'Her First Name Could Be Doctor'

Congenital Racist Dr. Laura (Photo: Ugly Neck Monthly)

Mary Elizabeth Williams reports from Salon that this past Tuesday, the Right-wing radio host, Dr. Laura Schlessinger, ripped off the rubber mask of tolerance and revealed her true ugly, reptilian face.

Kind of like that moment in the original "V" series, when the aliens' masks got ripped and showed their dark green, scaly hides and vertical-slit eyes -- except in this case, Dr. Laura's ripped mask revealed she was wearing (gasp!) a Ku Klux Klan Hood!

... the controversial radio host/crackpot [Williams reported] fielded a call on her program from an African-American woman who said she was weary of her white husband's family and friends' racist comments. ...The caller... explained that her husband's comrades ask her questions like "How do you black people like doing this? Do black people really like doing that?" -- which Schlessinger promptly dismissed as "not racist... A lot of blacks voted for Obama simply 'cause he was half-black," Dr. Laura continued. "Didn't matter what he was going to do in office. It was a black thing."

Ruh-Roh. If I'd been Laura's on-air publicist, I would have been making the "kill" sign -- drawing an index finger across my throat -- to get her to not go there. However, that's a message never given to coddled and pampered Rethug media stars, most of whom can't seem to keep their inner Strom Thurmond in check (Imagine trying to tell Lard Boy not to make a racist comment!).

Anyway; filled with the righteousness and moral rectitude she so often preaches from her little radio pulpit, Laura charged ahead: Look -- it's Stalingrad! We can take one city; how much trouble could it be?


Obligatory Cute Small Animal Photo In Middle Of Blog Rant

The caller then pressed on, asking: "What about the N-word? The N-word's been thrown around" [i.e., by friends of her husbands']. To which Dr. Laura airily retorted: "Black guys use it all the time. Turn on HBO, listen to a buh-lack comic, and all you hear is nigger nigger nigger. I don't get it. If anybody without enough melanin says it, it's a horrible thing. But when black people say it, it's affectionate."

The caller, clearly agitated by now, nevertheless remained respectful, asking, "Is it ever OK to say that word?" Schlessinger responded by accusing her of having a "chip on [her] shoulder," telling her, "Don't NAACP me", and that [the caller] possessed "a lot of what I hear from blackthink." For the kicker, she added, "If you're that hypersensitive about color and don't have a sense of humor, don't marry out of your race."

Predictably, a large number of people said Laura was a silly bint and offensive in the extreme. On Wednesday, she issued an apology on her website.



Though she said, "I did the wrong thing," adding that she was so upset about the incident she had to cut her show short, she also continued to display her trademark cluelessness. "I was attempting to make a philosophical point," she explained, adding that "I ended up, I’m sure, with many of you losing the point I was trying to make, because you were shocked by the fact that I said the word."

Sure; absolutely, that's why people were disgusted.

For the clueless, like Frau Schlessinger, use of the n-term between blacks is a recognition of solidarity around past slavery and present second-class-citizenhood in the eyes and minds of people like herself. It's an "Our Thing", infra dig reference, and not to be used by outsiders. Period.

Guess you can't use HBO as your guide when it comes to determining the reality of racial sensitivity and common humanity -- eh, Laura?

---

I Remember Finding Out About You

The Voices Tell Him To Be Angry: Get Thee Behind Me


(Photo: San Francisco Examiner, March 2010)

On his radio show (syndicated by Clear Channel Communications, which also syndicates Hannity, Lard Boy, and Little Mikey 'Savage' Weiner) today, Glenn Beck not only claimed that God has given him a plan, but that he is carrying out god’s will and anger.

Are you here to relax and be entertained, or ... will you pick up the mantle left to you by the Founders [as] a guardian of man’s freedom? Will you do it, because your children will ask you, "What did you do?" I believe your god will ask you, "What did you do?"

...god is giving a plan I think to me that is not really a plan... The problem is that I think the plan that the lord would have us follow is hard for people to understand. Because of my track record with you who have been here for a long time -- because of my track record with you, I beg of you to help me get this message out, and I beg of you to pray for clarity on my part.


Actual Quote (Cartoon: Auth / Philpadelphia Enquirer, 3/14/10)

This isn't the first time Beck has mixed religion and Rightist politics -- but this time, he crossed a line. He was no longer offering political commentary with what he claimed was spiritual underpinning... he was preaching. He was telling people what god wants them to do -- and of course god thinks exactly as Glenn Beck does because god is speaking to him.

