Martin Lewis2013-05-24T23:36:04-04:00Martin Lewishttp://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/author/index.php?author=martin-lewisCopyright 2008, HuffingtonPost.com, Inc.HuffingtonPost Blogger Feed for Martin LewisGood old fashioned elbow grease.The Irony Lady: In Defense of Margaret Thatcher...tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2013:/theblog//3.30403682013-04-08T18:49:07-04:002013-04-08T18:49:14-04:00Martin Lewishttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/martin-lewis/
The world's heart is heavy as we have learned of the death of the most brilliant leader the world has even known -- the blessed Margaret.
It was the saintly Margaret who rescued Britain from its dire position at the end of the 1970s and restored it to its former glory.
When Margaret Thatcher came to power in 1979, Britain ranked perilously low in the ranking for so many important indicators of power and influence.
For example, suicides among small-business owners were at an all-time low. The nanny state fostered by successive governments, both Labour and Conservative, had misleadingly protected incompetent entrepreneurs from the consequences of the market. Not under Maggie! Those cowardly safety nets were whisked away within a few years, and if you couldn't stand on your own feet -- well there was always hanging yourself to take the weight off. The suicide rate soared and a lot of useless riff-raff who kept whinging about society's responsibility were removed from the voting registers. Good riddance!
She had the courage to do away with the foolish notion that the unemployed should have jobs. Especially feckless youth. Thatcher managed to get the unemployment numbers up to over three million in the space of just 2 years! No easy feat. David Cameron's government is doing its best to emulate Thatcher's achievement -- but so far they are mere pygmies next to Thatcher when it comes to destroying the working class.
Thatcher was no slouch when it came to auctioning off Britain's precious natural resources for short-term profit. North Sea oil, coal, power, steel, municipal housing for the poor, telecommunications and eventually the railways, Whatever the national treasure -- she had the courage and wisdom to sell it off and harvest the immediate electoral returns. Of course there were a few namby-pamby socialists such as former Prime Minister Harold Macmillan who complained that this was akin to selling off the family silver for immediate gratification -- but fortunately Thatcher did not pay any heed to such drivel. Which is why services such as the privatized trains in Britain are so revered today by its citizens. And the companies who leeched mega-profits from the fire-sale of Britain's national assets are especially grateful to the Iron Lady.
There are always detractors to any success story. No good deed goes unpunished. So when Thatcher gave enormous pay rises to the British police and then used them as her dependable Gestapo to attack the unions -- especially the impoverished miners -- there were inevitably some people who carped about it. But we're talking mainly about the widows and children of those who died during the police attacks on the picket lines -- and no one who was likely to have ever voted Conservative -- so what the hell!
It is true that Thatcher had a few minor scrapes with the public. Her poll tax that aimed to rid the voting rolls of a lot of working class and immigrant trash likely to vote Labour was eventually repealed because of the rabble on the streets demanding justice and fairness and other communist slogans. There's always some little thing...
On the other hand there were many, many successes. The widespread riots in 1981 against her economic policies made a perfect setting for the Specials song "Ghost Town" -- which may not have reached number one in the charts without that backdrop.
Among the many Thatcher legacies: Ghost Towns throughout Britain...
Her instigation of the new laws that allowed the police to harass racial minorities was exceptional and should not be forgotten. The scores of British minority youths arrested and imprisoned during the Thatcher years certainly have reason to remember her with appropriate affection. After all many of those prison cells were more comfortable than their homes.
Homosexualists had the nerve to protest against her which fortunately Margaret ignored. In 1988 she declared very forcefully "Children who need to be taught to respect traditional moral values are being taught that they have an inalienable right to be gay." She soon stopped that with Section 28 of the Local Government Act of 1988. Now it didn't go far enough of course. The limp-wristed were not forced to wear a pink star on their clothes. But the law did help repress the scourge of aberrant behavior until it was regrettably repealed by the pinko Tony Blair government. But let the record show that Thatcher did her best to stem the degenerate gay tide.
Perhaps her most unsung claim to British gratitude is the way national pride was restored in the vexed area of soccer hooliganism. Under the lamentable policies of the Labour Party in the 1960s and 1970s, Britain had slipped right down the table of nations in terms of the number of deaths caused at soccer games. But after a few years of her take-no-prisoners policy towards riff-raff and the rising rate of unemployment among those dreadful working class youths who littered the population, British soccer fans were able to kill off far more rival soccer supporters than any other nation! We beat the awful Argies (Argentina), the useless Uruguayans and the light-weight Peruvians. Talk about "sudden-death"... Now British soccer fans delivered it better than ever! Let no one deny Thatcher her share of credit for that.
Margaret was also exceptionally loyal. While some had the temerity to abandon General Augusto Pinochet merely because he had presided over the brutal slaughter of tens of thousands of Chilean citizens after he had led a military coup that deposed the democratically-elected president Salvadore Allende -- it was Thatcher who saw the pragmatic side. The dead were a just bunch of lefties in a blanket-and-sandals wearing Third-World country that no one could find on the map anyway! So what was the big deal?! She treated Pinochet to all the respect and worship that a reactionary despotic murderer deserved.
Now on the topic of loyalty, one cannot gloss over the fact that almost every single senior cabinet minister she raised, promoted and nurtured eventually abandoned her and betrayed her. Complaining that she was autocratic, overbearing, uncompassionate, unwilling to engage in debate. So picky! And it was those betrayals rather than the actions of the opposition Labour Party that led to her political demise. Well technically that is correct. But things have come to a pretty fine pass when a Prime Minister can't dictate to cabinet minsters what they should be thinking!
