A few years ago, in my last album, right after the Abu Ghraib scandal broke, I talked about how furious Senators and congressmen were, looking at such photos as a prisoner forced to wear women’s panties on his head and a naked prisoner with a dog collar attached to a leash held by a woman who is pointing at the man’s penis and laughing. Why were those legislators sputtering with such rage? Because THEY have to pay EXTRA for those services.

Now, I asked Sam Leff–given his background as an anthropologist studying and writing about the hidden rituals of American sadomasochism–for his take on the CIA’s cover-up of torture videos.

“I have been watching with fascinated horror,” he said, “as America’s S/M patterns of culture have emerged into the open in the Abu Ghraib/Gitmo Bush administration. I’ve been flashing on some clear images of the fratboy reality underlying the White House torture tape controversy.

“Picture this. Bush and Karl Rove sitting around a big plasma screen (drinking beer?) and laughing their asses off watching helpless prisoners drowning under a waterboard, or naked getting cigarette burns, or maybe having analgesic balm applied to their genitals.

“Once the existence of the tapes became known, their cover story is that they were having a big discussion about whether or not to keep or destroy the torture tapes. Like that old pervert, J. Edgar Hoover, the reality is they were getting off looking at them as sadistic porn–over and over. Perhaps sharing them with the ‘frat brothers’ of their inner circle.”

Indeed, in November 2005, Garry Trudeau was queried by Editor & Publisher about his Doonesbury strip the previous Sunday which had George Bush defending the branding of Yale University fraternity initiates with a red-hot coat-hanger in 1967, and Trudeau replied that it was “Totally fact based. Bush’s comment in panel seven is a direct quote.” He was referring to the collegiate Bush saying, “Insignificant! There’s no scarring mark physically or mentally!”

Some pledges told the Yale Daily News that their branding was preceded by a physical beating. Said one: “By that time, my body was so numb [from the beatings] that the iron felt good, like a match was being held close to my body.” Bush, who was president of the fraternity, said that the resulting wound was “only a cigarette burn.” Or maybe enhanced pledging technique.

Paul Krassner is the author of One Hand Jerking: Reports From an Investigative Satirist, and publisher of the Disneyland Memorial Orgy poster, both available at paulkrassner.com

Kucinich tried to explain that the U in UFO means “unidentified” flying object. He joked, “I’m moving my campaign office to Roswell, New Mexico and Exeter, New Hampshire.” He pointed out that Jimmy Carter had seen a UFO, and “More people–” Russert interrupted him with a statistic: 14% of Americans had seen UFOs. Kucinich asked him to repeat that number, as if to thank him for inadvertently providing him with the UFO sighters vote. Russert repeated the number and, with the smug satisfaction of having generated a guaranteed sound bite, he said, “I want to ask Senator Obama…”

There was a predictable trickle-down effect. Even Bill Maher mocked Kucinich, though Maher’s real target should’ve been Russert. A few days later, I met a woman who asked me who my ideal candidate is. “Dennis Kucinich,” I said. She responded, “Isn’t he the one who said he saw some Martians?” Of course, there’s a video of that encounter in the secret government implied-blackmail lock-box, along with the video of a threesome–Charles Schumer, Dianne Feinstein and a billy goat–and the video of Rudy Guliani performing an abortion on Pat Robertson’s mistress.

Ironically, Russert’s co-moderator, Brian Williams–in his capacity as host of Saturday Night Live–referred to the mainstream media’s proactive assumption that Hillary Clinton will win in the primaries and then in the general election. Fundraising is the name of that particular political game, because the candidates with the most money will buy the most TV commercials and print ads. Tim Russert gives a claymation face to that open conspiracy. And in the process, that old saying and song, “There’s no business like show business,” lands in the outdated metaphors graveyard. There is indeed a business like show business. It’s the news.

More Paul Krassner at paulkrassner.com

*Senator John Kerry, for not ridiculing George Bush’s 180-degree turnaround concerning the comparison between the Vietnam and Iraq wars by labeling the president a flip-flopper.

*Presidential candidate Mitt Romney, for championship pandering. Although he now wants to overturn Roe vs. Wade, when he was running for the Senate in 1994, he came out in favor of choice for women. He admitted to Mormon feminist Judith Dushku that “the Brethren” in Salt Lake City told him that he could take that position, and that in fact he probably had to, in order to win in a liberal state like Massachusetts.

*Great Assholes of the Past: The Sunday School teacher who advised one of his students to write on his penis, “What would Jesus do?” Presumably, “Jerk off” was not considered to be the correct answer.