Some blog commenters dismiss Beck for his histrionics and his crying, his Boy-Is-That-Out-There analysis of the relation of Religion and State. This time, they're saying he's gone over the edge; that with this Howard-Beal-like outburst, he's painted himself as a genuine, eccentric irrelevancy -- that (depending upon what he does next) this is the beginning of the end of his career.

I disagree. Beck hasn't reached the bottom; he may have just broken through a ceiling -- to a place where Fox 'News' and Little Rupert now support Beck's ridiculous vision of American history... because the 'christian' Right can be exploited, just as the mainstream Right has been.

Beck may be a huckster, not especially intelligent; but I think he senses that this is his breakout moment. It may be the way for him, in his chosen path as a propagandist, to become even more influential than the King, Limbaugh -- by claiming to be the voice of an audience no advertisers have really tried appealing to: The religious, ultra-conservative Right.

Murdoch's News Corp has catered to the Angry-White-Male, working-class conservative since the early 1990's; from a broadcast and advertising perspective, it was uncharted territory, and an undeveloped audience. Murdoch's made Billions exploiting it.

If Fox has been the functional equivalent of The Buffalo Bob Show for the Right -- one, long cartoon -- Limbaugh has staked his claim as the "intellectual" of that same Fox-News, Joe-Sixpack audience. But that audience is nearly all secular -- Rushbo can only claim to speak for social conservatives.

I feel Beck is after another audience altogether -- and it's very possible Murdoch will support the shift he presented. Little Rupert may believe his business model, originally used on the working-class Right, will work on an entirely new audience of religious conservatives... because Rupert may believe there's market share in it, and the advertising revenue which follows.


(Photo: CNN)

The plan that He would have me articulate, I think, to you is: Get behind me, and I don’t mean me, I mean him. Get behind me. Stand behind me; I truly believe I have done years now of reading the Founders, the diaries, their letters;, the Pilgrims, their diaries, their letters... and I will tell you that god was instrumental and they knew it.


Behold, I Stand At The Door And Knock --
Now Open Up, Or I'll Bust A Cap Somewhere

They knew that had very little to do with it. They just stood where they were supposed to stand, and they said the things that they were supposed to say as He directed ...but that’s what He is asking us to do is to stand peacefully, quietly with anger, quiet with anger, loudly with truth.

As usual, Beck was semi-coherent. He added that he was changing his delivery style -- that having already admitted he was an Entertainer, Beck now wants us to believe he's channeling the voice of god, which is telling him to tell people to surrender to god's will and whatever they do will be just right...

When we were -- and I’ve never told this story before -- when we were starting the TV show, there were things that I did that I wouldn’t do now because I had to be more of an entertainer to get people to go, 'What is this show at five o’clock?' I never said anything I didn’t believe, but I may have said things in an entertaining fashion.


Margaret Atwood's Vision Of The Future

There are people who want to force a Theocracy on the population of this country, as surely as there are Islamic radicals who want to see their concept of god controlling the world, delivered by the sword.

The Hutaree militia in Michigan, preparing for "war"; another group in the Midwest recently sent letters (based on a bizarre interpretation of the U.S. Constitution) effectively threatening every sitting state Governor. There are those who send their sons to join the military specifically to obtain combat training, to be used later in 'taking the country back' from godless hippies, immigrants, feminists and liberals. And all this is just the tip of the 'christian' Rightist iceberg.

The escalating language of conflict and hate that the Right has used to organize since the mid-1980's, when the 'Fairness Doctrine' was repealed and Right-wing radio was born, has now mutated into actions. Beck's often bizarre and nonsensical commentary with a definite religious basis has now become Prophecy.


Lies, Lederhosen, And Flirting With Sedition (Phaux)

On March 27th, Beck kicked off his ‘American Revival’ tour in Orlando, Florida. Entitled ‘The Future of History’, it is an eight-hour-long stage show that allows Beck to discuss "Faith, Hope and Charity". For the price of admission, Glenn promises that this event will give "information, inspiration and preparation to turn this country around".

BEck won't usher in the Republic of Gilead -- he's not a big enough false prophet for that, and the timing doesn't feel correct. But if the Rightist media has decided the 'christians' should have the opportunity to dominate social debate over the air, Beck's prancing and spewing may make it possible for someone else, one day, to submerge America in its own long night of repression and evil.

Not only do we have no idea what that means -- we believe such a thing could never happen, in America. Many Europeans, Germans in particular, understand what that means all too well.

UPDATE: From Today's (4/22/10) Beck Radio Dinner Theater Hour

"We are entering a - we are entering a dark, dark period of man. Um, I was, um, I was in the Vatican, and I was surprised that the individual I was speaking to knew who I was. And they said: 'Of course we know who you are. What you're doing is wildly important. We're entering a period of great darkness, and if good people don't stand up, we could enter a period unlike we have seen in a very long time.'

