By Michael Kaufman

Standing on line next to me at the unemployment office was a short, balding man wearing a rumpled suit and tie. He surveyed the number of people ahead of us and sighed, then complained, “My wife bought veal.” 

“Veal!” he repeated. “You know how much veal costs? I don’t have a job and she’s buying veal!” 

We chatted to kill time. It would be a while before we reached the counter to  face a cranky, unsmiling person who would eye us suspiciously and ask if we had looked for work that week. I saw the same man the next time I was there. “She bought veal again,” he said sadly. “I think she is in denial.”

This was a few decades ago at the unemployment office on 181st Street near St. Nicholas Avenue in Washington Heights…my old neighborhood. A visit to the unemployment office back then was a degrading experience.

Fast forward to the present.  The first thing I notice about the unemployment office is that it isn’t called an unemployment office. It is a “One-Stop Career Center.” Because my job was in Bergen County, New Jersey, my claim is processed in that state. My One-Stop Career Center is in Franklin, in nearby Sussex County. 

When I reported as instructed for orientation I noticed a group of seniors doing Tai Chi in a corner of a large gymnasium-like room. We newly unemployed people were sent to a classroom where we were greeted by a kindly woman named Paula, who told us we could call her at any time or come see her if we had any questions or if we needed help with our resumes or anything.  “Just ask,” she said. “We’re here to help.” I imagined a short, balding man in a rumpled suit and tie asking, “Can you tell me how I can get my wife to stop buying veal?”

I called once to tell Paula I needed to reschedule an appointment because I was going out of town to do some freelance work. She seemed delighted to hear from me and said there was no need for me to come in again…ever. “It’s just a frelance gig,” I explained. “I’m still unemployed.”

“That’s okay,” she said cheerfully. I was a little disappointed because I was going to ask if I could do a little Tai Chi on my next visit.

These days I use my computer to file online and the New Jersey Department of Labor and Workforce Development (LWD) even sends me emails with links to job opportunities they say may match my recent job experience. They aren’t very good at this but I can’t blame them. I know an excellent headhunter who hasn’t placed anyone in my line of work all year. 

Still, it is a tad discouraging when the best the LWD (we must never say the u-word, unemployment) can come up with is a listing like one that came just the other day: “Spring 2010 — The Frisky Lifestyle Journalism.”

The description begins, “Please Note: Internships are UNPAID and structured to last approximately 12 weeks.” Okay, they never said it was going to be a perfect match.

“The Frisky is the first sex & relationships infotainment brand for women seeking an authentic, yet uniquely funny and irreverent perspective on love, life and pop culture.” Hey, sounds kind of neat once you get past the “infotainment” jargon. I once wrote for Women’s World. Maybe I’ll apply. Perhaps they’ll like me so much they’ll offer me a fulltime position.

“The Frisky offers a smart and sincere POV that informs, entertains and connects women from various walks of life by emphasizing their shared experiences in matters of the heart and body.”  Uh, I think maybe they need a woman for this. 

“The Frisky targets the sexually liberated, sexually savvy demographic of My Boys, Friends, and Sex and the City, whose audience has come of age in the digital era.” That does it. For guys my age, coming of age in the “digital era” has an entirely different connotation.

“They enjoy R-rated movies and TV-MA sitcoms, read womens magazines brimming with sexy articles and advertising and are nonplused by the ubiquity of explicit sexual material on the Internet.” What if someone has all the qualifications except they are NOT nonplused by the ubiquity of sexual material on the Internet? Should they lie just to get this plum of an unpaid temporary job?

 “They are highly web-savvy and seek a highly entertaining one-stop destination which examines the full spectrum of lifestyle topics through the universal lens of sex & relationships.” The web-savvy thing kills it for me. I admit it. I’m not a good fit.

Beth? Carrie? Shawn?

Michael can be reached at michael@zestoforange.com.

By Michael Kaufman

Sick of the mindless garbage permeating his TV screen, my friend Tom Karlson began watching Korean-language historical dramas on cable TV. This was around 20 years ago and they didn’t have English subtitles like they do now.

It didn’t bother Tom that he spoke no Korean. He found it a challenge to try to figure out the story as the characters, garbed in period costumes unfamiliar to most westerners, shouted, waved their arms, hugged, wept, and waded into fierce battles.  Truth be told, Tom really didn’t care if he couldn’t figure the story out. He said it was still more entertaining than watching some tired retread of an American sitcom. I could see his point but I still thought he was more than a little bit  nuts.

Tom will no doubt be amused to learn that I became addicted a few months ago to a Korean soap opera called “The Road Home,” which aired weeknights on WMBC (Cablevision channel 20) from 9:20 p.m. to 10 p.m. After the final episode  ran a few weeks ago it was replaced by one with the strange title, “Jolly Widows,” to which I have now also become addicted. 