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Paul Krassner is the author of “One Hand Jerking: Reports From an Investigative Satirist,” and publisher of the Disneyland Memorial Orgy poster, both available at paulkrassner.com

*Officials of the High Point Church in Arlington, Texas, for canceling a memorial service for a Navy veteran the day before it was scheduled, because the deceased man was homosexual. They knew he was gay when they offered to host the service, but after his obituary listed his life partner as one of his survivors, it was called off. Although also offended by a video tribute, which showed men “engaging in clear affection, kissing and embracing,” they refused to turn the other cheek.

*A mob of around 100 Islamic extremists in India, including three elected officials, for breaking into a news conference and assulting exiled novelist Taslima Nasrin, who has enraged many Muslims with writings that are harshly critical of their religion. She has been the target of numerous death threats–some Muslim clerics have offered a $12,000 reward to anyone who kills her–and two policemen sit constantly outside the door of her apartment. Salman Rushdie has revoked his offer to escort her to the prom.

*The Taliban, for kidnapping several South Korean church volunteers in Afghanistan and killing two of them. The remaining missionaries, who were considered arrogant for trying to convert Muslims, apologized after being freed. The Taliban, incidentally, received $43 million from the U.S. government five months before the 9/11 terrorist attacks. The reason, stated Karl Rove–who has resigned in order to spend more time with the Manson family–was because the Taliban is a faith-based organization.

*Presidential wannabe Tom Tancredo, for asserting that bombing holy Muslim sites would serve as a good “deterrent” to prevent Islamic fundamentalists from attacking the U.S. This notion of a pre-emptive assault made it into a Latino-oriented comic strip, “La Cucaracha” by Lalo Alcaraz: “You’re watching ‘The U.S.’s Greatest Surprise Attacks’ on the Distorted History Channel. Colorado Congressman Tom Tancredo issued a top-secret warning: ‘The U.S. should nuke Islam’s holy places!’” The TV viewer responds, “It is wrong to threaten nations with terror–unless Tom Tancredo does it.” In a previous strip, from a car radio: “President Bush has taken to calling himself the inelegant ‘Commander Guy.’ May we suggest the more graceful ‘Dicatator Dude?’”

*A Mexican priest, Rev. Dagoberto Valle Arriaga, for killing his son. He was afraid that Catholic church officials would remove him from the priesthood if they learned about the child. They suggested that he should’ve used a theologically correct condom with tiny holes in the reservoir tip so that the spermatazoa would have only a fighting chance to impregnate the mother.

*New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Robert Murray, co-owner of Utah’s Crandall Canyon Mine, and singer Sinead O’Connor, for anthropomorphizing the deity. Bloomberg: “I don’t know that God had rush hour in mind when this storm hit.” Murray, when asked if the trapped miners were dead or alive: “Only the Lord knows that.” O’Connor: “In the end of the day, the person who gets brought into the most disrepute is God. I kind of object to that.”

*Members of Decatur, Alabama’s Church of Leaning Christ, who complained about Rev. Billy Lee Halpin’s choice of rock music, which has been used in the church’s services for years. “We started out with The Monkees song ‘I’m a Believer,’” he explained, “but then had to cancel that as many members were upset by the Use of The Monkees. They felt it was a slap in the face to God, you know, with evolution and all. So now we just use Pat Boone again.”

*Norway’s Princess Martha Louise, for claiming not only that she communicates with angels, but also for her involvment in an alternative school that aims to teach people how to get in touch with angels. Sounds like a sitcom in severe need of a laugh track.

*The individual who successfully bid more than $1500 on eBay for a slab of concrete with a smudge of driveway sealant resembling the face of Jesus.

*An unidentified Major in Iraq–a fundamentalist Christian pretending to be a “freethinker”–for attending the first meeting of atheist service members under the umbrella of the Military Association of Atheists and Freethinkers, then verbally berating the other attendees, accusing them of plotting against Christians and disrespecting soldiers who have died protecting the Constitution. He threatened them with punishment, shut down the meeting and said that he would do whatever it took to shut down future meetings. He forced attendees to stand at attention while he yelled, berated and humiliated them. One attendee had fled when the shouting started, and he found a foxhole to hide in.

*China’s atheist leaders, for banning Tibet’s living Buddhas from reincarnation without permission. According to the order, issued by the State Administration for Religious Affairs, “The so-called reincarnated living Buddha without government approval is illegal and invalid.” The regulation is aimed at limiting the influence of the Dalai Lama, who stated in his defense, “I used to believe in reincarnation, but that was in a previous life.”

*Those believers and secularists alike who have waged a battle against the teaching of meditation in publicly funded schools, as if slow, deep breathing is necessarily and automatically a violation of separation of church and state.

*Maritza Tamayo, principal of the Unity Center for Urban Technologies in New York City, for paying a woman to sprinkle chicken blood on the high school in order to cleanse it of negative energy, and to lead several Santeria religious rituals during a vacation break when students weren’t present. Also, the Board of Education, for firing her.