"It was odd to stand in the Vatican and hear those words. Of all places that would understand the Dark Ages. We are dealing with people who want to deconstruct the world. They say they are for progress, but their progress is to deconstruct. Their progress is to go backwards. Instead of inventing our way out of something. Instead of heralding achievement and merit, they destroy it. Instead of respecting life, we devalue it."

Becky doesn't say whether the "individual" was a Catholic priest, a Swiss Guardsman, or his Fox 'News' gofer. Or a voice in his head. But, whatever: What Becky does is not just important -- it's wildly important.

What a narcissistic dullard.

---

Little David Brooks, Five Years Old

Little Bucky Beaver: One Useless Piece O' Crap

David Brooks is a forty-nine-year-old conservative commentator who appears regularly on PBS's oh-so-neutral News Hour With Jim Lehrer, and is a regular columnist via the New York Times. It's a nice gig, considering (in my opinion) that to get it, he helped kill other human beings.

I don't often feel motivated to read Little Davy because of that, and because he's an idiot. He claims to have been a "liberal" until he was 22 (Wikipedia, the fount of all knowledge, says Davy was publicly humiliated by Milton Friedman, of all people). But, as he's spent his life as a gleeful pusher of other people's lies, I doubt that's so.

Prior to his current career, he was a hot supporter of the Project For The New American Century (PNAC). Their stated objective was promoting an unashamed projection of America's foreign policy objectives at the point of a gun (Civilize 'em with a Krag, as it was said during our first attempt at Empire in 1898; a Krag being the standard American infantry rifle at the time).

Little Davy was the, uh, right-hand BFF of Bill Kristol (also a PNAC member), who had taken over as editor at the National Review, the right wing's leading journal founded by William F. Buckley.


Young Davy, An Up-And-Coming... Something

Davy later washed up at another rightist-porn rag sheet, The Weekly Standard. He made a name for himself as one of a crop of young, up-and-coming right-wing pundits; essentially, Brooks learned how to fluff old-line conservatives like Buckley and Norman Podhoretz, and to get close to their darlings, like Kristol. There was a career in it (Davy could smell it), though the Clinton years were hard until 1994. Davy spoke highly of Gingrich and his Contract On America, even if as a serial adulterer Ol' Newt made Davy's nose wrinkle up.

Then, Lil' Boots Bush was appointed by a conservative majority on the the Supreme Court, and the crowd at PNAC had automatic entry to run American foreign policy. They needed propagandists. Little Davy's career took off.


Man Meets Pie: Kristol At 2005 Speaking Engagement

Davy was an unabashed and enthusiastic cheerleader of the invasion of Iraq, as was his boss Kristol at NR. I'm not going to argue the case that attacking Iraq was utterly unnecessary, based on lies and manufactured intelligence, and resulted in America taking it's eyes off the real goal of a War On Terror: Destroying Al-Qaeda and the Taliban.

The invasion was nothing more than a way of projecting naked military power directly into the heart of the Middle East; it was utterly the brainchild of the people who founded PNAC and those who saw war as a golden opportunity to make millions -- and it was arguably the worst possible decision the United States has made, ever. And Little Davy thought it was swell.


"Suck On This": Bucky And Clueless Tom, Who Hearted PNAC's Iraq

Some feel that the 100,000 Iraqis killed during our March, 2003 invasion (the most conservative estimate, courtesy of the British medical journal, The Lancet), and the 4,000 American soldiers who have died there, did so for no real reason beyond the arrogance and greed of a handful of men... that they, and their enablers who (like Davy) promoted that war and fed lies to the American public about it, have blood on their hands.

I agree with that perspective -- and in my opinion, while Little Davy (whom I like to call Bucky The Beaver) certainly isn't alone, he's an unindicted war criminal.


Me Jourimalismist. No Habla Veritidad.

And in the aftermath of seven years of Iraq, and in Afghanistan, with a resurgent Taliban and Al-Qaeda, life is good for Bucky. He's a well-known opinion-maker; he's one hell of a pundit (whatever that is). Want an example? Well, Bucky has pushed the idea in the past that our culture is awash in sex, and that

...sex is more explicit everywhere, barring real life. As the entertainment media have become more sex-saturated, American teenagers have become more sexually abstemious by waiting longer to have sex... and having fewer partners. [The Culture War is] nearly over, because today's young people seem happy with the ... wholesomeness of the right. (NYT, 2007)

Awesome. Just Awesome. Bucky appears to believe the 'Culture War' his Right-wing has waged on the rest of the country, on the entire world, is all about sex... And in that same spirit through his NYT column, Bucky pushed his little crooked snout into a story waving around today's entertainment headlines: The circumstances actress Sandra Bullock is currently involved in -- and in fairness to Ms. Bullock, whatever that situation is, it's private, and none of anyone's business; we're not going to be discussing it here.



