On this week's Al Franken Podcast, he takes a u-turn.  There is absolutely nothing political in it.  His guest is Chris Rock.  And rather than me write about it, I'll let Al --

"This week on the Al Franken Podcast, Chris Rock discusses key moments in his life, including the one where I saved his career.  Which is really more about Chris realizing that HE had to CREATE his career. Rock talks about his early influences, including his grandfather, a philandering preacher who killed a guy and spent time in prison. During Chris’s Wonder Years – he spent a lot of time with Grandpa, who in addition to being a murderer, a womanizer, and a preacher, drove taxi around Brooklyn – often with young Chris in tow. See, Grandpa wrote his sermons while driving cab, and Chris got to see his process – he never wrote it down word for word – just outlined it.

"Chris talks about his NINE years being bussed, so instead of going to crappy black schools in Brooklyn he could ride an hour each way to crappy white schools, where he was often the only Black boy. In his nine years, how many times was Chris invited to a classmate’s house? Hint. If you guessed zero, you’d be wrong – but extremely close.

"During the podcast, Chris gets a call he has to take. From Super-Producer Scott Rudin.  We only hear Chris’s side, but it’s good news on a movie for Rock to star in. It could be cinematic history. Judy Garland hearing she’s playing Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz, and saying things like 'Great!' 'Uh huh' and 'Okay.' It’s as exciting as audio can get.  And most crucially, short.

"Fun! Funny! Educational! It’s got everything you’ve grown to expect from The Al Franken Podcast. Except a deep dive into a critical public policy issue. Unless you consider race a critical public policy issue. And if you consider hearing a few funny stories from Chris’s life, most of which have nothing to do with race, a deep dive.

"Give a listen to one our funniest and most thoughtful comedians. Won’t you?"

Let's head back Out and About for another interview with my fave Jiminy Glick.  This time he sits down for a talk with Billy Crystal.

It turns out that Dennis Prager has a video out with him "pontificating wisely" (tm) in front of a fireplace with a personal observation that he tries to make oh-so very clear is not for every man but...well, but for "some," and not just some, but "enough that I can make this point" -- so, despite his insistence, it's clear that this pertains to a lot.  A LOT.  And it's that "enough" men today are growing beards because "feminism and the Left have crapped on masculinity" and they need to say "hello, I'm not a female."

Interestingly, that is the exact same reason that was given for men having beards in 19th century England! And also in 1250 B.C. Jerusalem.

And Donald Trump Jr. and Ted Cruz in 2019.

And Santa Claus.

And Abraham Lincoln, father of the Republican Party.

And Jesus.

Reading or listening to what Dennis Prager has to say is an ethereally mind-numbing experience.  Not always.  Some of the time.  And enough of the time that I can make this point.

Actually, now that I think of it, it's most of the time.  I was just being polite before.

And it got me to thinking of an article I wrote about Mr. Prager on the Huffington Post back in 2010.  It was the result of an exchange of emails I had with a friend who's a reasonably well-known public figure, very right-wing and a friend of Prager.  Initially, when I decided to re-post this here, it was only because I think "enough" of what Dennis Prager writes and says is crushingly empty, made under the seeming guise of sage advice, and I wanted to follow-up on his little video chat with my encore from the past.  But as I re-read the article, I realized that in many ways the two pieces are connected, that indeed both of them have a similar theme of Mr. Prager -- a total mis-understanding of historical fact, and insistence that the cause of the world's ills, which tend to be things different from him as seen through his small, myopic view of life, are due "enough" to liberals.

By the way, this is an especially-ludicrous perspective to have, given that conservatism is about protecting what's good about the past, and liberalism is about finding what's good about changing and progressing into the future -- and 10,000 years or so of history have shown that, in fact, life actually changes.  A lot. 

But then, as I said, not understanding history and the reality of life is so-very Dennis Prager.  Well, okay, not understanding some of it.  And enough of it to make this point.

June 3, 2010
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                       Dennis Prager:  Making the World a Crueler Place, One Word at a Time



A conservative friend has me on his mailing list.  He forwards me diatribes from his circle about how the world will end because of liberals, a term loosely defined as "anything that isn't conservative."  

These articles have two things in common.  One is that they all border on fear, and the other is their relationship to facts is similar to P.T. Barnum's.  

What is unfortunate is that my friend - and his circle - accept them all on faith.  And the problem of accepting temporal matters on faith is that it doesn't develop the power to think for oneself.