There are some who complained that she cynically manufactured the 1982 crisis over the Falkland Islands. That she riled up the worst jingoistic tendencies of the British by sending a massive naval task force to protect the rights of a couple of hundred Islanders (and their related sheep) just to divert attention from the dreadful domestic economy and soaring unemployment rates. They whinge that she intentionally gave the command for the sinking of the Argentine ship the Belgrano -- even though it was complying with requests to withdraw at the time and torpedoing the vessel was the equivalent of shooting a retreating soldier in the back. What a lot of tosh! They were only Argies! And only 323 of them died in the sinking. Gotcha?! Oh yeah!
Thatcher in the tank (for Reagan, Pinochet, Khmer Rouge, de Klerk etc etc)
She certainly showed her guts! That Welsh windbag Neil Kinnock, said that it was a pity 260 British troops had to spill their guts to prove that SHE had guts. But hey! Those troops signed up for the military. They got three squares a day and a chance to see the world. How many of their unwashed, unemployed brethren got to see the South Atlantic?! So just over a couple of hundred of them perished. Hard cheese! You had the privilege of serving Mrs Thatcher. Death comes with the territory... (As do sheep and penguins).
Thatcher's Falklands adventure helped her distract unwelcome attention from the economy and ride a tide of "patriotism" into a re-election victory. Ronald Reagan duly noted how a lazy media -- and an even lazier electorate -- could be swept up in jingoism even when a massive Western power picks a fight with a far weaker foe. Hence the invasion of the dangerous island of Grenada just in time for Reagan's re-election campaign. Thatcher deserves her share of credit for inspiring Reagan and the great benefits that his 1984 reelection brought to the gay community and the social and economic underclasses in the USA.
Margaret Thatcher also deserves credit for the high opinion in which Nelson Mandela is held. When the international community called for sanctions against South Africa while it continued to engage in apartheid -- Thatcher nobly resisted. She didn't think it would make any difference. The apartheid government of South Africa thus stayed in power throughout the Thatcher years. And Nelson Mandela stayed safely locked up in prison. Had Thatcher allowed the UK to join international sanctions against South Africa, Mandela might have been released much earlier. How heroic would he have seemed with a mere 16 years of imprisonment mentioned on his Wikipedia page?! There is no question that Thatcher's adamant refusal to apply sanctions against the racist South African government helped Mandela tot up those eleven useful extra years that helped his image. Another astute decision that Thatcher is rarely thanked for.
Then there were the 96 Liverpool soccer fans who died in the 1989 Hillsborough disaster. The police force that vast pay-raises had made so gauleiter-loyal to Thatcher rewarded her by lying through their teeth to Thatcher about the causes. Rather than acknowledge their own culpability, they blamed the dead fans. "They were all drunken thugs who caused their own death." A weaker Prime Minister might have questioned the independence of this blame-laying. But not good old Maggie! She accepted and repeated the accusation. And -- along with her reliable stooges at Rupert Murdoch's newspaper The Sun -- she publicly damned the deceased as having been responsible for their own deaths. Attagirl Maggie! The fact that it was later proved that Thatcher's police loyalists had completely fabricated this storyline was not her fault. She couldn't be expected to keep track of which of her taxpayer-paid apparatchiks were liars...
Any more than she should have done due diligence on her close friend the mass-paedophile Jimmy Savile before she proposed him for a prestigious knighthood in 1990.
Perhaps her best claim to fame is how she demolished the foolish notion that there is any societal obligation towards individuals. In a very famous quote in 1987 she declared: "There's no such thing as society. There are individual men and women and there are families." That put the boot in to all the Kumbaya set endlessly bleating about some artificial notions called "community" and "society". Surprisingly, Her Majesty the Queen discreetly let it be known that she was alarmed by Thatcher saying that. After all, the continuation of the royal family and the British establishment does depend upon at least paying lip service to the illusion of fairness and concern for the Great Unwashed. The Queen thought that Thatcher's utterance was a little too honest. But that's what made Maggie Thatcher so wonderful. She just didn't care...
There are some who look at Margaret Thatcher and see a petty-minded, venal, hateful, post-menopausal harridan -- who furrowed her brow in faux concern, who used a synthetic voice that elocution lessons gave her, who had a care for her country that was every bit as genuine as the hair-dryer-blown cotton-candy hairdo that crowned her head. They see a vengeful, mean-spirited, small-town upstart who projected a fanciful 1950s idealized white suburban paradise onto the real cosmopolitan Britain of the 1980s. They see a woman who ruled because the men in her party were wimpy eunuchs and the political opposition too cowed and ineffective. One well-aimed bucket of ice-cold water -- drenching her and her confectionary-spun hair and make-up -- and all the similarly faux platitudes that she spouted -- might have had the same effect as Toto pulling back the curtain to reveal the charlatan Wizard of Oz behind the drapes. But that water was never hurled. (Except on one memorable occasion on UK TV by a courageous citizen - see below). And just as the Reaganites have labored hard to fashion a post-death mythology of their hero , there are Thatcherites now toiling to spin the legend of St. Margaret. HAG-iography indeed... Tramp The Dirt Down. Meanwhile the British nation is shrouded in deepest mourning...
Elvis Costello's 1989 Thatcher tribute "Tramp The Dirt Down"
Thatcher exposed and rattled by citizen-hero Diana Gould in 1983
Private Eye satirist John Wells and humorist-producer Martin Lewis teamed up in 1979 for this ahead-of-its-time tribute to Margaret Thatcher...