ANTI-ASSHOLES OF THE WEEK

*The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, for at least urging its bishops to refrain from defrocking gay and lesbian ministers who violate a celibacy rule, even though measures that would have permitted ordaining gays churchwide were rejected.

*Hooshang Torabi, an Irianian and a Muslim who lives in the San Fernando Valley in Callifornia, for donating one of his kidneys to Gaston Gonzales, a Cuban, a Catholic and a resident of the San Gabriel Valley.

*Journalist Helen Thomas, for calling attention to the “deafening silence” of the Church in regard to the enormities of the Bush administration.

*Two Roman Catholic priests–Franciscan Louis Vitale, 74, and Jesuit Steve Kelly, 58–who were arrested as they approached the gatehouse at Fort Huachuca in Arizona, headquarters of the U.S. Army Intelligence Center. They intended to deliver a letter to Major General Barbara Fast, stating, “We are here today as concerned U.S. people, veterans and clergy, to speak with enlisted personnel about the illegality and immorality of torture according to international humanitarian law, including he Geneva Conventions. We condemn torture as a dehumanization of both prisoners and interrogators, resulting in humiliation, disability and even death.”

*The so-called Laser Monks in Wisconsin–whose online business selling printer cartridges and other products will gross about $7 million this year–for distributing 15% of their profits (the rest covers the costs of running the company and maintaining the abbey) to several dozen charities, including a Vietnamese school for orphans, a Costa Rican group that helps the children of impoverished farmers, a Minnesota summer camp for children with AIDS, and for funding their own Torchlight Foundation, which helps schools pay for courses that teach socially responsible business practices.
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Paul Krassner is the author of “One Hand Jerking: Reports From an Investigative Satirist,” and publisher of the Disneyland Memorial Orgy poster, both available at paulkrassner.com.

*U.S. policy makers, for requiring organizations to take a pledge that explicitly condemns prostitution in order to receive funding for HIV prevention projects. Researchers at Johns Hopkins University’s Bloomberg School of Public Health have determined that such condemnation isn’t effective in helping to control the global epidemic. They reviewed scientific evidence on strategies that effectively reduce rates of HIV among sex workers, and found substantial evidence suggesting that their empowerment, organization and unionizaton can be an effective HIV prevention. Rappers will be invited to submit pro-ho songs to promote such efforts.

*Jack McClellan, a self-styled pedophile, for exposing his persona rather than keeping a low profile, and posting on the Internet for his colleagues the locations where children congregate. His motivation: to advance his musical career, beginning with a three-minute video on YouTube featuring his rendition of “Thank Heaven for Little Girls.”

*Iran’s Press Review Board, for temporarily banning the country’s leading reformist newspaper, Shargh, which published an interview with an exiled poet, Saghi Ghahraman, famous for her explicit exploration of female sexuality. A Ministry of Culture official characterized her as “a counterrevolutionary figure known for promoting immoral issues.” In one of her poems, a girl makes love to her invalid grandmother. More than 100 Iranian newspapers have been shut down over the last several years, and journalists have been sentenced to prison for offenses including “propaganda against the regime” and insulting Iran’s supreme religious leader. Meanwhile, Ms. Ghahraman says she will appear on “The Daily Show” only if Jon Stewart promises not to interrupt her.

*Democratic presidential candidate Bill Richardson for saying, “It’s a choice,” when asked whether he believes people are born gay or if it’s a choice, and later weaseling out of his answer, but also the questioner, for perpetuating the notion that it should make any difference in sexual preference. What about bisexuals? Half-born and half-choice? Or transsexuals? Born as one gender physiologically but not psychologically, then choosing surgery to alter it? When it comes to abortion rights, nobody has to defend that position by saying that they were born with pro-choice tendencies.

*Republican candidate Mitt Romney, for defending his five sons’ decision not to enlist in the military by explaining that they’re showing their support for America by “helping me get elected.” His sons were all busy watching “Big Love” and had no comment; fortunately there was no draft in their living rooms.

*Loretta Sanchez, Orange County’s only Democratic member of Congress–although she voted against the war in 2002 and recently voted to begin pulling troops out within 90 days–for not supporting protesters, mostly members of Mililtary Families Speak Out, who want her to promise not to approve more funding for the war in Iraq. She said that the $145 billion was in the same bill that would provide money to build the C-17 aircraft, so “I’m not going to vote against $2.1 billion for C-17 production, which is in California. That is just not going to happen.” She was wearing a T-shirt proclaiming, “Constituents Uber Alles.”

*The government agencies that have allowed, by neglect, greed and corruption, this country’s infrastructure to crumble–exemplified by steam pipes in New York, a bridge in Minneapolis, the water system in New Orleans, a coal mine in Utah–while using American taxpayer money to deliberately destroy the infrastructure in Iraq, then using American taxpayer money to rebuild it. Welcome to the Age of Utter Insanity.