Bucky titled his screed "The Sandra Bullock Trade", wherein he uses her private misfortune as some kind of conservative teaching moment -- and the lesson for all America's women in considering Bullock's situation? Women of America -- you can choose a career, but your success will be hollow, because you lost your chance for real happiness and fulfillment.

Would you exchange a tremendous professional triumph for a severe personal blow? [Bucky chittered] ... if you had to take more than three seconds to think about this question, you are absolutely crazy. Marital happiness is far more important than anything else in determining personal well-being.

If you have a successful marriage, it doesn’t matter how many professional setbacks you endure, you will be reasonably happy. If you have an unsuccessful marriage, it doesn’t matter how many career triumphs you record, you will remain significantly unfulfilled.

Bucky's entitled to his tail-thumping opinions (no pun intended, there) -- but this is, frankly, oversimplified, juvenile bullshit. It's not a very nuanced grasp of human motivation. I wonder how wide or deep his personal experience is with partnership, sexuality and human nature; based on his comment, my guess is narrow and shallow.

For Bucky, those women who are focused on their careers are losers. Worse; they're insane. In his world, American teens are now more abstemious, more moderate in their sexual habits, than their free-love dirty hippie grandparents as a reaction to a culture saturated with sex. And, Women -- surrounded by images of equality and self-actualization -- should do the same, forsaking individuality to... become homemakers and mothers?


Obligatory Cute Animal Photo Added To Cultural Discussion:
Giant Beaver Statue Outside Grand Prairie, Alberta, Canada

I'm not arguing that women must have careers. But Women should have the choice, as adults, as individuals. To drag Bullock into his argument as a negative object lesson, insinuating she had been punished for choosing a professional career -- that her current circumstances are somehow her own fault because she made that choice -- is standard, misogynist boilerplate and it makes me want to puke.

Did Bucky give up on a career as a right-wing propagandist for a war which could be classified as a violation of the Nuremberg Statutes, so he could find true fulfillment through marriage and love?

No -- because as a man, he can work hard at a "serious" career (though in Bucky's case, being an unidicted war criminal isn't really a career), and have his dinner ready when he gets home, and get laid, while his wife is... well, Bucky's wife. And what would Bucky's reaction have been if anyone pointed this out to him -- make that sniggering little rat-toothed giggle, familiar to News Hour viewers?


'Loss Of Dignity'? From Someone Who Looks Like Pikachu??

The difference between Bucky and myself is while both of us have opinions, only Bucky speaks from a soapbox that potentially reaches millions of people, with the gravitas of the New York Times supporting it ... and only one of us has a sense of humor.

And, while some of my opinions may strike others as out of step, even for a Dog -- only Bucky would ever tell women that the institution of marriage is the more legitimate, more fulfilling path to self-definition than other adult choices.



But, I'm a dog, and no one listens to me. If I ever meet you, Bucky, I'll bite you and pee on your leg. Stay classy, and stay out of countries that recognize the legitimacy of the World Court in the Hague.

---

Trent Franks: All-Too-Typical Whack Job

...And He Should Know


Who Names Their Male-Child 'Trent'? What Is That?
(Screencapture: The Little Rupert Goebbels' Channel)

Congressional Representative Trent Franks (R - AZ), last seen in September of 2009 calling President Obama an "Enemy Of Humanity", said yesterday that African-Americans were even worse off today, than under conditions of slavery, which existed from the mid-17th Century in America (and continued under the guise of segregation and discrimination from then until... well, they're pretty much still around to one degree or another, aren't they Trent?)

Trent is a Birther (though his open support of the Oily Taitz Project depends upon his audience), and at a minimum, a supporter of Xtian Thug points of view; abortion and freedom of religion seem to be all he really cares about.

I guess the denizens of Northwestern Arizona he represents face mandatory abortion procedures from their diabolical Liberal overlords -- who have also apparently also denied religion, and E-meters, from their cruelly oppressed population.

Trent was the premiere signator on a May, 2009 letter (which went out on his official Congressional letterhead) attacking a French nonprofit organization for its criticism of Scientology, on the grounds of 'freedom of religion'. Also signing the letter were fellow Republicans Frank Wolf (R-VA), Gus Bilirakis (R-FL), Dianne Watson (D-CA), Bob Inglis (R-SC), Dan Burton (R-IN), and Xenu (R - Hubbard).