]]>Hallelujah! The World's Sleaziest Politician Goes to Jail!tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2013:/theblog//3.28541742013-03-11T14:34:34-04:002013-05-11T05:12:01-04:00Martin Lewishttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/martin-lewis/No Minister! Senior UK Cabinet Member Out-Disgraces America's Sleaziest Politicians
Here in the USA, we're all used to the downfall of sleazy, ethics-free politicians. And the low depths they reach in demeaning themselves and besmirching their families. Be it by sex, theft or just every-day scumminess.
Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and the generous "help" he gave to his help.
Senator David Vitter the self-appointed "family values" moralist who spent his funds on hookers
Senator John Edwards who was fathering a child with his mistress/"videographer" under the nose of his cancer-stricken dying wife as she was working to get him elected president
Speaker Newt Gingrich who generously helped one of his wives take her mind off her cancer by giving her the distracting news (in her hospital bed) that he was dumping her for a younger model.
But -- no disrespect to American politicians -- they have all met their match in terms of plumbing the depths of human sludge compared to the loathsome British politician who has just been sentenced to jail for "perverting the course of justice." Incidentally, that English crime isn't the equivalent of the American charge of "obstructing justice." It doesn't mean just blocking the course of justice. It means what it says. Full-blooded, premeditated, pro-active malevolent criminality.
Chris Huhne - the disgraced UK government minister convicted and jailed
Meet The Right Dis-Honourable Christopher Murray Paul-Huhne. Known widely by the chummy, truncated version of his birth name that he chose for himself in 1970 to try and sound "regular guy" -- Chris Huhne. (Pronounced "hewn.")
On becoming a member of the UK government cabinet in May 2010, he was appointed to Her Majesty's "Privy Council" -- a conclave of senior UK politicians who, once inducted, keep that role for life -- thus landing the prefix he'd long craved of "The Right Honorable". But having pleaded guilty to a serious felony and been sent "down river" to jail, he is now one of only four members ever to be forced to resign in disgrace from the Queen's Council. The other three were also discovered to be out-and-out criminals. Though none that can compare in tawdriness to the deeply-loathed Huhne who is in a putrid league of his own. And with that forced resignation he he is no longer "The Right Honourable." He's officially Dis-Honoured for the rest of his life. For posterity. And all renewable extensions thereupon.
The royal emblem of Her Majesty's Privy Council. The English translation of the motto starts with the words "Shamed be he..." Very apt for the disgraced, expelled Huhne...
Huhne has just been sentenced to jail time after having admitted his guilt in a ten-year saga of perverting justice that has not only wrecked his political career as a top government minister but also guaranteed that he had to resign from parliament and be stripped of his titles, salary and considerable perks. Given the attitude of Britain's prison population towards white-collar criminals, it may see him stripped of more... Certainly his trademark smirk may be a little changed after he's spent a few months with fellow convicts inside...
In the post-Watergate decades, we're all accustomed to the fact that it's often not the crime that causes the real problem, but the cover-up. And we've also learned that sometimes it's not the import of the original crime that really matters, nor even the cover-up. What is pertinent is what the crime -- however petty -- reveals about the true nature of the person who committed the felony. And the way that the criminal treats those closest to him/her (family and friends). And it's in those two categories that Huhne surpasses all other pretenders to the title of The World's Sleaziest Politician.
Huhne, 58, finally pleaded guilty to a comparatively petty crime he inflicted on his long-suffering wife (who has now divorced him) exactly ten years ago. At the time, in March 2003, Huhne was a member of the European Parliament. A notoriously bad driver with a reputation for speeding, he had accumulated numerous penalty points on his driving license and if he received just three more penalty points he would automatically lose his driving license.
He had also sleazed himself into multi-millionaire status having used his wife's wealth to parlay his connections as a finance reporter into a lucrative career as a financial operator offering insider "tips" on how to exploit small European economies to the barracudas on London's equivalent of Wall Street. He was Gordon "Greed Is Good" Gekko -- cunningly covered with a veneer of environmental do-gooderism as a rising member of Britain's Liberal-Democrats -- a third political party (of no fixed moral compass) in Britain's two-party system.
But because of the wealth he'd accumulated in a surprisingly short time (from "dodgy investments" his wife admitted last week under oath) -- and his portfolio of nine homes (several of which were generating indecent amounts of rental income) he could certainly afford a chauffeur-driven car, or at the very least a taxi service. So he could have lost his driving license for a year and survived life. Many have before...
But Huhne also had an air of ultra-smug entitlement. So he continued to drive himself. One night he drove himself to one of his London homes from an Essex airport after returning from a trip to the European Parliament. The speed limit was 50 mph. But Huhne ignored it and his car was tagged by a speed camera driving at 69 mph. It probably didn't help him that he had decorated his car with vanity license plates "HII H N E."
With a squinted eye -- the two letter "I"s looked like the letter "U". i.e. the plate looked like his name. Huhne's vanity was such that he always wanted people to know his name. In this case his vanity plates helped him hand his identity on a plate to the police. Something he will regret for the rest of his life...
When he received the speeding notification it meant the automatic loss of his driving license. But only if HE had been driving at the time... So he did the only thing that a decent, honorable married politician in a hurry would do. He coerced his wife of 19 years into perjuring herself and claiming that SHE had been driving his car at the moment that the speed camera caught his car. She had actually been attending an alumni dinner in London over 60 miles away from the speed camera at the exact same time -- but as long as his wife perjured herself and kept her mouth shut -- what could go possibly go wrong?
Chris Huhne and his "designated driver" - his wife Vicky "Patsy" Pryce
Well of course it all went wrong eventually. And not only has Huhne just gone to jail but his long-suffering, now ex-wife has also been jailed because of the perjury he forced her to commit. She tried claiming the archaic defense of "marital coercion" in her trial -- but the fact that she had played Lady Macbeth, enabler and financier to him for nearly 30 years out of her own desire to see him advance politically and socially rather undercut her claim to be an overwhelmed little housewifey.