When I first started watching “The Road Home” my wife and children made fun of me. But one by one they got hooked as well. This was good because if any of us missed the show there was usually at least one family member who could tell the others what happened. Did Songtae find out the baby is his? Is Dr. Yu still in a coma?  Did Hyonsu’s family accept Suin? Is Sumi still acting like a bitch? What’s going on with Jisu and Hiro? Juho and Shinae?

So far I’m on my own with “Jolly Widows.” The rest of the family, still shaken by the unexpected and abrupt ending of  their beloved “The Road Home” (which I alone was able to watch) have thus far boycotted the new show, which I can only presume is due to some misplaced loyalty on their part.  But I sense a crack in their armor: my wife Eva-Lynne has poked her head in a few times when I’m watching and seems at least mildly interested, especially when there is something that pertains to Korean culture.  I have never watched more than a couple of minutes of any American soap opera, but I doubt anyone in them ever oohed and ahhed over the mudfish stew they were having for dinner.

Unlike “The Road Home,” in which all of the main characters’ families  were well to do, the primary characters in “Jolly Widows” are from different social strata and class backgrounds. This makes for some interesting interactions. It took me a few episodes to get all the subplots but I have a pretty good handle on the whole thing now.  I have a feeling Eva-Lynne might soon be making a chart to help her sort out the “Jolly Widows” characters like she did for “The Road Home.” Because the names of some characters seem confusingly similar to people unfamiliar with Korean culture, she often resorts to designations like “pretty woman” to describe someone on her chart. In “Jolly Widows,” for example, there is a woman named Yun-jeong Ha, whose daughter is named Jeong-ah Lee. One guy is named Jin-woo Han and another, unrelated, is named Jun-woo Lee.  Jun-woo Lee looks more like a North American Caucasian person than he looks Korean, so Eva-Lynne might call him “American man.”

I was going to try to describe the plot for you but I just can’t do it justice. I located a description on line from something called AsianMedia Wiki that is likely to be even more deficient but it will have to do for now. (I’m tired and I have to file this piece soon.) Here goes:

“Two women became widows on the same day, same hour. Yun-jeong Ha becomes the matriarch of the family of her husband. Yun-jeong supports them because she feels guilty about her husband’s disappearance. Dong-ja Oh, Yun-jeong’s sister-in-law, has been living with Yun-jeong’s help as well.

“After the terrifying day of losing their husbands, the two women have been living as each other’s good companions. However, now they become implacable enemies because of their children!” (Aside: Damn! This hasn’t happened yet in the show…grrrrrrrr.)  “What would happen if their daughters rival each other in love? What would happen if Yun-jeong’s husband, who everyone thought was dead, appears before them as the future father-in-law of Dong-ja’s son?” (Another aside: AAAARGH! Why did I have to find this description?) “Could Yun-jeong and Dong-ja’s relation go back to the good old days?”

Trust me. It is better than this. Try watching it some time and let me know what you think. You too Tom.

Michael can be reached at michael@zestoforange.com.

By Michael Kaufman

What, I wonder, would Emma Lazarus think of our national debate over healthcare reform? Although she has been gone for more than a century, Lazarus is well remembered for the final lines of her uplifting sonnet, “The New Colossus,” engraved at the base of the Statue of Liberty. In the poem she refers to the statue as “Mother of Exiles.”

“Give me your tired, your poor,” she wrote.

“Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,

“The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.

“Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me.

“I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”

Emma Lazarus

Lazarus wrote “The New Colossus” in 1883, following a wave of immigration by multitudes of destitute eastern European Jews who had been expelled from the Russian Pale of Settlement. I think my grandparents on both sides were among them. Many Americans back then did not share the welcoming sentiments expressed in the poem, as evidenced by the country’s discriminatory immigration policies.

Until the immigration law was changed in 1965, notes Stephen Klineburg, a sociologist at Rice University in Houston, “it was just unbelievable in its clarity of racism. It declared that Northern Europeans are a superior subspecies of the white race. The Nordics were superior to the Alpines, who in turn were superior to the Mediterraneans, and all of them were superior to the Jews and the Asians.” Needless to say, even the lowly Jews and Asians were considered superior to the black and brown peoples of Africa and the Americas.

The blatant discrimination was manifested in signs posted in public places and even in newspaper ads: “No Jews or Dogs Allowed,” “No Chinese,” “No Irish Need Apply,” “Whites Only.” In later years it got more subtle. Hotels in the Poconos that discriminated against Jews included the words “churches nearby” in their ads. On the other hand, Jews were welcome at Catskills hotels that included “dietary laws strictly observed” in their advertisements.