*Exxon Mobil, the world’s largest publicly traded oil corporations, for, among others, funding research aimed at disputing the scientific consensus on global warming as part of a campaign to mislead the public. “There has been an organized campaign, financed to the tune of $10 million a year from some of the largest carbon polluters,” says Al Gore, “to create the impression that there is disagreement in the scientific community. In actuality, there is very little disagreement.” The energy producers responded with Photoshop images of cavemen taking their pet dinosaurs for a walk.

*The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, for an 8-2 decision denying those who are dying the right to obtain unapproved drugs that are potentally life-saving, even if their doctors say the treatment offers their best hope for survival. There was one exception, for a mentally ill man who is thoroughly convinced that he’s a fetus.

*Health insurance companies, for not coverering newly recommended vaccines for children, reportedly putting more than a million kids at risk. Since free shots are available to children who are uninsured or qualify for public insurance, concerned parents are now wondering whether it would be a proactive step to cancel their policies.

*The two-party system, for carrying out partisanship to this extent: The renewal of the State Children’s Health Insurance Program, which expires on September 30, is viewed as the most important health coverage decision in Washington this year, but the California delegation split along party lines, with all Democrats in favor and all Republicans opposed. Domestic terrorism in action.

*William Steiger–who has long ties to Bush and Cheney, and who, since 2001, has run the Office of Global Health Affairs, without any background or expertise in medicine or public health–for blocking a 2006 report describing the link between poverty and poor health, urging the U.S. government to help combat widespread diseases as a key aim of its foreign polilcy, and calling on corporations to help improve health condition in the countries where they operate. Why? Because the report didn’t promote the administration’s policy accomplishments. When asked if he has seen “Sicko,” Steiger assumed it was a documentary about the missing Marx brother, Sicko Marx.

* * *

ANTI-ASSHOLES OF THE WEEK

*California Secretary of State Debra Bowen, for decertifying the use of electronic voting machines in the presidential primaries to prevent hackers.

*U.S. District Judge Florence-Marie Cooper, for banning the Navy from using high-powered sonar in training exercises because it could “cause irreparable harm to the environment.” She rejected the Navy’s request to dismiss a lawsuit by the Natural Resources Defense Council arguing for broader safeguards to protect marine mammals from powerful blasts of mid-frequency active sonar that have been linked to panicked behavior and mass die-offs of whales.

*Sean Penn, for replying, when asked if he wants the United States to win the war in Iraq, “I think we’re past that point in human evolution where there’s such a thing as winning wars.”

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Paul Krassner is the author of “One Hand Jerking: Reports From an Investigative Satirist,” and publisher of the Disneyland Memorial Orgy poster, both available at paulkrassner.com.

*ABC News anchor Charles Gibson, for introducing a propaganda piece–“A bit of a surprise today. Two long and persistent critics of the Bush administration’s handling of the war today wrote a column in the New York Times saying that after a recent eight-day visit to Iraq they find significant changes taking place”–when in reality Michael O’Hanlon and Kenneth Pollock originally supported the war even before it began (Pollack’s 2002 book was titled “The Threatening Storm: The Case for Invading Iraq”). The next day, Dick Cheney perpetuated that party lie on Larry King Taped without being challenged. Cheney also insisted that Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden were secretly married in Massachusetts, then adopted a Chinese baby.

*The Southern Baptist Convention and Focus on the Family, for writing this joint letter to the American Psychological Association for considering a public denunciation of any attempt by therapists to change sexual orientation: “We believe that psychologists should assist clients to develop lives that they value, even if that means they decline to identify as homosexual.” They were also concerned that such an APA policy could lead to so-called heterosexuals undergoing conversion therapy in order to return to their gay roots.

*The Israeli government, for offering an increase of a mere $20 increase in its monthly $487 stipend for Holocaust survivors to compensate for years of neglecting its 240,000 citizens who suffered through the Nazi concentration camps. Ironically, survivor groups charge that they are now treated better in Germany than in Israel.

*Retired Lt. General Philip Kensinger, for lying about when he became aware that former football star Pat Tillman’s death in Afghanistan was actually caused by friendly fire, a cover-up allowing the U.S. to portray him as a hero. Kensinger confessed that he had been brainwashed as an adolescent when he saw the Paddy Chayefsky movie, “The Americanization of Emily.”

*Pepsico, for selling its Aquafina bottled water with a drawing of mountains over the nameplate to imply that the source of the water was mountain springs, although it is actually tap water. Henceforth their bottles will be labeled P.W.S. for “public water source” or, if you prefer, “piss without sodium.”

*Capitalism, for causing profits to trump compassion–Johnson & Johnson cuts 4,800 jobs and shares rise; Unilever cuts 20,000 jobs and shares rise–while addicts to the system continue to snort the bottom line.