Obligatory Leavening Cute Animal Photo Inserted In Blog Rant
(via ICanHazCheeseburger)

The nonprofit, which tracks cult and sectarian pseudo-religions in France, was involved in their courts in a lawsuit against the famed creation of a failed science-fiction writer, for fraud. The trial ended with a conviction of the organization's leaders in October, 2009, which has been appealed (aber natürlich).

Yesterday, in an interview with a conservative Blog, Ol' Trent said that

It seems like humanity is very gifted at hiding from something that's obviously true. I mean in this country we had slavery for God knows how long... And we should look back on that with criticism... And yet today, half of all black children are aborted. Half of all black children are aborted. Far more black children, far more of the African-American community is being devastated by the policies of today, than were being devastated by the policies of slavery.

Uh-huh.

The only comment I can offer is, it's plain, in looking at a photograph of the man, that Franks suffered from a congenital, facial disfigurement from birth, for which he would have had to undergo a number of reconstructive surgical procedures.


Exaggeration To Make A Point: Segregated Drinking Fountain, 1931

Knowing what children can say and do, Franks' childhood couldn't have been an easy time -- and no matter how gifted his surgeons, the act of having a conversation with someone else, walking into a store; going to a party; or (the unthinkable) going out on a date were all tests of endurance and courage to overcome learned feelings of embarrassment and shame.

You'd think Trent could draw the most positive inferences from those experiences -- that it would provide him with a greater store of empathy and understanding; particularly about being stigmatized, singled out as 'different', and discriminated against simply because of how you appear.

That isn't the same experience as People Of Color have had in American society; as Franz Fanon would point out, even with a disfigurement, Franks is still White. He's still automatically part of the dominant social and political structure, and Franks understands this on a subconscious level.

But, and perhaps I'm just too fookin' stupid to breathe, I believe his own experience should be enough to allow him to make a connection on a human level with several hundred years' experience and history of slavery and discrimination... which is on a completely different level of things than some religious argument over abortion.

It's why people shouldn't say that the practice of terminating a pregnancy is like the Holocaust -- which was a specific set of acts in human history, as the history and experience of African-Americans is, here. It's a false analogy. There's just no equating those historical events with something else. It could be argued that Franks' doing so is fairly typical for a Caucasian male (who hasn't experienced slavery, poverty, or pregnancy), and I'd agree.

We can't solve four hundred years of race relations in America in a single day, or with a single act. But by the grace of whatever supreme power makes this Rat-Maze run, we might do it one act of human kindness at a time, day after day; until the generations who have had it all the other way are dust in the ground.

You'd think Franks might have had just a glimpse of that, somehow. But he didn't; and that makes him a continuing part of the problem, not of a solution.

---

More Conclusive Proof: United States Government And Its People, Dumber Than Two Bags Of Doorknobs

(L To R) Hypnos; Yarrgh-Thaddag; Yog-Soggoth, and Blinky
Appear Before Congressional Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission
(Photo: Doug Mills / New York Times Online Version, 1/13/10)

On Wednesday, January 13th, Lloyd C. Blankfein (CEO, Goldman-Sachs-Vampire-Squid), Jamie Dimon (CEO, JPMorgan Chase), John J. Mack (CEO, Morgan Stanley), and Brian T. Moynihan (CEO, Bank of America) appeared before the Congressional Commission of Inquiry into the collapse of America's financial structure.

Reflecting on the volatility that has rocked the markets, [Dimon / JPMorgan] recalled, “My daughter called me from school one day and said, ‘Dad, what’s a financial crisis?’ And... I said, ‘This type of thing happens every five to seven years.’ And she said, ‘Why is everyone so surprised?’ "

I'll bet my entire annual salary that Dimon's daughter wasn't calling from her school at P.S 126 in the South Bronx -- more likely, the Biddle School For The Spawn Of Our Corporate Masters in Connecticut.


Playground, South Bronx, New York City, 2005 (Photo: Unknown)

You have to love his answer, though -- and, her reply. Financial crisis? No one's to blame, sweetheart! Certainly not your Daddy! It's just one of those things, honey. As natural as the tides and rhythms of nature. Now, the driver will pick you up in the Jag and take you and your trophy stepmother to your Daddy's country house for the weekend, where you can ride your pony; won't that be fun?

In other cultures and at other times, this collective wad of genetic trash would be dancing at the end of a rope, kicking at the air with their monogrammed slippers, their heads used as soccer balls and then left stuck up on Traitor's Gate for the crows.

Mr. Blankfein, who in the past has said that Goldman should apologize, on Wednesday only hinted at regret. Goldman “got caught up in and participated and therefore contributed to elements of froth in the market,” he said... "We regret the consequence that people lost money in it.”