By the early 1960s, Greeks, Poles, Portuguese, and Italians–inspired by the burgeoning civil rights movement among African-Americans–began voicing complaints about the discriminatory immigration quotas. President John F. Kennedy called for reform of the immigration law a few months before he was assassinated. Immigration reform then became a major cause championed by his brother, Senator Edward M. Kennedy.

Unfortunately, the sons, daughters, and grandchildren of immigrants are among those now voicing complaints against “illegal aliens,” specifically with regard to the question of healthcare reform. Have they forgotten that their own people were once the victims of immigration quotas? Are they unaware that their parents (or grandparents) were vilified for the burden they would place on healthcare because of the diseases they would allegedly bring into the country? Or that they were condemned for speaking foreign languages instead of English?

How many of us who are descended from immigrants can be sure that our own family members were not among the undocumented?  It was not long ago that so many Italians came “without papers” that an abbreviation of those words became a nasty anti-Italian slur. The anti-Semitic term “kike” is said to be derived from the Yiddish word for “circle”– because  Jewish immigrants unable to write their names would mark a circle on official documents in the place where their non-Jewish counterparts placed an  x.

Today it is the mostly Spanish-speaking “illegal aliens” who are scorned to such an extent that even President Obama is afraid to speak out on behalf of their basic human right to healthcare. This is a tacit acceptance of the lie put forth by opponents of reform that the “illegals,” not the profit-hungry insurance companies, are responsible for the current high cost of healthcare. 

What would  Emma Lazarus think of this debate?  I’d say not very much. 

Michael can be reached at michael@zestoforange.com.

By Michael Kaufman

This was supposed to be a celebratory year for the New York Mets as they marked the 40th anniversary of the team’s first World Series victory and began the season in a spanking new state-of-the-art ballpark. But Citi (aka Bailout) Field has been something of a disappointment, mainly due to some sightline flaws, and the injury-plagued team has performed more like the Original Mets than the 1969 unit, finding ever more creative ways to lose ballgames.

So why is it that those early Mets teams were fun to watch, whereas the current version is barely watchable as the regular season winds down? The answer is multifactorial, but I will focus on one closest to my heart. It has to do with characters. Not character, which abounds among the players, who strive to play well even as they fall short in the majority of games.  Certainly no one can say that Jerry Manuel is lacking in character as he manages the team in futile pursuit of victories.  Manuel and the players do the best they can…but they aren’t characters. 

(Note to Omar Minaya: If you are going to put a terrible team on the field, make sure you include a few characters.) Sure, the Original Mets lost more ballgames than any team had ever lost before in one season, but they had a bunch of characters. Admittedly it is unfair to compare Manuel to Casey Stengel, one of the great characters in the history of the game. But it would help if Manuel didn’t speak in a dull monotone, mumbling like a guy on high-dose thorazine, during his post-game press conferences. I guess I expected more from the man, perhaps because he has a goatee.

Stengel managed a bizarre collection composed mainly of over-the-hill veterans and untalented young players. Exceptions included Richie Ashburn, who still possessed most of the skills that earned him a place in the Hall of Fame, and Ron Hunt, a scrappy young second baseman who was the first Met to be elected to the National League All-Star team. Hunt is best remembered for his specialty as a batter. He led the league in getting hit by the pitch.

Ashburn earned his place in the Hall of Fame as center fielder for the Phildelphia Phillies but when he was inducted in Cooperstown he couldn’t resist telling a few stories about his year with the Mets. He recalled that after several near collisions with Spanish-speaking shortstop Elio Chacon he realized that Chacon did not understand his shouts of, “I got it!” So he asked teammate Joe Christopher, who knew some Spanish, how to say it in Spanish and practiced until he had it memorized. Finally, on a fly ball to short left-center field he shouted, “Yo lo tengo!” and Chacon backed off. However, just as Ashburn was about to make the catch he was flattened by Frank (Big Donkey) Thomas, the burly left fielder, who did not understand Spanish.

Chacon, a weak hitter and not much of a fielder, either, nevertheless holds a special place in Mets lore. (For one thing, more than a few elderly Jewish fans believed the Mets had a Jewish guy on the team named Eliashu Cohen.) Chacon started the first triple play in Mets history on Memorial Day 1962 at the Polo Grounds. Willie Davis was the batter for the Dodgers and the play went Chacon to (second baseman) Felix Mantilla to Gil Hodges at first. 