Like the smug character "Tony Wendice" that Ray Milland plays in the Hitchcock movie "Dial M For Murder" -- Huhne was brought down by his hubris, arrogance, ambition and an insufferable belief that he could get away with murder. (Like Tony Wendice, Huhne married a wealthy woman - and then decided to get rid of her...)
Ray Milland - "Dial M For Murder" Chris Huhne - "Dial H For Hubris"
In the years immediately after he forced his wife to take the speeding bullet for him, it seemed that nothing could go wrong for him. In the UK General Election of 2005 he won election to the British Parliament. And a scant few months later he made clear how ambitious and ruthless he was. The leader of his party Charles Kennedy suddenly resigned after a whispering campaign that he had a "drinking problem." Though the source of the "sauce campaign" has never been confirmed -- the more you learn about Huhne, the less surprised you will be as to who orchestrated the whispers. The obvious next-in-line -- a party elder named Sir Menzies Campbell was assured a clear victory in the internal party election when Huhne suddenly threw down a gauntlet and challenged him (having of course first assured Campbell that he wouldn't run against him.) Despite Huhne coming close to winning, in the end the party sensed something of the slick arriviste about Huhne and he was defeated in the poll by Campbell.
Charles Kennedy and Sir Menzies Campbell. Successive party leaders of the UK's Liberal-Democrats. Both leaders were forced out by anonymous whispering campaigns. After each leader resigned, the first person to declare his candidacy to be the replacement was... Huhne. It's almost as if he knew each of them was going to resign. What prescience!
It shouldn't have been a surprise that barely 18 months later, it became Campbell's turn to be victim of a whispering campaign that pressurized HIM into resigning. This time the meme was that he was "too old." And guess who immediately stepped into the ring to campaign for the leader's position?! Despite his ruthless ambition, Huhne failed yet again and he was beaten by his new rival Nick Clegg -- a fresher face without the overt smirk of superiority that exuded from Huhne.
Chris Huhne and Nick Clegg. Their leadership election race was nearly a tie. But it was eventually won by the man who knew what a tie should look like...
However Huhne came very close to winning. The margin between Clegg and Huhne was just 511 votes. Interestingly, what may have contributed to Huhne's failure to win was a whispering campaign against Huhne himself by those whose seemed to know him best.
A blog called the Anti-Chris! started to draw the attention of the party members due to vote in the election to some of his very questionable behavior including financial dealings that his wife subsequently confirmed were "dodgy" (a British colloquialism for underhand); his bizarre claim in a national newspaper interview that his mother (an amateur actress in neighborhood dramatic societies) had appeared in Hollywood movies as Superman's mother (she hadn't of course -- and she refuted her son publicly), and some very distressing reports about what had transpired between him and his two step-daughters (by his wife's first marriage) to cause them to be so appalled by him. Huhne -- an avowed free-speech advocate -- personally threatened to sue a prominent respected blogger who dared to link to the Anti-Chris blog. Obviously a raw nerve had been touched. It later became apparent that the source of many of the whispers on the Anti-Chris blog emanated from his own family members, who were very aware of just who and what Huhne really was.
But no one except his wife knew just how raw that nerve was. And how uncontaminated by ethics or morals he was. It transpired that Huhne, as the great British parliamentarian Michael Foot once said of a political foe, had all the integrity of a semi house-trained polecat.
Despite losing the party leadership for the second time, Huhne got busy preparing for what he told friends was his inevitable rise to the very top. De facto the second most powerful man in his party, when the Liberal Democrats parlayed the "hung parliament" after the 2010 general election into an opportunity to get near the wheels of power by becoming "coalition partners" (read: enablers) to the right-wing Conservative Party - Huhne thrust himself higher. He wheeled and dealed his way into the new Cabinet as Energy Secretary. In Huhne's mind he would eventually succeed his rival Clegg - and then find a way to slither even higher.
But now the hubris was about to hit the fan.
Huhne had married well. In fact, not so much well as wealthy. In the late 1970s and early 1980s he was a reporter on the finance and banking beat for the UK newspaper the Guardian earning a rather modest salary. But he glommed onto an upwardly mobile and rather wealthy Greek economist named Vasiliki Courmouzis who he met on the economy wonk circuit. That she was married with two small daughters didn't matter much to Huhne who had an oleaginous charm that probably seemed appealing to an earnest math-swat young mum from the land of Aristotle Onassis. Her genteel Welsh husband, who had mentored his young Greek immigrant protege through the London School of Economics, where he was an academic, and nurtured her as she Anglo-metamorphosed into "Vicky Pryce" was rapidly dumped and Huhne insinuated himself into the marital home. So much nicer than the "digs" he'd been living in on his one-step-above-cub-reporter pay.
Shortly afterwards he married Vicky Pryce. (When she left her mentor/husband she kept his name. Also their two daughters and a rather well-used slide rule.) So much for Professor Higgins aka Pryce. He was gone and Huhne was on the rise with the Professor's rich Aegean Eliza Doolittle to fund his planned elevation. The Pryce was right...
It was a very savvy move by Huhne. A marriage of convenience. He had ambition. She had money. That was very convenient. Subsidized with the fat salary she was soon drawing working for bluechip companies such as accounting behemoth KPMG and Exxon Europe, Huhne continued to write for the Guardian and then the Independent -- earning a reputation for being despised by his colleagues for his ruthless ambition and utter lack of charm, warmth or decency. When he first ran for parliament in 1983, his election campaign was sabotaged by some of his colleagues at the Guardian -- a fact gleefully reported by Britain's Private Eye magazine.