*Rupert Murdoch, for demonstrating so blatantly how money buys power. Be on the lookout for the new Wall Street Enquirer, featuring a cover story on the economic repercussions of Hillary Clinton’s cleavage accompanied by a life-sized photo.

*Republican Senator James Inhofe, for calling global warming a hoax.

*Anti-asshole of the week: Jeff Berkin, deputy director of the FBI’s Security Division, for replacing its hypocritical 13-year drug policy disqualifying applicants from becoming agents if they had used marijuana more than 15 times. He explained that it created problems for those who, when asked in polygraph exams, couldn’t remember how many times they had smoked pot.
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Paul Krassner is the author of “One Hand Jerking: Reports From an Investigative Satirist,” and publisher of the Disneyland Memorial Orgy poster, both available at paulkrassner.com.

*National Intelligence Director Mike McConnell, for defending newly approved CIA torture boundaries–“If I announce what the specific [permissible] measures are,” he said, “it would aid those who want to resist those measures”–and an anonymous administration official, who parroted the party line that, if such tactics were not kept secret, it would “only enable Al Qaeda to train against those [methods] they know are on or off.” Sample training moment: “All right, gentlemen, when you are given the water-boarding treatment, keep saying to yourself, ‘I’m not drowning, I’m not drowning….”

*Dick Cheney, for pretending that it was a sudden change for him to be in charge of the White House only during the 2-1/2 hours that the so-called president was under sedation for a colonoscopy. Also, E-bay has confirmed that Cheney attempted to auction off the five polyps which were removed from Bush’s colon and diagnosed as benign despite their malignant host.

*Senators John D. Rockefeller IV and Daniel K. InInouye (both Democrats) for respectively sponsoring and fast-tracking a bill directing the FCC to maintain a policy that a single word or image can be enough to trigger indecency fines. Bush reacted, “This shit has got to stop,” and Cheney said, “Go fuck yourself.”

*NBC producers for bribing police across the country, and those same police for accepting the bribes, to let “Dateline” film confrontations with suspects who were lured to homes with hidden cameras, including a suspected predator who was arrested and filmed at his own home after failing to show up at a rigged house 35 miles away, and killed himself as the cameras closed in on him. A spokesperson for NBC had no comment except to announce the network’s upcoming new series, “Entrapped.”

*Dr. David Matlock, a pioneer in “boutique cosmetic gynecologic laser surgery,” for marketing the procedure–costing $6,000-$8,000–as enhancing a woman’s sexual experience. What’s next: iphone-2 will include a vibrating dildo.

*Purdue Pharmacy and three of its executives, for claiming to doctors that the prescription painkiller OxyContin was less addictive and less subject to abuse than other such medications, while the drug has resulted in hundreds of deaths each year. True, their pain disappeared in the process. However, prosecutors have dropped the charge that physicians were urged to suggest that patients pop the perilous pills with a Pez dispenser.

*The DEA, for sending threatening letters to landlords who rent space to medical marijuana dispensaries, causing many unnecessary and illegal evictions. Although the 5,000-year-old weed has not caused any deaths, there have been fears that users would raid their neighbors’ refrigerators.

*The Chinese government, for not making use of its oil-buying leverage with Sudan to end the strife in Darfur. Activists have threatened to brand the Olympic games in Beiing as the “Genocide Olympics” if China does not apply pressure on Sudan to stop the conflict. Meanwhile, China insists that it is becoming more humane every day, and now allows slave laborers to listen to pirated CDs while they work.

*Former Hollywood madam Jody “Babydol” Gibson, for planning to testify in the Phil Spector trial that Lana Clarkson worked for her as a prostitute, even though Gibson’s “trick book,” which was seized as evidence in her own trial, had been doctored to include a fake Clarkson entry. Concomitantly, People magazine has selected Spector as “the sexiest man alive.”

*Anti-Asshole of the Week: Rev. Reggie Longcrier, who YouTubed this question to John Edwards in the course of the, er um, debate on CNN: “Politicians have used religion to justify slavery, segregation and men-only voting. So why is it still acceptable to use religion to deny gay Americans their full and equal rights?” Edwards justified his own religious beliefs to explain his opposition to gay marriage, and Ann Coulter commented, “Okay, maybe he isn’t a faggot then.”

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Paul Krassner is the author of “One Hand Jerking: Reports From an Investigative Satirist,” and publisher of the Disneyland Memorial Orgy poster, both available at paulkrassner.com

*Scholastic, publisher of the Harry Potter series, for setting midnight Friday as the opening salvo for sales of the latest book, thereby forcing countless children to stay up way past their bedtime. Just for that I’m going to reveal how it ends. Harry and his friends and enemies are all having dinner at the same restaurant, but when you turn over the final page, it’s totally blank.

*Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Maliki, for telling reporters, “We say in full confidence that we are able, God willing, to take the responsibility completely in running the security file if the international forces withdraw at any time they want,” but the next day his advisor announced that Maliki meant that efforts to bolster Iraq’s security forces would continue “side by side with the withdrawal.” Dick Cheney had called to remind Malaki that those videos of him humping a camel during Ramadan were hidden away in a safe place.

*The unknown White House official who ordered Dr. Richard Carmona–George Bush’s Surgeon General for four years–to mention Bush’s name three times on each page of every speech he gave. He was fired for writing this sentence: “When it comes to abstinence, you can be sure that George Bush practices what he preaches.”

*Lousiana Governor Kathleen Babineaux, for signing legislation that penalizes doctors who perform a late-term abortion–they would face fines up to $10,000 and prison up to ten years–making her state the first to restrict such surgery since the federal ban in 2003. The new law allows the procedure only when a woman’s life would otherwise be endangered. However, it will be considered a crime if the pregnancy is expected merely to cause health problems. That’s not a joke.

*The owners of several medical marijuana dispensaries in California, for–if it’s true, as alleged by the Drug Enforcement Adminstration–profiteering from the illegal distribution of pot by charging patients two or three times the street value. Presumably, other government agencies will follow the lead of the DEA and coerce other businesses to stick to free-market protocols.

*Nebraska Judge Jeffre Cheuvront, for ordering a college student who was raped not to use the words “rape,” “victim,” “assailant” or “sexual assault” on the witness stand for fear of prejudicing the jury. Perhaps she can testify that “He stuck his thing in my thing against my will.” George Carlin is expected to introduce a bit in his next HBO performance about “The five words you can’t say in court.”

*Food and Drug Administration commissioner Dr. Andrew von Eschenbach, for insisting that the FDA’s decision to close seven of its 13 laboratories would enhance the agency’s ability to target unsafe food–this in the face of severe criticism from Congress–but he is as determined as salmonella swimming upstream.
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Paul Krassner is the author of One Hand Jerking: Reports From an Investigative Satirist, and publisher of the Disneyland Memorial Orgy poster, both available from paulkrassner.com.

From the lead story on the front page of the LA Times:

“The Archdiocese of Los Angeles agreed Saturday to a $660-million settlement with 508 people who have accused priests of sexual abuse, by far the biggest payout in the child molestation scandal that has rocked the Roman Catholic Church nationwide…dwarf[ing] the next largest settlements in the U.S., including those reached in Boston, at $157 million, and in Portland, Ore., at $129 million….”

There was no mention of the contest for predator priests in Coney Island, where the winner ate 66 altar boys in 12 minutes.

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Satirist Paul Krassner will perform at M Bar in Hollywood on July 20.
More info: paulkrassner.com

There were the original gang members: Jonathan Winters (in character as an aging baseball star); Norm Crosby (master of malapropism); and Shelley Berman (doing his classic rotary-phone call, still dialing a number rather than pressing buttons).

And there was the newer breed: a surprise appearance by George Carlin (his set piece on contemporary schizophrenic man followed by a film clip of his 1962 impression of Sahl); Jay Leno (fat jokes); Richard Lewis (dick jokes); Drew Carey (referring to the bus driver who told Rosa Parks to move to the back of the bus as “the father of the civil rights movement”); Harry Shearer introducing Kevin Nealon; and Bill Maher re-introducing political incorrectness.

Woody Allen and Don Rickles sent their good wishes via video. The program mentioned that “Comedians scheduled to appear are subject to personal availability.” Thus, David Steinberg and David Brenner were no-shows, and Larry King was replaced as host by Jack Riley, one of the patients in Bob Newhart’s TV group-therapy ensemble.

Paula Poundstone, the only female comic, resorted to her forte, asking an audience member, “What do you do for a living?” He was an attorney–giving her the opportunity to talk about her own problems with the law–and he turned out to have started the first Mort Sahl fan club in 1956. She asked if all the members of his fan club wore those cute red pullover sweaters like Mort did.

Although all the performers topped off their regular schtick with praise for Sahl’s comedic breakthrough, Albert Brooks was the most original and unique to the context of this occasion.

“I’m embarrassed tonight,” he began. “And angry. And I’m confused. I don’t know the people that produced this show at all. But I would strongly suggest that when they do an event like this again, they spend a little extra money and hire a real publicity firm to disseminate the information correctly. I was told that Mort Sahl passed away. So you can imagine my shock, my dismay, and quite frankly my disappointment, when I arrived here this evening and saw him standing there.

