male genitalia. I was told that body-part photography is all the rage with younger folks and the lady in question is a good ten years younger than me. Who could have guessed that a sweet girl like Jenn Sterger, with a web site full of suggestive photos of herself, would wait two years then sell my emails and twig-and-berries picture to Deadspin? I'm kinda shocked and a little embarrassed.

OK, so here's where we have a Mars/Venus parting of the ways. Men can only marvel at the galactic stupidity of anyone in the public spotlight believing that any secret would be kept confidential for longer than it takes the Enquirer's check to clear. It would be bad enough to have your email and voicemail messages broadcast for universal consumption (remember the icky Tiger Woods voicemails). Adding a glossy of your ding-a-ling is inexcusable...not to mention unlikely to produce the desired assignation. Quick rule of thumb: if you don't want a photo of your willie used as the screen-saver for every pervert, fan-boy in America don't take its picture.

Women just shake their heads. They want to run screaming to the press and publish a full page ad in every paper in America saying "on what planet would a photo of a penis cause a girl to swoon and fall into the arms of the owner?" No woman wants to check their text messages and discover a dick-pic, even a famous one. Suppose you were at dinner with your parents or in a meeting with your boss. Context is everything. Men apparently think (if "think" is even the right word) that because they like to look at women's naughty bits, girls do too. WRONG!

In a sport as violent as professional football, it is nothing short of amazing that Brett Farve has started in 253 regular season games over 20 seasons. The guy is indestructible. Considering the constant punishment meted-out to quarterbacks, his endurance and toughness are the stuff of legend. Repeated hits to the helmet however, might explain the bizarre brain synapses that brought Brett to believe that a photo of his trouser worm was the next best thing to a blue box from Tiffany's. There's a good chance Commissioner Goodell might bring the Farve consecutive game streak to an end with a suspension. What 280 lb. linebackers were unable to accomplish over twenty years might be brought about by the small photo of a small organ. Guys! If you must turn your camera-phones on yourselves please follow these simple steps: 1) zip up, 2) smile.

..when you find yourself in a hole shouldn't you stop digging?

Some stuff I get.

I get an unhappy electorate. I understand that America elected Barack Obama in 2008 and he wasn't able to magically fix the economy. He wasn't able to snap his fingers and recreate the millions of jobs that have been leaking into Asia and succumbing to technology for years. He wasn't able to make a wish and eliminate eight years of deficits due to unfunded wars and unfunded tax cuts. The President did manage to pass healthcare which, if you believe the administration, won't cost a dime. He pushed through a financial reform bill which might help prevent the next meltdown which might prevent the next bailout. Do we imagine that Grandpa McCain, with his profound knowledge of all things financial, would have fared better?

What I am at a loss to understand is the flood of strange, delusional, fringe candidates that are being offered by Republicans/teabaggers (not necessarily by the Republican party) to challenge incumbents and reverse two years of rational progress. To wit I offer Carl Paladino of New York, Christine O'Donnell of Delaware and Sharron Angle of Nevada. For the moment we will ignore the likes of Joe Miller in Alaska who believes Social Security is unconstitutional because it isn't in the Constitution or, Meg Whitman in California who needs help understanding what constitutes "illegal alien".

In an effort to appear unbiased (why bother?), news organizations have given these bizarre candidates a pass. The strange, bigoted, uninformed pronouncements of these escapees from the Island of Dr. Moreau appear on page eight or under National News, as if proclaiming not to be a witch was a regular news item. FOX News, having discarded any pretext of fairness or balance, is in the unenviable position of attempting to make these candidates look electable...or at least housebroken. Sadly, all the lip gloss companies in the world don't make enough lipstick to make these pigs look like movie stars.

For example: no one thinks it particularly strange that Carl Paladino attends a meeting of Orthodox Jews in New York and proceeds to read a homophobic speech prepared by the group to whom he's speaking. Why not call Don Pardo? Carl apparently feels that sex between people and animals is worthy of promulgation but love among people is problematic. Carl is behind by almost 20 points in recent polls but the real question is, "How much must you dislike Andrew Cuomo that you would pull a lever for such a reprehensible human being?" Cuomo isn't an incumbent nor did he vote for TARP. I'm guessing that a vote for Paladino is a vote against the hated President but my God, Carl Paladino is your response?