The other day, the latest forwarding was an article by Dennis Prager.  It was an essay that, on the surface, appeared to discuss a philosophic argument comparing religion to the evils of the secular world.  In reality, it was just bulldozing facts to make a political point. 

This below isn't whole article by Mr. Prager.  In fairness, I only got through the first four paragraphs.  But I include those four, so that what follows would be in context.

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May 25, 2010 

The World Is a Cruel Place -- and If America Weakens, It Will Get Crueler
By Dennis Prager

One of the many beliefs -- i.e., non-empirically based doctrines -- of the post-Christian West has been that moral progress is the human norm, especially so with the demise of religion. In a secular world, the self-described enlightened thinking goes, superstition is replaced by reason, and reason leads to the moral good.

Of course, it turned out that the post-Christian West produced considerably more evil than the Christian world had. No mass cruelty in the name of Christianity approximated the vastness of the cruelty unleashed by secular doctrines and regimes in the post-Christian world. The argument against religion that more people have been killed in the name of religion than by any other doctrine is false propaganda on behalf of secularism and Leftism.
 
The amount of evil done by Christians -- against, for example, "heretics" and Jews -- in both the Western and Eastern branches of Christianity --  was extensive, as was the failure of most European Christians to see Nazism for the evil that it was. The good news is that Christian evils have been acknowledged and addressed by most Christian leaders and thinkers.

But there were never any Christian Auschwitzes -- i.e., systematic genocides of every man, woman and child of a particular race or religion. Nor were there Christian Gulags -- the shipping of millions of innocents to conditions so horrific that prolonged suffering leading to death was the almost-inevitable end.
 
                     =================================================
  

This is as far as I got.   It was either keep reading or stop before my head exploded.  I opted for the latter.

The problem, you see, is that there are a great many things Mr. Prager far too self-comfortably and intentionally overlooks.  Like, for example, giving a pass to the Spanish Inquisition and its Auto-de-fe torture.  He does this by conveniently (and simplistically) self-defining religious mass murder on his own very-limited terms, as systematically killing "every" person of a religion.  Of course, in reality, even Nazism didn't systematically kill "every" Jew by his own definition, any more than Spanish Catholics did in the 356 years of the Inquisition.  But what the Inquisition did during those 3-1/2 centuries was pretty darn systematic and massive.  Not to mention that it was torture.
 
And though he eases his conscience by insisting, "Nor were there Christian Gulags...", he again intentionally (because if not intentional, it is ignorantly) overlooks 800 years or more of horrors that cumulatively likely were crushingly worse than any Gulag since they defined nearly a millennium of daily culture.
 
But mainly, I didn't get that far because Mr. Prager showed an unacceptable lack of history and reality when he wrote, "The argument against religion that more people have been killed in the name of religion than by any other doctrine is false propaganda on behalf of secularism and Leftism." 

While this statement sounds authoritative, it is of course backed up by…nothing.  Not a single word of it is backed up by - anything.  It is words strung together.
 
I actually read history.  I have no doubt that Dennis Prager does, as well.  But I can't speak to what he reads, or chooses to remember, or include.  But honestly, his above is a numbing statement.  Last year, I finally finished reading Will and Ariel Durant's brilliant and legendary 11-volume Story of Civilization.  Probably around 8,000 pages.  Up until about the year 1600, probably the bulk of wars were religious-based, and many wars beyond that, through 1800.  National governments were religious for much of history, as kings ruled their nations by divine right, and fought off opposing armies for fear of another king's religious encroachment.  The Holy Roman Empire dominated Europe.  Muslimism, Hinduism, Buddhism dominated much of the rest of the world.  Pure secular rule only came later.  Villages of 20,000 people - 30,000 or 50,000 people - would be wiped out without a thought, becoming almost commonplace, century after century for a thousand years or more, from the beginning of history through the early 17th century.  (In the early volumes, Durant writes of such ghastly massacres with eloquent horror.  Later, as they continued through the centuries, the historian instead wearily addresses them as almost footnotes before moving on to the next.)  The continuing Crusades of Christianity against Moslems were almost unendingly devastating to the society it crossed and ravaged.  For over 200 years, there were 11 of these Crusades, all of them religiously-approved wars.
 
But more than that, as Mr. Prager tries to whitewash what was done specifically to Jews throughout history by focusing on Nazis, let me offer a passage from Volume 6 of the Durants' history, "The Reformation."  Pages 730-731.  An important thing to keep in mind is that this was written in 1957.  After World War II.  After the Nazis.  Written by a renowned historian who made it his life work to study the history of mankind.  Durant begins the passage this way --
 
"The Black Death was a special tragedy for the Jews of Christendom.  The same plague had slain Mongols, Moslems and Jews in Asia, where no one thought of blaming the Jews; but in Western Europe a populace maddened by the ravages of pestilence accused the Jews of poisoning the wells in an attempt to wipe out all Christians."
 