After using her money to start a financial tipster business about Euro-trash investments where he could exploit the inside information and contacts he'd accrued while working as a reporter -- he accumulated a small fortune in the Michael Milken-Ivan Boesky wild frontier times of London's financial markets in the mid-late 90s. But his eyes were always on the prize of political power and prestige. After failing twice to win election to the UK Parliament, he ran for the European Parliament and finally managed to win a seat there in 1999. A tried and tested gateway to the UK Parliament, it offers yuppies who fail at winning British elections an alternative track to getting a political resume. And Huhne was definitely in a hurry.
After twice being rejected by the UK voters, he now had his eye on a much more winnable constituency for the English Parliament. This one was primed for his party so all he had to do was to run a moderately competent campaign at the next general election (likely to be in 2005). Eastleigh, the town designated as a suitable vehicle for his political ambitions was a couple of hours drive from London. Only 75 minutes for Huhne - who was well-known for speeding. Not just past older economics professors and established journalistic ethics. But also on the streets of London. And he had the penalties on his driving license to prove it.
So when an automatic camera caught his car breaking the speed limit and a speeding ticket was received in respect of whoever was driving his car that night -- Huhne saw his world crumbling. Instead of simply shrugging his shoulders and being grateful that between his wife's money and his own suspiciously-arrived-at stash, he could afford a car service or a chauffeur -- he instead decided to perjure himself and force his wife to do the same. She had a clean license with no penalty points on it. If his wife perjured herself and claimed that SHE had been driving his car that night -- he could get off scott-free. After all, why should England's roads be deprived of such an important man as he?! It was a fateful decision.
The previously "clean" driving license of Huhne's wife Vicky Pryce after Huhne forced her to perjure herself and claim that she had been the speeding motorist caught on camera. Even though she'd been 60 miles away at a dinner at the time the camera snapped the speeding car.
He would have got away with it too. Except for that hubris. During his election campaign in 2010 he had issued an election leaflet that was saccharine by any standards. Photos of him cradling his youngest baby (the one who during her recent trial his ex-wife revealed that he'd begged her to abort because another child would get in the way of his career) and gushing prose about how much he loved his wife and children and how he'd do anything for them. You'd have thought he was a conservative Republican with a penchant for something young and butch on the side judging from all that blather and bullshit.
But it turns out you'd have been not far off the mark...
Images from Huhne's 2010 election campaign literature touting his deep family values and his strong marriage. It was created by Huhne and his bisexual publicist. With whom Huhne had been having a torrid affair for the preceding two and a half years.
Because no sooner than the election was won and Huhne had wormed his way into the cabinet - he was discovered to be having an affair. And not just any affair. His paramour was a bisexual woman married to a lesbian. Moreover this was his publicist - the very person who had helped him put together the gushing election flyer selling Huhne as The Family Man!
Huhne was caught red-handed with his by-the-by pal by a tabloid newspaper and it was going to break the story on a Sunday. The preceding Saturday there was a World Cup soccer game on TV. Huhne watched the first half of the game with his wife -- then during the 15 minutes "half-time" casually turned to his wife and told her that their 26-year marriage was over because he was in love with his bisexual publicist.
Chris Huhne with "Trim" as his new honey Carina Trimingham is known by her most intimate chums.
Furthermore he told his wife that she had just 15 minutes -- before the second half of the soccer game -- to agree to signing a benign statement about the end of her marriage so that he could give it to the tabloid paper that had busted him -- in an attempt to spin the story to his benefit and save his cabinet job. She also had to do it in a hurry because he wanted to go the gym! And with that he walked out of her life. In retrospect, about 26 years too late...
Now no one in the world can help his or her appearance but the fact that Huhne's new paramour, Carina Trimingham, had what his wife described as a striking resemblance to Noel Gallagher of Oasis (no -- not the one who sang and was married to Patsy Kensit -- but his brother... you know, the guitarist with the unibrow) did not help matters. During the court case, audio tapes between Huhne and his wife were played (she had surreptitiously recorded him) and in speaking to Huhne about his his bisexual girlfriend she constantly referred to Trimingham as "your fucking man". Ouch. How's that for a story, Morning Glory?!
Carina "Trim" "Trimingham has become the sole oasis for Chris Huhne as he has plunged from being a champagne supernova to being a jailbird behind a prison (wonder)wall
Miraculously, Huhne survived the scandal and he kept his cabinet position. And having dumped with wife and five kids (two step and three his -- but stepped on) he carried onwards and upwards in his quest to reach the very top.
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Finally Vicky Pryce could take no more. Angry and vengeful about being dumped for someone she thought looked like the less attractive brother in a Brit-pop band from Manchester with a penchant for plagiarizing Rubber Soul -- and subsumed with guilt about the callow, shallow man she had helped launch into politics -- she decided to repent. She told the story of how Huhne had screwed the system to try and dodge the speeding bullet of losing his license and how she and Huhne had both perjured themselves. She told it all. Nothing was trimmed.
The story hit the British press and Huhne did what any self-respecting weasel would do. He trashed his ex-wife and publicly called her a liar. Even though his children -- his own and the ones he'd poached from her first husband -- knew that it was he who was the liar and criminal. What that did to his children can be imagined. But Huhne was desperate.
To admit that he had perverted the course of justice would obviously be a no-no. So he arrogantly denied everything and forced his politcal colleagues -- including UK Prime Minister David Cameron -- to defend him.