Lloyd's Little Home In The Hamptons; Completed In 2007
A Tasteless Combination Of Tara And Early Robber Baron
(Screencapture: Felix Salomon, April, 2007)

Instead, we ask them -- humbly, as befits their station as Masters Of The Universe, BSD's -- to appear at a Dog-And-Pony-Show where a few politicians get to mumble about reinin' in your kind ("something something something regulation something something something gimme a campaign contribution").

[Phillip] Angelides [D-CA, and Commission Chairman], deploring the lack of accountability for the crisis, said: “Maybe this is like the ‘Murder on the Orient Express’: everyone did it.”

They knew full well their appearance on Capitol Hill meant nothing. They knew there would be no surprises in store, because the lines of questioning had already been negotiated between their staffs and those of the politicians' -- something which always happens before any Congressional testimony with men like these.


In Little Lloyd's Emerging New America... Just Don't Fuck Up.

And, they see this kind of performance as just another distraction in their day. Who cares about what happened to a bunch of sniveling wage slaves? We have work to do. Important work. Let's get this over with, so you and the rest of the planet can get back to kissing our collective asses.

And, our President has been making noise about a tax on the institutions these crawling pieces of offal 'manage'. Please; It's an insult to my intelligence. You have to think we're all too stupid to breathe (but, we're lied to us on a regular basis, and everyone appears to accept it without a murmur of protest, so of course they have to think we'll swallow anything).

Politicians, who regularly fluff the Banksters, are going to pass legislation, taxing them? [Insert Bender Laugh Here] Ha ha ha, ha ha ha haaa! Good Luck With That, Meatbags!

So, rather than hold them accountable for their part in creating a shadow financial system which benefited them and destroyed the lives of so many -- instead, they'e venerated like untouchable, Elder Gods -- something out of a you-won't-sleep-after-reading-this H.P Lovecraft story -- when they should be dancing on air.

And -- we allowed it happen, all of it. Dumber than two bags of doorknobs, us.

---

Hey There, Kitty-Cat -- Know What Happens To Child Rapists? Huh? No? Wanna Guess? No?

Roman Polanski In Los Angeles, circ. 1977 (Photo: LATimes)

Nicholson, Huston and Polanski, Shooting The Last Scene Of The Film Chinatown,
In Downtown Los Angeles (1973)

Chinatown is one of the classic American films; it's almost perfect: Robert Towne's script; the casting, cinematography and set design; to Jerry Goldsmith's film score, which he completed in less than two weeks before the film's premiere on June 20, 1974. John Huston (Full Disclosure: He's a relative), the incestuous pederast Heavy in the film, thought Polanski was "exceptionally gifted" as a director, and fairly intense as person. But in the world of cinema as an art form, Polanski is clearly a director and artist of perception.

Polanski and Nicholson Shooting The Scenes In The Orange Groves

For Chinatown (1973)

Roman Polanski was born Rajmund Roman Leibling in 1933, in Paris, to Polish parents who in 1937 returned to Poland and settled in Krakow. His father was Jewish, his mother a Roman Catholic but whose father was also Jewish. As far as the nazis were concerned, anyone with Jewish lineage had a target painted on them. After the German invasion in 1939, the Lieblings were forced into the ghetto of Krakow; by 1943, Roman's mother had been sent to Auschwitz and murdered there; his father was sent to Mauthausen, but survived.

Krakow Ghetto, 1942; Polanski Was Nine.

Nine-year-old Roman was smuggled out of the ghetto and sent to live with several Catholic families in the Polish countryside for more than a year. During that twelve-plus months, Roman wandered into local cinemas, showing mostly German propaganda films; but, a fascination with movies, the idea of film -- as image, as art; as refuge -- stayed with him.

Catherine Deneuve In Repulsion, Polanski's European

Breakout Film (Photo: The Immaculate DVD Beaver)

After the war, Roman was reunited with his father, who wanted him to pursue any standard career, but Roman went on to the Polish Film School. He directed a number of short films, left Poland in 1961 for Paris, where he shot his film, Repulsion (starring Catherine Deneuve as a caretaker of rich, elderly women whose job prompts her descent into sexual obsession and madness); then, on to England, and finally America.

Polish Beauty Competition, 1960. The Crowd Of Men Watching

Didn't Have Much Chance To See Girls. Anywhere. (Photo: Magnum)

He was young, gifted (director of Rosemary's Baby), and eventually married a beautiful actress, Sharon Tate. He seemed to have escaped his past, the cultural prison of Poland, and for the first time in his life, happy. In 1969, he and his wife were expecting a baby.