Durant then continues with a lengthy tale of how such "fevered imaginations" swept across all of Europe.  "Nevertheless, some Jews were tortured into confessing that they had distributed the poison...Merciless pogroms broke out in France, Spain and Germany.  In one town in southern France the entire Jewish community was cast into flames.  All Jews in Savoy, all Jews around Lake Leman, all in Bern, Fribourg, Basel, Nuremberg, Brussels were burned."
 
(If Dennis Prager is looking for "systematic genocides of every man, woman and child of a particular race or religion," that long list of "all" is a good place to start.  But I digress...)
 
And then, after this lengthy passage describing these many dark years, Will Durant concludes by writing -- and I repeat, this was written a decade after World War II by a man who made it his life work to study the entire history of man -- 
 
"It would be hard to find, before our time, or in all the records of savagery, any deeds more barbarous than the collective murder of Jews in the Black Death."
 
So, while Dennis Prager wants to whitewash history for the sake of making a political point -- shame on him.

Shame on him.

And his shame extends further.  It's when Prager writes, "The good news is that Christian evils have been acknowledged and addressed by most Christian leaders and thinkers."

"Good news"??  That's the good news?
 
Yes, to Dennis Prager in his political, high-wire, contortionist act, that's the "good news."  It all makes up for the Inquisition and a thousand years of torture and persecution.  Good news indeed!  "Sorry we tortured you and killed you and wiped out entire villages for hundreds of years.  Our bad."  Good news?  That's great news!  Of course, it would have been even better news if all Christian leaders and thinkers acknowledged Christian evils, and not just "most" of them, which could mean only 51 percent...  But hey, who am I to quibble?

Mind you, all Dennis Prager says is that most Christian leaders and thinkers merely "acknowledge" these "Christian evils" - not that they are horrified, repulsed and mortified by them, or ever did anything to make up for them.  Just that they "acknowledge" their existence.  Okay, sorry, "most" do.  (However many "most" is.)   Given that "it would be hard to find," as Will Durant said, "in all the records of savagery, any deeds more barbarous than the collective murder of Jews in the Black Death," I guess that in Dennis Prager's politically conservative world the best we can get is to accept that as "good news."  Swell.

I got no further than these opening paragraphs.  To be fair, maybe in the rest of his article Dennis Prager had a complete change of viewpoint.  But I didn't have it in me to keep going and see if such a miracle had occurred.  Because I was reading empty and dishonest words.  All designed to misinterpret history to make a political point.

None of this is to criticize religion or praise secularism.  There is room for an honest discussion of that.  It is, instead, to note solely that what Dennis Prager wrote is not acceptable.  

Actually, what he wrote is pathetic.  And I'm sorry my friend and others accepted it as the truth.  Because it ignores the reality of history.  If a person wants to share the same political beliefs with Dennis Prager or with anyone amongst themselves, that's fine.  But one should still be willing to tell those you otherwise agree with that they're wrong when they are very wrong.

"Whoever is careless with the truth in small matters," said Albert Einstein, who knew something about pursuing the truth carefully, "cannot be trusted with important matters."

Dennis Prager says the world is a cruel place.  Maybe it just looks that way when you are so careless with the truth.
 

The guest contestant for the 'Not My Job' segment of the NPR quiz show Wait, Wait...Don't Tell Me! is actor and writer Charlie Day, one of the creators of the long-running series, It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, now in its 14th year.  His interview with host Peter Sagal pretty much sticks to a conversation about the show, and it's hugely good-natured, which is refreshing for a show about incredibly unlikable characters.

Okay, let's just stick with the same thing.  As whimsy would have it, given how much I've been writing about Between Two Ferns lately (including this morning), the guest contestant on this week's 'Not My Job' segment of the NPR quiz show Wait, Wait...Don't Tell Me! is -- Zach Galifiianakis.  It's very entertaining, and he even talks a bit about the "behind the scenes" aspect of the Internet series with a bunch of fun stories, including about doing the famous episode with President Obama.

​The Mystery Guest on this episode of What's My Line? is one of the all-time greats in baseball history, which is no hyperbole -- Joe DiMaggio.  It doesn't take them long to guess, but this is one of the few occasions when that's a good thing, since it leaves more time for host John Daly to talk with him, and there aren't many interview with the Hall of Famer.