Despite his .236 batting average, Chacon had an outstanding on-base percentage of .368 because he walked a lot (79 times in 449 at-bats). But he is probably best remembered for his part in a brawl at Candlestick Park in San Francisco. Willie Mays had spiked him sliding into second base on a pickoff play. The slightly built shortstop made the mistake of punching him in the head by way of retaliation. Mays picked him up and body slammed him a la Killer Kowalski.

Rod Kanehl was another early Met character of note. A weak hitter who could play any position in the field (not very well), he had a droll sense of humor. When the Mets were mathemematically eliminated from a chance to finish ninth in the 10-team National League, a sportswriter asked Kanehl how it would feel to play out the rest of the season knowing the team would finish in last place no matter what. “Takes the pressure off,” replied Kanehl.

Are you listening, Omar?

Michael can be reached at michael@zestoforange.com.

By Michael Kaufman

A report issued last month by the New York State Department of Criminal Justice Services (DCJS) says that Jews were the top targets for hate crimes in the state last year, followed by blacks, gay men, and Hispanics. The report analyzed crime data submitted by police agencies in all of the state’s 62 counties.

Of 596 cases statewide identified as hate crimes, Jews were targets of 36%, blacks 25%, gay men 11%, and Hispanics 4%. Like many other Jews, my first reaction to the news was, “So what else is new?” The virulent anti-Semitism that sparks hate crimes against Jewish people has been around for millennia. I remember reading a magazine article a few years by a Holocaust survivor from an area in Eastern Europe where the entire Jewish population had been eradicated. Upon returning to the home town of his youth he was shocked to see anti-Semitic graffiti scrawled on walls, and to hear anti-Semitic slurs uttered by local citizens. The hatred had persisted long after there were any Jews there to hate.

Anti-Semitism also tends to spike in times of economic hardship, as was the case in pre-Nazi Germany. The old stereotypes about Jews and money die hard, especially when names like “Goldman-Sachs” appear in the news in connection with the Wall Street meltdown and the dubious bailout that followed at the expense of the American taxpayers. It doesn’t matter that most of the big banks in the U.S. and worldwide are not headed by Jews. No one hears names like J.P. Morgan, Chase, or Barclay, and thinks, “Those damn WASPS!”

Nevertheless, on reflection I think the state report is flawed. I don’t doubt that we Jews account for more than a fair share of the hate crimes committed in New York State and, for that matter, across the United States. But I question the statistical findings when the only data used in the analysis were provided by police sources. There is a tendency on the part of police officials, who are most often white, to dismiss the suggestion that a crime committed against a nonwhite person is a hate crime. Sometimes they don’t even consider it a crime at all. This is especially true when the police themselves are the perpetrators. Remember: the four white cops who put 41 rounds into the defenseless Amidou Diallo in February 1999 were simply doing their duty.

And what are we to make of that 4% figure for Hispanics? Assaults on undocumented immigrants awaiting work as day laborers were commonplace in some communities in the state last year. Were they reported as hate crimes? Were they even reported at all or were the victims too afraid of deportation or indefinite incarceration at some hellhole of a detention facility to file charges or testify? You want to see hate crimes? Take a look at the cruel treatment afforded the detainees—women and men, many with young children—who came here in search of a better life only to be demonized as “illegal aliens.”

Elie Wiesel, the writer, Nobel Peace Prize winner, and Holocaust survivor, said it all: “You who are so-called illegal aliens must know that no human being is ‘illegal,’” he declared “That is a contradiction in terms. Human beings can be beautiful or more beautiful, they can be fat or skinny, they can be right or wrong. But illegal? How can a human being be illegal?” Not long after he made this statement he was assaulted and dragged out of a hotel elevator in San Francisco. His assailant, Eric Hunt, a 23-year-old anti-Semite and Holocaust denier, is from nearby Sussex County, NJ. He was eventually convicted of a hate-crime felony and two misdemeanor charges of battery and elder abuse.  

Of the 564 incidents reported as hate crimes by local police officials in New York State last year, only 10 resulted in convictions for hate crimes. (Fifty-four resulted in convictions on other charges.) Janine Kava, a spokesperson for the DCJS, cautioned against drawing any sweeping conclusions about the conviction statistics. “It would really be inappropriate to speculate on that,” she said, explaining that prosecution is a local function. “Each case could have had its own fact pattern, its own reasons for the disposition.” One need not speculate to know there is entirely too much hate in our midst regardless of who tops the list of victims of hate crimes.

Michael can be reached at michael@zestoforange.com.

By Michael Kaufman
 
Jewish-Americans of a certain age have a tendency to view things in terms of whether they are “good (or bad) for the Jews.” For example, Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis was good for the Jews. Abe Reles and his infamous pals in Murder Inc. were bad. Sandy Koufax: good. David (Son of Sam) Berkowitz: bad. You get the idea.
 