One Of New Hollywood's Favorite Couples

(Modern Screen Magazine; May, 1968)

Almost everyone knows what happened next: Tate, her unborn child, and three others were butchered by Charles Manson's puppet assassins. To have his wife killed, in an almost casual act of brutal violence, must have reached down and shaken that layer of childhood memory just when he began to feel more rooted, and safe, in the world.

However, the facts of what followed eight years later are: Roman Polanski had met a 13-year-old-girl, Samantha Gailey (now Geimer), and suggested to her mother that she should have her photos taken for the Paris edition of Vogue magazine, which he was guest-editing. There was a daytime photo session, but when Polanski asked Gailey to change clothing in front of him, she became uncomfortable and left.

Polanski's Good Friend. John Huston's Future Son-In-Law.

Polanski contacted the mother again (whom some have suggested was willing to turn a blind eye to couch casting) and offered a second photo session -- this time at night, and at the Mulholland Drive home of Polanski's Chinatown star and party buddy, Jack Nicholson. Gailey's mother delivered her there. Polanski offered Gailey champagne, some Quaaludes, and according to Gailey, had sex with her in every obvious way a male can with a female (or, in this case, even another male), despite the fact that she repeatedly told him to stop.

Samantha Gailey, 1977; At The Time Polanski Happened To Her.

Polanski was initially charged with "rape by use of drugs... sodomy; lewd and lascivious act upon a child under 14" and "furnishing a controlled substance (Methaqualone) to a minor" -- four separate, Class-A felonies under the California Penal Code.

Polanski took a plea bargain. As a former investigator, I can say that to plead out in a criminal case with charges like this means either (A) The accused is poor; has prior convictions; no information to bargain with; was assigned a public defender who 'plead out', because that's how it is in the NFL; or (B) Has money and connections; can afford experienced criminal legal counsel; and is guilty as charged. You get to guess which of these Roman Rajmund Polanski was.

And, because he was the Roman Polanski (and because that's how it is in the NFL), the Los Angeles County District Attorney accepted his plea of guilty -- to one felony count of PC Sec. 261.5: "engaging in unlawful sexual intercourse with a minor". Not even rape; wow. His attorney earned his fee that day.

Polanski Arriving In Superior Court, L.A.'s Hall Of Justice

Polanski could have received a maximum sentence of 50 years under the 'indeterminate sentencing' of California State law at that time. He was never formally sentenced, allowed free on bail (which allowed him to leave the United States), but reported to Chino State Prison for standard evaluation prior to sentencing. After that taste of the joint, Polanski fled to Paris. I've been Inside (for professional, not personal, reasons), and can't say I blame the guy for bolting.

Let me just cut to the chase: Polanski, 76, is now locked in a Swiss jail 23 out of 24 hours per day, having been arrested at the Zurich airport on an international warrant thirty-one years old. He is, in fact, a cinematic genius who has created masterpieces that are studied in film schools all over the planet, an artist, married with two children.

In fact, he raped a 13-year-old girl. Apparently, repeatedly. While he might now like to say there was prosecutorial and judicial misconduct surrounding his case in Los Angeles (and there is evidence to support that), he admitted to committing a crime, and pled guilty, for a reason: He did it. Not even Samantha Geimer, now 45 and who believes Polanski has "suffered enough", disputes that he drugged and raped her.

Many important Europeans are publicly claiming that Polanski's arrest is a miscarriage of justice; that Polanski is a genius, and does not deserve this treatment; that the American system of justice is hypocritical and moralizing, monstrously naive, "sinister", and... well, just so uneuropäisch. They believe that extradition to the United States should be resisted, the charges should be dropped, and that America should be more tolerant of... well, something.

If I had the opportunity to ask Polanski a question, it would be this: What would your life had been like, I wonder, if your parents had emigrated to England, say, rather than Poland, in 1937? Because, like many others who survived ghettos and brutality and war, Polanski suffered a series of traumas which eventually were woven into a complex pattern of memory and pain. What would you have been like, Roman, if you hadn't had to deal with all of that?

And there's a second, similar question I would ask him: What would Samantha Geimer's life had been like if she hadn't been raped? She'll never know that. And like the childhood Polanski had taken from him, so he took hers. But caring about that is...monstrously naive, I suppose.

A Comfortable Life; Friends and Family, Honors, Work.

He's lived a very comfortable and successful life; today, Samantha Geimer said she would demand the L.A. County District Attorney remove her 31-year-old complaint against Polanski. Does he deserve to go to jail, now? I can't say. However, I doubt seriously that he could answer the two questions I've just posed; and I don't believe that artistic ability, being a "sacred monster" (as the French like to say), gives any artist a free pass on taking responsibility for their actions.

Nutters

Tubby The Nutter, Before Nine's New Emcee Of The Crazy
(A Squirrel, In England. I Don't Make This Stuff Up.)