Huhne seen with UK Premier David Cameron after he had flat-out lied to the famously incurious Prime Minister and secured from him a public statement of support for the man now in prison for perverting the course of justice. Huhne told his friends he would one day be in the same position as Cameron. (Depending on what beans are spilled by Andy Coulson and Rebekah Brooks at their criminal trials, that could still happen...)
He would have got away with it too except for a courageous Labour Party parliamentarian, Simon Danczukm MP who called on the police to investigate. Huhne fumed and snarled but the British police did their job. They investigated and found that what Vicky Pryce had revealed was the truth. Despite this, Huhne then lied to the police. That was really dumb. You can be a viper... a sneak... a rat... a humbug... a hypocrite... a vagabond... . a scrounger... a parasite... a pervert... a worm... a chicken strangler... a piece of slimy refuse... a loathsome spotted reptile... even a secret player of the pink oboe... Anything. But you can't lie to the police.
Finally, when in January of 2012 he was charged with the crime of perverting the course of justice, Huhne was forced to resign from the British cabinet. The first Cabinet Minister in the entire history of Britain to ever achieve that accolade. Naturally he vowed to return an soon as, what he claimed as the baseless charges against him, were either withdrawn or proved in a court of law to be utterly false.
For another 13 months, Huhne continued as a Member of Parliament -- bad-mouthing his ex-wife at every opportunity. Forcing Britain's taxpayer-funded Crown Prosecution Service to spend vast amounts of badly-needed money to combat the barrage of legal tricks his lawyers were throwing at the case to try and derail it before it started. And telling everyone how he would soon be cleared and resume his natural position near the top of the British government.
Huhne finally surrenders and admits that he broke the law, perjured himself and spent years lying to everyone from the Prime Minister up...
But on February 4th, approximately 30 seconds into the first day of the trial he failed to derail, Huhne finally came clean. Faced with overwhelming evidence that he was guilty and knowing that a trial would be deeply embarrassing and likely to result in a longer jail term than if he pleaded guilty -- Huhne changed his plea and admitted that he'd been publicly lying ever since the story emerged. Sentencing was postponed while his wife's trial on the same charge proceeded.
She gambled everything on a very unusual and anti-feminist defense. She was claiming that she had been a defenseless little housefrau who was coerced into her criminal action. Unfortunately for her, the jury came in with a unanimous verdict that she had been guilty plain and simple. As described by everyone in the court, and captured by the court sketch artists, the look on her face when the verdict was read, was like the mystified howl of Ann Thorn (played by Lee Grant) the Babylonian step-aunt of Damien in The Omen II (the best flick of that trashy canon) when the devil discards her after she's outlived her usefulness. After all, she had merely been trying to help her little satanic nephew in his quest to rule the Universe! It wasn't fair that she should be punished. But punished she will be. She's going to jail.
Enablers who get discarded by their Master are usually somewhat pissed off...
Meanwhile, the real victims of this tragedy are the five children. From a very young age, Pryce's two daughters by her first husband had tellingly refused to take Huhne's name. They smelled the rat long before their mother. While she was still gaga from his early 80s smarm-charm offensive, these young girls had seen through the oil slick. To them he was like the character in the movie The Stepfather. ("Who AM I here?!") They knew it. But alas their mother didn't see who Huhne really was until it was far too late.
And what of the three children that Huhne and Pryce had together? Lydia, Nico and Peter. None has suffered more than the youngest -- Oxford University student Peter. He watched as his own father repeatedly trashed his mother publically and branded her a liar. When he knew first-hand that his father was lying. It's nothing unusual for children in their teens and early twenties to get into heated battles with their parents. It happens. Words are shouted. Feelings are hurt. it happens in the best of families.
Peter Huhne with his mother and father in happier days. Before Huhne's double life and crimes were exposed. Poor kid. You can't pick your parents...
But what Chris Huhne did to his own son Peter is beyond despicable. Once Peter realized that his father's lying and criminal behavior was going to result in his mother being prosecuted -- and as it transpires found guity and sent to prison -- he wrote a series of texts to his father begging him to come clean and not ruin his mother's life. But even though he knew his son was aware that he'd committed the crime -- Huhne continued lying to his own son.
It reached the point where his son could not bear to hear from his "scum-bag" father again.
These are some of the verified texts between father and son that Huhne desperately tried to have suppressed but that eventually emerged during the court proceedings. Had he not pleaded guilty, they would have been prime evidence against him.
Peter Huhne - a courageous son standing up for his mother against his bullying, lying father. His brother Nico has already disowned his father and taken his mother's maiden name so that he doesn't have any connection with his father
Son:"So nice to see our entire relationship reduced to lies and pleasantries in that letter. Do you take me for an idiot? The fact you said your parents were happier as a result of their divorce was disgusting... when you were having affairs makes me sick. You are the most ghastly man I have ever known. Does it give you pleasure that you have lost most of your friends?"
Chris Huhne:"I understand that I have really offended you but I hope that the passage of time will provide some perspective... I love you and I will be there to support you if you ever need it."
Son:"You are right - the perspective involves me getting angrier with every day that goes by. You just don't get it."
Son:"We all know that you were driving and you put pressure on Mum. Accept it or face the consequences. You've told me that was the case. Or will this be another lie? "
Chris Huhne:"I have no intention of sending Mum to Holloway Prison for three months. Dad"
Son:"Are you going to accept your responsibility or do I have to contact the police and tell them what you told me?"
Son:"I don't want to speak to you, you disgust me. Fuck off."
Chris Huhne:"Peter, just to say, I'm thinking of you and I love you very much. It would be great to talk to you, Dad."
Son:"Fuck off."