I was in Quebec City on vacation with my first wife in August 1977 when I saw the news that “Son of Sam” had been captured and arrested. He had terrorized New Yorkers, especially women, for more than a year with a murder spree that claimed the lives of six people and wounded seven others. During that time he wrote bizarre, boastful letters to the police and to Jimmy Breslin, the great newspaper columnist, taunting the authorities and hinting at his next crime. Breslin marveled at the killer’s skillful use of semicolons even as he urged him to turn himself in.
 
Inside a small candy store in Quebec City that sold out-of-town newspapers, my eye was drawn to the one-word headline that screamed from the front page of the New York Post: “CAUGHT!” I picked up the newspaper…and winced when I saw the name under the picture of the alleged killer. “This,” I thought, “is bad for the Jews.”
 
No sooner did I finish the thought than a middle-aged woman came into the store, saw the headline, and excitedly asked, “They caught him? Can I see?” She didn’t have to tell me she was from New York. I could tell by the accent. And when she gasped and said, “OH, MY GOD!” I knew she too was Jewish. She looked at me and shook her head sadly. “Berkowitz,” she whispered. She read on. “Wait!” she said hopefully. “He’s not Jewish. It says his last name was Falco when he was born. He must be Italian!”
 
“No one who sees the name David Berkowitz is going to think this guy is Italian,” I replied.
 
Some 10 years later I was delighted to receive a piece of junk mail from an Evangelical minister who proudly claimed that Berkowitz had become a born-again Christian in prison. The mailing included a copy of a handwritten letter from the killer that, alas, was devoid of semicolons. Much of the letter’s contents can be found online at the church-run “Official Website of David Berkowitz.” Yes, there is such a thing. You can find it at http://www.ariseandshine.org/index.html. Like Harry Golden used to say, “Only in America.”
 
And only in America can a book be published like “Madoff’s Other Secret: Love, Money, Bernie and Me” by Sheryl Weinstein, former chief financial officer for the charitable women’s group Hadassah. Weinstein, 60, says she had an 18-month affair with the disgraced financier who lost billions of dollars in investors’ money, including her family’s fortune. She says the affair, which took place 16 years ago, was preceded by a five-year buildup in which Madoff pursued her from the moment they met.
 
I have not read the book but according to the Associated Press it includes her description of Madoff as “not well endowed.” She says she found it important to put that in the book because it is the key to understanding his personality. One is left to wonder what might have been if Madoff had invested just a few of his ill-gained dollars in penile enlargement. Perhaps he would not have felt the need to become such a big-time swindler. This guy isn’t just bad for the Jews, he is a catastrophe. I hope he meets up with Berkowitz in prison. Maybe the Evangelicals will take him off our hands too.
 
Meanwhile, Weinstein told the Associated Press that Madoff, despite his shortcoming, was “surprisingly exciting” as a sexual partner. “When we made love,” she added, “I was on fire.” Oy vay! What kind of a way is that for a Hadassah lady to talk? Doesn’t she see this is bad for the Jews?
 
Michael can be reached at michael@zestoforange.com.

By Michael Kaufman

Although this has been a horrific season for the New York Mets and fans of the team, I, for one, am finding it quite enjoyable. Not the injuries, of course. I hope all of the injured players make full recoveries and flourish for the rest of their careers. But this train wreck of a season has nonetheless produced many wonderful and surprising moments, each a reminder of the greatness of a game that has survived decades of stupidity, greed, and mismanagement on the part of those who run it and some who play it.

In the past few days alone we have seen a game-ending unassisted triple play (by the opposing team), a perfectly pitched inning by Billy Wagner in his first appearance since undergoing Tommy John surgery, and sparkling plays at third base by Fernando Tatis, filling in for the injured David Wright. (Who knew?) As befits a future Hall of Famer, Pedro Martinez got a warm ovation from the crowd at the appallingly named Citi Field when he was introduced as the starting pitcher for the Phillies. Pedro later contributed a run-scoring base hit to the cause despite coming to bat with a lifetime average of .099. (If you do not follow baseball and are still reading this column, a batting average of .099 is not so ai-ai-ai.)

With the Mets no longer involved in the pennant fight, or even the race for the “wild-card” spot in the playoffs, fans have angrily taken to the airwaves with calls to sports radio shows to demand the firing of Omar Minaya, the general manager and/or Jerry Manuel, the manager, or to complain about under-achieving players who are paid millions of dollars. I don’t know that anyone should be fired but I wonder if there would have been fewer injuries had there been a better conditioning program in place. In any case the callers are often the same loudmouths who had hailed Minaya as a wunderkind when he arrived on the scene a short while ago and who sang Manuel’s praises when he replaced Willie Randolph after he was fired as manager early last season.