PARADE OF THE NUTTERS: A Rant

>> NUTTERS: John ("You Lie!") Wilson; ACORN ('Tax Advice Okay, But Dat Kinky Stuff Gonna Cost You Extra'); Mahmoud ('I Look At Hitler's Picture When I Touch Myself') Ahmadinejad; Little Davy ("Bucky The Beaver") Brooks; Cheesy Goodness Stuffed Pizza Crust 'Hot Pockets'.



I'm aware that it's difficult to tell Bucky The Beaver and a 'Hot Pockets' apart -- but I threw the Snack Item in because (unlike Bucky) they're hard to resist: Burn in Hell, 'Hot Pockets' Food Design Engineers (or, "Foodineers").

>> A vaccine against the Wow-New-Fun-It-Rocks-Killer H1N1 "Swine Flu" will be available shortly... but it will be nasal mist vaccine, which is only to be used on persons between the age of 4 and 49. I guess that means everyone else should, you know -- die.



>> As the Happy Fun Counterperson In His Twenties at a local 'Peets Coffee' recently reminded me, "Everybody hates the Boomers, man. They're whiny assholes, remindin' people they remember when the Beatles were new, and Woodstock, and Vietnam an' shit. Yeah sure right (yawn). Let 'em croak! They messed up. They're responsible for this shit world we're livin' in; my life's gonna be hell 'cause of them. Screw 'em, man. (Smiles) Here's your coffee."

Well, "Peets", here's an important customer service tip -- Have your surly counter staff keep their ignorance and low IQs under wraps. I'll never go into another one of your franchises again, and I'll urge others I know to do the same. How's that?

>> "Tubby Brand" Spinach is bad, full of e.coli, or Plutonium, or shards of used razor blades or old photos of Little Richard, or something. So, I guess... what; buy and eat more of it? Feed it to Infants below age 4 and anyone over 49?


Chair To Human: Get Off Me !!!
(Photo: © 2005 Phillip Greenspun)

>> JP Morgan Chase utilizes the Coda of John Lennon's Instant Karma (Let It All Shine On) as the soundtrack for nifty commercials pitching their services in California.


October 9, 1940 - December 8, 1980: Still Missed.

Who the hell sold them the rights to that? Probably Yoko, whose only claim to fame, ever, has been as the widow of an actually talented man -- who believed that 'financial services' organizations like JPMC are leeches draining the life from human society.

Just sayin'. Way to honor his memory, lady.

>> President Of The United States Barack Obama is not an actual Liberal. Just want to get that out there -- it's pretty clear, right? Okay.

>> Before Nine may not be for everyone. Readers have reported mild headaches and stomach upset, finger- and toenail spotting, unusual bruising, or reduced urine flow when using Before Nine. Tell your healthcare provider if you experience these symptoms. Other readers have reported hives and spontaneous priapism. Please contact your local beekeeper, or Your Significant Other, if you experience either of these conditions while using Before Nine.

Also, a small percentage of readers have reported fulminating leprosy, large facial tumors, muscle spasms; and unpredictable, sudden loss of bowel and bladder control with Before Nine (However, we would like to point out that the percentage of readers experiencing some or all of these conditions is very low. Well, pretty much. I mean, a few. Okay; it's 50-50).

Tell your healthcare provider if you have a heart condition, diabetes, thoughts of suicide; history of suicide attempts; begging your pets to help you commit suicide, or drawing pictures of yourself committing suicide.



If you suffer from Fulcher's Palsy, Progressive Loobner's Syndrome, or have been diagnosed with Ugly Disorder; are pregnant or thinking about being pregnant; flirting more than usual as a result of thinking about trying to become pregnant; wearing those flouncy revealing little summer dresses in a desperate attempt to become pregnant; sending mass mailings of nude photos of yourself to strangers as a way of finding, well, anyone who will impregnate you; or, have heartburn -- please contact whoever it is you designated "Beneficiary" on any life insurance policy.


In The Former Communist Romania, Sufferers Of Ugly Disorder
Were Forced To Wear Animal Costumes And Emerge Only At Night.

Some readers of both sexes have reported locking themselves in public bathrooms to stare at mildly-crumpled photos of Britney Spears' abdominal fat, while consuming five-pound bags of Oreos after reading Before Nine. Tell your doctor if you experience this condition. Make sure you bring more Oreos, and share.


You Know You Want It. It's Just One Five-Pound Bag...

Before Nine is not for everyone. But many with symptoms of Standard Reality™ have reported temporary relief from the grey vapidity of their lives with regular use.



Do not taunt Before Nine; we have been known to bite.

---