“I worked very, very hard on this eulogy–and unlike other comedians tonight, I don’t have a current act, I just can’t pull ten minutes off the top of my head–so I do this, or I have nothing. I asked myself, ‘What would the late Mort Sahl say?’ I think he would have said, ‘You do it.’ Nobody appreciated a turn of a phrase, a beautifully-written sentence, as much as he did. But then again I say, to the people that produced the show, ‘If you don’t wanna spring for full-blown publicity, please get someone who will talk to the talent.”

And he started to read aloud:

“Mort Sahl–1927 to 2007. Mort? We hardly knew you. I remember the last time I saw Mort alive. It was at a Starbucks near where I live. And now I wish I’d said the things that I really felt. I wish I’d said how much he influenced all of us here. How brave he was. I wish I’d have told him how much of an innovator he was. I wish I’d have told him how much I loved listening to his records. While he was here. But I didn’t. All that I think I said that day was, ‘Are you gonna finish that latte?’

“This should be a lesson to all of us. If you see someone that you love, don’t ask for their food. Tell them how much they mean to you. Do you know what? On a night like this, I think we need to look on the positive side. From what was told to me, Mort didn’t suffer. He died as he lived. In his sleep. It’s at times like these that I think of what the great Alexander the Great said to his brother in the middle of a fierce fight. He said, ‘I’m going home. I don’t wanna fight anymore. You can take over. And try not to die.’

“If only I’d said that to Mort Sahl! That day in Starbucks. But I didn’t. Actually I think, along with the latte comment, I also asked him if he were going to eat the scone. But you know what? I’m sure he knew what I meant. I’m sure he read into that freeloading comment, the fact that I loved him….”

Finally, Sahl himself took the stage–wearing, of course, his signature red pullover sweater.

“I’ve been very moved by everybody tonight,” he said. “And I had a good time laughing. I want you to know it really did knock me out. And I also want you to know that I’ll do it as long as they let me. I didn’t want this to be a retirement party, you know. I’m still in business. And to reference that business–when Bill Maher came down to so graciously keep us company, was talking about the Bush administration–you know, I know the president, and he told me that he doesn’t drink. And he said, ‘I don’t need it, because I’ve been born again. And what occurred to me in the moment was: If you had the rare opportunity to be born again, why would you come back as George Bush?…Cheney went to the hospital. Got an aneuryism in the right knee. You know, the one that replaced the left knee. Also he’s had four heart attacks and also a pacemaker. They’re reconstructing Cheney, a Halliburton corporation. And they’re overcharging him.”

At one point, someone shouted, “Hey, Mort! You avoid 9/11 in your act. You always talked about the Warren Commission. You were all over it!”

“You hear that?” Sahl asked the audience. “It was something to do with the Warren Commission. Well, you know that’s how I went out of business for about twelve years. But I stuck to my guns, because I remember something [Bobby] Kennedy said: ‘To all you with the guns out there. You may be able to slay the dreamer, but you haven’t slain the dream.’ I came to this because I really thought I was an American and really had the capacity to dream. You all know that if you watch Turner Classic Movies. That’s what the movies were about–it was a dark place where people could fall in love and moral issues could be resolved. My grandfather came from Lithuania, although Lou Dobbs tried to stop him….I dreamed that dream.

“When I started this act,” he concluded, “although I was just lonesome and looking for a family, in a larger sense I saw it as a rescue mission for America…but I believe it more than ever, in spite of the odds. That the good guys’ll win….I tried to get to your funny bone and get into your head, but apparently I also got into your heart.”

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Satirist Paul Krassner will perform at M Bar in Hollywood on July 20.
More info: paulkrassner.com

I’ve been alternating between reading The Secret and The Truth About Bullshit. Funny how complementary these two disparate books can be, which has led me to the concept of Secret Bullshit, based on a psychological notion that in order to deceive others you need to deceive yourself.

So, take the CBS lawyers who agreed to the stipulation in Don Imus’ contract that he be given a warning before being fired for doing what they hired him to do in the first place, known as the “dog has one bite” clause. Well, their secret bullshit–bound to become their defense in court–is that although Imus wasn’t warned after referring to Washington Post media columnist Howard Kurtz as a “boner-nosed, beanie-wearing Jewboy,” they still had the right to fire him for saying “nappy-headed hos.”

Now there’s Deborah Jeane Palfrey, the D.C. Madam, who wants all those former clients to follow the lead of ex-Deputy Secretary of State Randall Tobias and testify that they also hired those gals only for a massage, never for sex. OK, everybody say, “Yeah, right.” Ironically, once they’re outed, won’t they gladly reinforce Palfrey’s secret bullshit with their own in order to correspond with what they must now tell their wives?

And finally, the spectacle of ten white male Republican presidential candidates all vying to become the leader of the western world by competing to see which one most disbelieves in evolution, has itself become the Dinosaur Follies. Their utter disdain for stem cell research and their unquestioning support of the invasion-turned-occupation of Iraq are two sides of that same secret bullshit.