Better they should complain about how their tax dollars were spent to put up an expensive new ballpark named after one of the banks that helped put this country into its deepest financial hole since the Great Depression. (The only banks a ballpark should be named after is Ernie Banks.) Like its American League cousin in the Bronx, the new Yankee Stadium (at least they didn’t change the name to something like “AIG Stadium”), it has been built with tax dollars for the comfort of the wealthy, complete with expanded areas of luxury seating for the corporate elite. Who cares if even the TV and radio announcers—let alone the fans in the (relatively) cheap seats—can’t see who is warming up in the bullpen? 

And speaking of the announcers: It seems that now that the Mets have no chance of getting into the post-season games, they spend more time talking about the great food at the new ballpark and about the 1969 and 1986 Mets teams than they do covering the game currently being played before their eyes. I don’t care about the overpriced culinary delights. I want to eat peanuts and hot dogs when I go to a ballgame and maybe drink a couple of beers that don’t cost as much as a fancy martini at a trendy watering hole in Tribeca. Years ago I started cooking my own hot dogs at home, wrapping them tightly in foil, and sticking them in my pocket before going to games. Try it some time. Just make sure the dogs are well wrapped.

As much as I loved the 1969 and 1986 seasons, there were plenty of fine moments to be savored during the years that preceded 1969. Granted, most of them were provided by the visiting team. I was there for some of them: Jim Bunning’s perfect game, a no-hitter by Sandy Koufax, and a bizarre 23-inning second game of a Sunday doubleheader against the Giants. The first game started at 1 p.m. The second game didn’t end until around 11:30 p.m. Talk about entertainment value! And get this…if memory serves, Eddie Kranepool played every inning of both games after being called up from the Triple-A minor league team in Tidewater, where he had played every inning of both games of a double header the day before. Baseball. It is still a great game I tell you.

Michael can be reached at michael@zestoforange.com.

By Michael Kaufman

It seems like this year we have been inundated with a plethora of 40th anniversary articles and celebrations, covering everything from the Apollo moon landing to the 1969 Mets to Woodstock. This post might also have been about Woodstock but for something that happened in Warwick Saturday. And to be honest I have to admit I don’t have much to say about Woodstock: My friends and I—having turned on, tuned in, and dropped out from “the Establishment” prior to 1969—elected to pass. We didn’t want to fight the traffic. Besides, we heard it was going to rain.

So my contribution to the anniversary collection is about something far less festive. This year marks the 40th anniversary of the expulsion from Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) of Lyndon LaRouche (then known as “Prof. Lyn Marcus”) and his followers. LaRouche had been chair of the radical student organization’s National Caucus of Labor Committees (NCLC). The expulsion of LaRouche and the NCLC from SDS may be said to mark the beginning of the violent, racist, anti-Semitic, misogynist, and homophobic cult that has been in continuous operation under his direction ever since.

Two LaRouche operatives were in Warwick Saturday, where they set up a table in front of the post office, collected signatures on a petition, solicited donations, and distributed a 16-page pamphlet with an article by LaRouche decrying “Obama’s Nazi Health Plan.”

The cover features a doctored photograph that places President Obama beside Adolf Hitler, who smiles at him as a group of admirers look on. A smaller version of the same photo appears on the back cover with the caption, “Obama’s HMO Policy Is Killing Your Grandmother.”

 Among several large posters displayed was one depicting the president sporting a Hitler moustache. A large swastika adorned another. (Some of the same posters have been showing up at town-hall meetings around the country, courtesy of the LaRouche Web site, which encourages viewers to print out copies.)

Sadly, some unsuspecting passersby expressed enthusiastic approval of the display, thanks, in part, to another message prominently expressed, namely, justifiable outrage at the Wall Street bailouts. And in explaining their position on healthcare reform, the two LaRouche supporters portrayed themselves as proponents of a single-payer national health system. Their calm demeanor seemed a far cry from the offensive visual messages and bellicose writing that characterize their literature. The opening sentence of the pamphlet begins with LaRouche’s words, “Since his visit to hug the wicked little Queen in London…” (LaRouche has accused Queen Elizabeth of controlling the international heroin trade.) 

Many Warwick residents objected to the Nazi imagery. “My mother lost most of her family in Auschwitz and barely escaped the gas chambers herself,” said a woman who took part in a hastily organized counter demonstration and asked not to be identified.

“I am offended by the literature portraying President Obama, a black man, as a Nazi and buddy of Hitler. Such propaganda distorts history. Hitler and his regime killed millions in the name of Aryan superiority, and it stands history on its head to insert Obama’s picture into a Nazi rally scene or to compare his health plan to Nazi war crimes or tactics.” The images also drew angry shouts from two African-American men and several other men who appeared stunned when they came upon the scene. 