Chris Huhne:"I do hope your exams are going okay, despite everything over the last few weeks. Thinking of you, love you, Dad. PS It's grandad's birthday today."
Son: "Don't text me you fat piece of shit"
Chris Huhne:"Happy Christmas. Love you, Dad."
Son:"Well I hate you, so fuck off."
Chris Huhne: "Well I'm proud and I love you, Dad."
Son:"Leave me alone, you have no place in my life and no right to be proud. It's irritating that you don't seem to take the point. You are such an autistic piece of shit. Don't contact me again, you make me feel sick."
And all of those texts were sent by Peter Huhne BEFORE it emerged in court last week that his father had tried very hard to bully his mother into having him aborted. Fortunately for Peter, having gone through one abortion just to please her husband, Vicky Pryce had drawn the line at his next demand that she abort her child.
Could this dreadful tragedy, that has devastated these children -- especially his youngest child Peter -- have been avoided?
Sadly, it could have been.
For just as Richard Nixon's crimes during Watergate were only the latest manifestations of his sick, flawed character that had been in sight for all to see from the late 1940s and especially in his 1950 smear campaign against Helen Gahagan Douglas, so was Huhne's behavior and eventual downfall entirely predictable. It was all about his ruthless ambition and deeply shallow character. His utter amorality. His willingness to do anything, hurt anybody in his relentless quest to achieve self-glory.
In the early 1980s, while working for The Guardian newspaper, Huhne had lied and fabricated details in a story that maligned several people and a major organization. His purpose was simple. To advance his career by appearing to break what appeared on the surface to be a juicy scandal. But the facts didn't remotely support the story Huhne had pre-sold his editor. So -- like any Jayson Blair in a hurry -- Huhne simply distorted the facts to suit the narrative in his story pitch. The organization, the maligned people and many other luminaries protested the lies in Huhne's fabrication to The Guardian.
But the Guardian didn't want to admit that its staff member was a flagrant liar and that it had been duped by its rising reporter. The exposure of Huhne's opportunistic mendacity and tissue of odious lies was swept under the carpet. So at a point when Huhne could have been exposed for who and what he really was, he was instead coddled and protected. Which is perhaps why to this day the Guardian continues to print sympathetic pieces about the now jailed felon who once worked for the paper.
Among the many people who wish that the real Huhne had been exposed and stopped back then are his ex-wife Vicky Pryce -- nee Vasiliki Courmouzis -- (now in jail); his long-suffering step-daughters Georgina and Alexandra; and his children Lydia, Nico and Peter who will forever have to bear the shame of their disgraced, sleazy father - the Dishonourable Chris Huhne.
His name was Christopher
Like in the Bible.
They call him Lucifer
Because he gambled...
CONTEXTUAL NOTE ABOUT UK PRISONS & SENTENCING
Britain's prisons are currently so over-crowded that wealthy, middle-class, white-collar criminals on a first conviction can reliably expect to get sentences that are a fraction of the recommended terms of imprisonment. That helps keep the jails clear for working class convicts and minor drug offenders so much preferred by prison administrators. In recent years, those convicted of "perverting the course of justice" have received sentences of six months and less. Notwithstanding that, the judge in the trial was scathing in his condemnation of Huhne for his crime.
The judge said: "Offending of this sort strikes at the heart of the criminal justice system. It amounts to the serious criminal offence of doing acts tending and intended to pervert the course of justice."
Accordingly he sentenced Huhne to a sterner 9 months imprisonment (with a 10% reduction because of Huhne's last-minute guilty plea). Huhne's wife Vicky Pryce was equally lambasted for her "serious and flagrant offence." She was handed a sentence of 8 months.
Both are likely to have to reimburse the Crown for the substantial and needless costs of the investigation and prosecution.
Though the over-crowding in Britain's prisons may have saved Huhne from the lengthy imprisonment his crime deserves, he will for the rest of his life carry a scarlet "C" branded on his forehead. It stands for "Criminal". But it also stands for another word beginning with "C" - and that is as apposite as it gets...
The Right Dis-Honourable Christopher Murray Paul-Huhne - The World's Sleaziest Politician - unrepentant and on his way into court to be sentenced to jail
]]>Enjoy the Oscars With Some Chinese... (About 1.3 Billion of 'em)tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2013:/theblog//3.27507142013-02-23T17:58:32-05:002013-02-23T17:58:37-05:00Martin Lewishttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/martin-lewis/
You could order some General Tso's chicken, Kung Pao beef, Moo Shu pork, Peking duck and egg foo yung. (Don't forget a 14, a 7, a 9 and lychees). For added pleasure be sure to ask for extra MSG on everything.
But this year there's a more literal way to enjoy the Oscars with some Chinese.
I'm talking not just of the cuisine -- fine though that is.
I'm talking of the actual nation of China. You know... the country that owns us. Or at least finances us.
That is because this year -- for the very first time -- the entire nation of China will be getting a live web-stream from one of L.A.'s hottest Oscar viewing parties -- the 23rd annual Night Of 100 Stars.
What's the big deal you ask? Surely the nation that funds America gets the Oscars live on TV? Well you would think so if you read the press release from the Motion Picture Academy. Their press handout listing of nations carrying the Oscars on TV lists two outlets that will be broadcasting the Oscars in China. CCTV-6 -- one of the channels of the official Chinese state broadcaster. And Star Asia -- one of Rupert Murdoch's many pan-Asian satellite TV tentacles.