You can watch secret bullshit becoming public bullshit as the language becomes increasingly perverted, ranging from the Bush doctrine that the new winning is not winning, to the cavalier morphing of the word ‘debate’ to mean that candidates are not permitted to ask each other any questions–the very antithesis of what a debate originally meant.

“They should call it an AA meeting,” my wife Nancy observed. “No cross-talk allowed.” She is an instinctive detector of secret bullshit when expressed publicly, that transcends political correctness. As the pundits discuss the merits of stiffer sentences for hate crimes, Nancy wonders aloud, “And what are the others–love crimes?”

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Paul Krassner is the author of One Hand Jerking: Reports From an Investigative Satirist and publisher of the Disneyland Memorial Orgy poster, both available from www.paulkrassner.com

Months before Timothy Leary died, he told me, “I watch words now. It’s an obsession. I learned it from Marshall McLuhan, of course. A terrible vice. Had it for years, but not actually telling people about it. I watch the words that people use. The medium is the message, you recall. The brain creates the realities she wants. When we see the prisms of these words that come through, we can understand.”

Hysteria over the word “Communist” was the forerunner of current hysteria over the word “terrorist.” The attorney general of Arizona rejected the Communist Party’s request for a place on the ballot because state law “prohibits official representation” for the Communists and, in addition, “The subversive nature of your organization is even more clearly designated by the fact that you do not even include your zip code.” Alvin Dark, manager of the Giants, announced that “Any pitcher who throws at a batter and deliberately tries to hit him is a Communist.” And singer Pat Boone declared at the Greater New York Anti-Communism Rally in Madison Square Garden: “I would rather see my four daughters shot before my eyes than have them grow up in a Communist United States. I would rather see those kids blown into Heaven than taught into Hell by the Communists.”

In a foreword to one of my books, Kurt Vonnegut wrote: “Paul Krassner in 1963 created a miracle of compressed intelligence nearly as admirable for potent simplicity, in my opiniion, as Einstein’s e=mc2. With the Vietnam War going on, and its critics discounted and scorned by the goverment and the mass media, Krassner put on sale a red, white and blue poster that said FUCK COMMUNISM.

“At the beginning of the 1960s, FUCK was believed to be so full of bad magic as to be unprintable. In the most humanely influential American novel of this half century, *The Catcher in the Rye,* Holden Caulfield, it will be remembered, was shocked to see that word on a subway-station wall. He wondered what seeing it might do to the mind of a little kid. COMMUNISM was to millions the name of the most loathsome evil imaginable. To call an American a communist was like calling somebody a Jew in Nazi Germany. By having FUCK and COMMUNISM fight it out in a single sentence, Krassner wasn’t merely being funny as heck. He was demonstrating how preposterous it was for so many people to be responding to both words with such cockamamie Pavlovian fear and alarm.”

On the evening of March 14, at about 8:15, Vonnegut was sitting on the stoop in front of his house–smoking a cigarette, of course. When he stood up, he lost his balance and fell. Although he was supposedly brain dead at the precise moment his head hit the steps, he was kept on life support for the next few weeks. When it became clear that he could never be revived, the decision was made to remove life support, as he had requested.

The news of his actual death on April 11 was, in the words of a close friend, “merely a postscript–a relief, actually–which is not to say it was so easy to process. I’d equate it to losing a family member, albeit one who had a long, incredible life–one who changed the lives and world-view of countless people who had never met him, and who remained entirely lucid and kept his miraculous sense of humor to the very end.”

Vonnegut loved to make people laugh at his own despair over the way the American dream has morphed into the American nightmare. The obituaries all seemed to stress how depressed he was, never failing to mention his failed attempt at committing suicide. So naturally I was surprised when such a pessimist told me that my satire made him feel *hopeful.*

“You made supposedly serious matters seem ridiculous,” he explained, “and this inspired many of your readers to decide for themselves what was ridiculous and what was not. Knowing that people were doing that, better late than never, made me optimistic.”

The first time I met Vonnegut was at a memorial for Abbie Hoffman, whom he referred to as “the holy anti-war clown.” The last time I saw him was at a panel on humor and satire at the Ethical Culture Society of New York. The panelists were Vonnegut, the late columnist Art Buchwald, stand-up comic Barry Crimmins, and myself. Of course, Vonnegut talked about the hellishness of living on earth. So, later that evening, my wife Nancy handed him a parody Monopoly card showing the rich-guy logo jumping away from flames, with this caption: “Get Out of Hell Free.” A year-and-a-half later, he finally accomplished that goal.

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Paul Krassner is the author of One Hand Jerking: Reports From an Investigative Satirist and publisher of the Disneyland Memorial Orgy poster, both available from www.paulkrassner.com