In Nevada, Harry Reid went all in on the healthcare bill knowing that, with unemployment running at 15% in Vegas he was backing a losing hand. Republicans, apparently wishing to prove that you could beat Senator Reid with a ham sandwich, decided to run one. Sharron Angle, who suggests that farm animals can be used to pay medical bills, has turned a slam-dunk win for the GOP into a dead heat. Hell, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed could beat Harry Reid. Ms. Angle has spent the entire campaign hiding from reporters and literally running away from anyone with a question. I'm guessing that, if elected, Ms. Angle will refuse to go to Washington. After all it's full of liberal subversives. Actually Nevada has a "none of these candidates" box on the ballot; the only state that does. Perhaps Nevada will have six years of an empty chair in the Senate. A good spot to rest a ham sandwich.

And then there's Christine O'Donnell who is so toxic Karl Rove shakes her hand wearing asbestos gloves. This child carries more baggage than Amtrak. She is about ten minutes from a series of indictments concerning her inability to distinguish campaign funds from personal piggy bank. Her previous candidacies for Delaware's Senate seat, ensured that Joe Biden would win by a larger margin than Kim Jong Il. So far as anyone can tell she makes no campaign stops, delivers no speeches, gives no interviews. (I'm sorry but being drooled over by Sean Hannity doesn't count.) Not since Abe Lincoln has a candidate been less exposed. Her opponent, Chris Coons, apparently read that old saying about never underestimating the stupidity of the American electorate. He is taking Christine's campaign seriously. That's more than can be said for the rest of us. In the absence of any real statement of Ms O'Donnell's platform, ("don't play with yourself or you'll go blind" is not a policy position) we are left with old clips from Bill Maher's Politically Incorrect from the late 1990's.

This is the country that elected Jesse "the body" Ventura, Dennis Kucinich, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Marion Barry, Sonny Bono and two out-of-work B-list actors from California. (Maybe you forgot George Murphy.) We understand anti-establishment. We also don't like being told who to vote for (See "Dewey Defeats Truman", 1948). However, if we must protest, at least we should choose serious people; people with positive ideas. I can live with being governed by politicians with views contrary to mine but I would prefer not to be governed by politicians elected exclusively based on their opposition to everything progressive. One constructive idea would be nice. Besides, election to office is the ultimate form of self-gratification. Fortunately, considering a 17% deficit in the polls, Christine O'Donnell isn't likely to suffer this particular moral dilemma.

...or is there really no place like home?

Reasons to stay in America Part I:

Both the UK and US governments are cautioning travelers to Europe of the increased threat from Al qaeda and like-minded bad guys. The advisory stops short of a "warning" but both governments suggest caution. OK, so how exactly do I travel "cautiously"? Do I go to Paris but steer clear of the Eiffel Tower and the Louvre? What about Jim Morrison's grave? Is it OK to go to Rome as long as I avoid the Forum and the Vatican? It appears that the only way to keep from becoming a terror victim is to alert authorities to any suspicious activity by any airline passenger with skin darker than John Boehner. This might present a problem in that the capitals of Europe have sizable Middle Eastern populations. Hell, every third person in London looks like Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. You could spend a week in the UK and never meet anyone who talks like John Cleese. A tourist might attempt to report unusual behavior to a uniformed guard only to discover that the guard looks scarier than the guy he's reporting. What to do?

Because most Muslims are as harmless as Hare Krishnas (are they even still around any more?) the issue is that most travelers can't tell a bad guy from a baggage handler. People are a lot more likely to be frightened by a scruffy college student than by a guy in a suit. In that the EU has the most to lose from this problem, it would appear to be theirs to correct. One way to fix the perception problem is to ban "scruffy".

How hard can this be? The French have banned the burqa. How difficult would it be to require Muslim men to grab a haircut and a beard trim before venturing out in public? (The suggestion that Middle Eastern men be required to bathe might be seen as unfairly requiring an action not practiced by the French population at large.) Europe could publish pictures of Joaquin Phoenix from his gig on Letterman as an example of unacceptable appearance. If nothing else it would generate badly needed revenue for the barbers.

The idea of a general tonsorial clean-up might not protect tourists in Europe from exploding Samsonite but it will make them feel better about the people they encounter in airports and train stations. Considering that catastrophe is a remote possibility, why not let people enjoy the allusion of safety? After all, you are far more likely to be robbed by a Roman cab driver or a French waiter than become a victim of Achmed the suicide bomber. And if the worst actually happens, at least you will have been done in by a guy that looks like Omar Sharif... and he looks marvelous.