Nevertheless, a surprising number of motorists honked horns and shouted support as they drove by. And more than a few men and women eagerly made donations and signed petitions. Thus it would be a mistake to dismiss LaRouche and his followers as fringe characters with no chance of achieving success. They have already succeeded in adding to the confusion and hate that already characterizes the raucous national debate over healthcare reform.

“In a democracy based on informed consent, to not understand the nature of the LaRouche phenomenon is a dangerously naive rejection of the lessons of history—because Lyndon LaRouche represents the most recent incarnation of the unique 20th century phenomenon known as totalitarian fascism,” wrote investigative journalists Chip Berlet and Joel Bellman in “Fascism Wrapped in an American Flag,” a three-part report issued by Political Research Associates in 1989.

 “His view of history is paranoid,” they continued. “His economic theories are similar to Italian Fascism. His conspiratorial views are laced with racial and cultural bigotry and a large dose of anti-Jewish hysteria. His zealous storm troopers are motivated by an internal organizational structure that is to politics what the blitzkrieg was to international diplomacy…the totalitarian movement. History teaches us that to ignore or dismiss such a person as an ineffectual crank can have devastating consequences.”

 Michael can be reached at michael@zestoforange.com.

By Michael Kaufman

For Bruce Jenner it was the Olympic decathlon. For Mark Spitz it was the seven gold medals. For Buzz Aldrin it was the Apollo moon landing. And for Rudolph Giuliani it is September 11 that guarantees him a hefty annual income touring the country as a high-priced motivational speaker. I caught his act in the summer of 2004—when he was still being hailed nationally as “America’s Mayor”—and frankly I was disgusted by it.

In the days before his talk Giuliani had been widely quoted condemning the street vendors who sold photos and other merchandise to tourists visiting the area surrounding the Ground Zero site. Apparently he found this lowbrow sort of profiteering shameful and unseemly. But he had no difficulty accepting $75,000 from a pharmaceutical company to deliver a 12-minute scripted talk to a group of medical specialists attending a national meeting in New York. That comes out to $6,250 per minute for a self-serving speech capitalizing on the terrorist attack of September 11, 2001.

One might argue that Giuliani earned his right to collect hefty speaking fees because of his exemplary leadership in uniting New Yorkers in the time of crisis after the attack. Well, yes and no. The Rev. Al Sharpton may have stated it a bit indelicately but he was not far off the mark when he said it was not Giuliani but rather the “pain and decency” of New Yorkers that brought us together. “We would have come together if Bozo was the mayor,” said Sharpton.

By the summer of 2004 it was known that Giuliani allowed the heroic rescue workers to continue their futile, round-the-clock efforts long after he was informed there was no chance of rescuing anyone who had not already been saved. It is impossible to know how many severe, long-term illnesses this caused among the firefighters, police, and others, who wore no masks or other protective gear to protect them from the toxic environment.

Giuliani still likes to say he was at the site “as often, if not more, than most workers.” As for the toxicity, he says, “I was there working with them. I was exposed to exactly the same things they were exposed to. So in that sense, I’m one of them.” Well, yes and no. In the first few days he was there a lot. After that, his appointment books show he spent a total of 29 hours at the site over three months. Recovery workers spent that much time over two or three days.

But that is not what disgusted me about the speech I witnessed. It was the whole way it went down. I learned that Giuliani would be speaking from one of the public relations people running the press room at the medical meeting. I wondered why there was no press release about it. She quietly explained that Giuliani had agreed to come only if there would be no publicity. This was puzzling to her. The only media representatives allowed to attend would be from the medical and scientific outlets…and they were not to ask questions. The only questions Giuliani would take would be from audience members. And no reporters from consumer publications or regular news organizations would be admitted. I got in because I worked for a medical publishing company.

Giuliani received a standing ovation after being introduced as “America’s Mayor.” His speech was plain vanilla motivational featuring his six “lessons on leadership” and the people he admires most. (Ronald Reagan tops the people list.) From time to time, however, he departed from the script to make a hostile comment about the media. (“They always look for something negative.”) After several such jibes he stopped and said, “Gee, I hope none of them are here now!” Then he looked around the room, pretending to search for any lurking reporters, knowing full well they had been excluded. From my position, standing against a wall near the front of the room I wanted to ask, “What are you afraid of?”