There's one whimsical moment here that's very quiet and could get lost.  After DiMaggio sits down, panelist Arlene Francis notes the ovation and says, "Nobody's ever had a hand like that other than Eisenhower and Monroe" -- which gets a reaction from DiMaggio since he and Marilyn Monroe were married at the time, September, 1955.  (Though just barely, since the would divorce the next month.

This is the full broadcast.  If you want to jump to the Mystery Guest segment directly, go to the 17:30 mark.

The guest contestant on the 'Not My Job' segment of the NPR quiz show Wait, Wait...Don'[t Tell Me is WNBA basketball star Tina Charles, who was a #1 draft pick in the league, won the MVP award, and also has two Olympic gold medals.  Her interview is so gracious and humble that one of her answers and explanation to support it pretty much bowls over host Peter Sagal, who later in the interview says, "You have been probably the nicest, most sort-of friendly and diplomatic person I have ever interviewed.  And we have not been able to entice you to say a bad thing about anyone -- which I admire because we've tried very hard."
​

Bear with me, this leads to a point.

The Broadway musical All American in 1962 had great pedigree -- and was a huge flop.  It has a score by Charles Strouse and Lee Adams, who just two years earlier had written the show Bye Bye Birdie.  (And a few years later would win the Best Musical Tony Award for Applause -- and separately Strouse would later write the music for Annie.)  Moreover, the book was written by none other than Mel Brooks, early in his career.  And to top all that, the star of the show was Ray Bolger, the beloved 'Scarecrow' from The Wizard of Oz.  Further, the female lead was Eileen Herlie, who had a respected Broadway career, and three years earlier had starred in the Broadway hit Take Me Along.  However, for all that, All American only ran for 80 performances.

I'm not a fan of the score -- though a friend who saw the original production said that the score was joyously staged which made it fun.  For me, only one song is of much interest...though happily, the song is absolutely great and has become a standard, still heard today, "Once Upon a Time."

A great many artists have recorded the song, though my favorite rendition remains the original from the show's cast album.  In part, I dearly love the arrangement with a gentle flute weaving its way throughout the song in a lilting, floating way, almost like a bird.  But also I think Ray Bolger's performance is unique.  Most artists performing the song do it -- thoroughly appropriately -- as a tender look back on life, which it is.  Bolger, though, in the context of the show, almost talks the song and fills each line an utter wistfulness and heart-aching sadness at what once was and is now long-since passed and gone, though with a gladness at it having been.

The song is later joined by Eileen Herlie.  And though I think Bolger does the song far-better, she has such a rare sound to her voice that it fits so well.

Again, bear with me.  As much as I like bringing this version to people's attention, it's not the point here.

This below is the point.

Much as I love Ray Bolger's rendition of "Once Upon a Time" from the Broadway musical All American and is my favorite version of the song, I can't leave it there.

A couple days ago, while looking for something else, I came across this video by chance, from three years ago.  It's from a 90th birthday celebration in 2016 for Tony Bennett, who had sung the number earlier in his career and wonderfully.  And here to honor him, performing the Broadway classic "Once Upon a Time" is -- Bob Dylan!  And most especially with his gravelly tone, he does a terrific job with it.

That's the point.
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Mr., Speaker, a point of personal privilege!. I have a small, admittedly-POINTLESS but personal bugaboo. Thank you for the time:

I regularly see the media talking about people waiting for hours to get a "selfie" with Elizabeth Warren, and people on social media posting pictures of their "selfies" with her. I love that she's willing t stay that long to interact with everyone, and admire their patience, as well.  But -- to be clear -- almost NONE of these are "selfies." A "selfie"  is very specifically when you yourself take a photo with yourself in it. When someone else takes a photo of you (most-especially when posing with another person), it's simply...a "photograph."
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And referring to me as a member of the Grammar Police doesn't change that.

​(I'm actually fine when people knowingly play around with language, or even screw up with words by mistake, as I and everyone does.  But not only is accuracy generally considered a positive thing, but there are some words that have a cultural meaning -- in this case, making oneself the active participant in the action, thanks largely to a change in technology ("I took this photo of me!") -- and I think it's good not to lose such valuable things.  And that's pointed as much at the media calling them "selfies" as anyone.  By the way, to be fair, as well, I'm sure this likely began when early on people actually did take real selfies with Sen. Warren. And after it adapted to a more formalized practice, the word stuck, when it shouldn't have.  Because...well, it's taking credit for what someone else did.)