As the charade continued through a fawning question-and-answer session (“Do you think you might run for president some day?”) I thought of a lot more questions, but I had to keep them to myself. Say what you will about Sarah Palin, at least she has the guts to face the representatives of the media she so despises and try her best to answer their questions. It came as no surprise to me that during the 2008 Republican presidential primary, Giuliani gratefully accepted the endorsement of Pat Robertson, the Christian fundamentalist minister, who said the September 11 attacks happened because “God Almighty is lifting his protection from us” because, among other things, “we have allowed rampant pornography on the Internet.”

Jack Newfield said it best in a 2002 article in the Nation: “Rudy Giuliani was a C-plus Mayor who has become an A-plus myth.”

Michael can be reached at michael@zestoforange.com.

By Michael Kaufman

The other day I received a piece of junk mail containing a letter signed by Mark Spitz, who won seven gold medals in swimming at the 1972 Munich Olympics.  The letter was on behalf of a company I’d never heard of that pays cash for gold. It was accompanied by a little plastic bag suitable for holding a small stash of marijuana (not included). What Spitz wanted recipients to do with it was put their unwanted and broken pieces of gold jewelry in there and mail it to the company in a postage-paid envelope. Spitz said the company, a family-owned business in Cleveland he has known for years, would promptly send a check paying “top dollar” for the items.

The silly letter was merely the latest in a long line of endorsements that began when Spitz hung up his trunks at the age of 22 to embark on a lucrative career as the guy who won seven gold medals. He is reported to have made $7 million in the first two years following his return from Munich.

“I would say I was a pioneer,” he said in a 2008 interview. “There wasn’t anyone who’d gone to the Olympics before me who capitalized the same way on opportunity. It depends on timing, it depends on hype, it depends on the economy, and most importantly, it depends on looks. I mean, I’ve never

Mark Spitz

seen a magazine of uglies. That’s our society. I’m not saying it is right. That’s just the facts.” Luckily for him, aside from gray hair befitting his age, Spitz has retained his good looks, as evidenced by a recent head shot that appears at the upper right corner of the endorsement letter. The Botox he had been promoting, along with Nadia Comaneci, another former Olympic gold medalist, may have helped in this regard.

Like Buzz Aldrin, the former astronaut featured in last week’s post, Spitz now travels the globe as a motivational speaker. Many former athletes have gone that route and, as a sportswriter-turned-medical writer, I have seen a couple of all-time greats in both stages of their lives.

Bobby Hull was known as the Golden Jet when he starred for the Chicago Black Hawks in the National Hockey League and later in the World Hockey Association. A prolific goal scorer and graceful skater, he was so named for the shock of long blonde hair that flew behind his head as he streaked up the ice. It was a pleasure to watch him play.

Although Hull was introduced as the Golden Jet when I saw him give a motivational talk at a medical convention years later, it would have been more accurate to refer to him as the Balding Biplane. As natural as he had appeared scoring goals in hockey, he seemed uncomfortable mumbling his way through prepared remarks about achieving goals in life. To be fair, this

Bobby Hull

was one of his earlier appearances as a professional motivator and he has surely improved since then. A recent photograph suggests he has also undergone some substantial hair restoration work.

Bruce Jenner won the gold medal in decathlon at the 1976 Olympics in Montreal, which led him to another record: His picture appeared on the front of Wheaties boxes for seven consecutive years. The previous record of five years was held by the Rev. Bob Richards, who twice pole vaulted his way to Olympic gold, in Helsinki (1952) and Melbourne (1956).  Richards also ran for President of the United States in 1984 as the candidate of the newly formed, far-right Populist Party. He got 66,000 votes.

I was at the Montreal Olympics, where Jenner won the gold, and in the late 1980s covered a meeting of the American Society of Consultant Pharmacists, where he gave a motivational speech. He said the lessons he had learned from his experience did not just apply to athletics but to all walks of life, including the “pharmacy business.” This did not go over too well with audience members, who realized at once that he had not bothered to learn what they do for a living.

Bruce Jenner

Nevertheless, he looked great as he told his story of battling dyslexia and overcoming numerous obstacles to achieve his goal of becoming an Olympic champion.

Jenner’s speaking gigs are arranged through American Entertainment International, which describes him as “a highly respected and much sought-after motivational speaker, especially within the corporate sector…also a sports commentator, entrepreneur, commercial spokesperson, television personality, actor, producer and author.” But wait, there’s more. “A devoted husband and father of six, when he isn’t making corporate appearances or spending time with his family, Bruce Jenner can be found flying planes, racing cars in Grand Prix events and working on his golf game.” Sounds like he’s been eating his Wheaties.

Hey, as Mark Spitz put it, that’s our society. I’m not saying it is right. That’s just the facts. In next week’s post I’ll tell you about the most disgusting, self-serving motivational speech I ever witnessed. Wait till you find out who the speaker was…and how much he was paid.

Michael can be reached at michael@zestoforange.com