Extract from official information sheet issued by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences
But on closer examination one discovers that the Great Wall of Chinese eyes will not be seeing the Oscars live on TV. CCTV-6 is not airing the Oscars live. To air live it would be on between 9:30am -1.00pm on Monday -- which might distract workers from the current Five-Year Plan. (Believed to be the utter decimation of the American economy.) So as not to interfere with child labor and other important industrial endeavors, the Oscars will be tape-delayed to air in a more convenient night-time slot. Somewhere between hot cocoa and infomercials for tractors. This will also give translators time to decipher all of Oscar host Seth MacFarlane's devastatingly witty quips about Harvey Weinstein and other Jews.
Meanwhile Star Asia, as befits a Murdoch-owned operation, will be broadcasting the show live. But with a few caveats based on geography and geo-political constraints. In Hong Kong the show will be seen live on the Fox Movies Premium channel. In Taiwan it will air on three channels - Star Movies, Star Movies HD and Star World.
But in Mainland China, it will only air on a network called Star Movies -- a channel that Star Asia openly declares is "only available in select hotels and compounds". Loosely translated that means that Westerners living in or visiting China can see it. It's the TV equivalent of USA Today. Freely available at all Best Western, Motel 6 and Travelodge properties. But not in yer actual Chinese homes. If "compound" conjures up images of the Sino equivalent of Hyannis Port and Kennebunkport -- that's appropriate. In Chinese-speak a "compound" is where US government officials congregate while waiting to be rescued by Ben Affleck. In other words Western embassies, consulates, legations and other segregated locales where foreign diplomats and spies commune.
So what of the estimated 1,354,601,134 (that's one billion, three hundred and fifty four million, six hundred and one thousand, one hundred and thirty four people -- though actually another 237,000 Chinese were born while I was typing those words) on Mainland China? How are they going to get their live Oscar fix?
Step forward Mr. Robert King of NewMediaTV Networks. An American media entrepreneur whose extensive work with China includes having been Executive Producer of the World Expo 2010 in Shanghai.
For the past eight years he has been live-streaming a US domestic webcast from one of the most coveted of all the Oscar viewing parties - the annual Night of 100 Stars shindig -- hosted at the swanky Beverly Hills Hotel by agent Norby Walters. Each year a slew of stars -- actually well over one hundred -- flock to attend this party. And it reliably features many previous Oscar winners and nominees who don't have a dog in this year's Oscar race (so aren't invited to the Main Event held at the This Year's Sponsor's Name Theatre in Hollywood.)
We're talking serious Hollywood players -- many of whom are recurring attendees -- such as Richard Dreyfuss, Martin Landau, James Cromwell, Garry Marshall, Ryan O'Neil, Laura Dern, Lou Gossett Jr., Robert Carradine, Keith Carradine, Robert Forster, Ed Asner, Jason Alexander, Jamie Foxx, Peter Fonda, Danny Aiello, Gary Busey, Elliott Gould, David Paymer, Lesley Ann Warren, Maximilian Schell et al.
The Night Of 100 Stars Academy Awards Viewing Party held annually at the Beverly Hills Hotel
So this party is not Chopped Liver. It's up there with the Elton John bash, the Weinstein Company extravaganza and the Vanity Fair (sic) party as one of the town's hotly pursued tickets.
Anyway -- Robert King appears to have pulled off something of a coup for his webcast from Night of 100 Stars party his year. He has partnered with Fashion TV to carry a live stream of his webcast on the Fashion TV website - FTV.com
And FTV.com will be live-streaming the show worldwide -- including to the People's Republic of China. Accessible to all 1,354,601,134 of them. (Plus the few hundred million born in the time I've clacked out the last few paragraphs.)
So -- if you want to enjoy the Oscars with some good Chinese -- you know where to go...
]]>NRA Offers Radical Solution to Gun Threat at Schools: Arm the Fetus!tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.23471602012-12-21T13:52:56-05:002013-02-20T05:12:02-05:00Martin Lewishttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/martin-lewis/
Mandatory gun training for every fetus!
"We cannot seriously expect America's infants and school-children to be able to defend themselves against deranged gun-lovers and our sensitive supporters without proper training. We propose that all fetuses be given mandatory weapons training in the womb. So that when the baby emerges he or she is already an all-American gun hero ready to mow down anything that comes into their kindergarten brandishing anything beyond an automatic pea-shooter."
"When members of Congress wrote the Second Amendment in 1791, they knew exactly what the 21st century would be like. They understood that there would be assault weapons, machine guns, high-capacity ammo clips, firearms capable of massacring first-graders -- and that there would be amoral thuggish bullies dictating America's gun policy. That's why they gave our members the right to bare arms. And the right to wear red-neck sleeveless shirts while blowing away defenseless animals and children. God Save the AK-47, the Uzi and the NRA! Merry Christmas and drop dead..."
]]>Royal Prank Suicide: Hospital Deflects Its Responsibility by Playing Blame Gametag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.22664472012-12-09T14:13:55-05:002013-02-08T05:12:01-05:00Martin Lewishttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/martin-lewis/
The question the hospital doesn't want you to ask: Why was this beautiful, talented, experienced registered nurse being used by the hospital as a cheap night-time substitute for a trained telephone operator?
Having said that -- and in no way taking away from that acknowledged sadness -- one has to note that there appears to be some rushing to judgment going on. And a lot of the rushing and judgment is coming from the one party with everything to lose from this highly unusual and unforeseeable tragedy. The hospital that charges astronomical fees to fat-cats.
It is the hospital that bears ultimate responsibility in this matter. Not a couple of brash entertainers doing something that has been done many times over past decades with not even the hint of such a sad, bizarrely melodramatic, denouement.
The very exclusive private hospital that has its profitability at stake. At any cost it must avoid the appearance of any responsibility in the tragic death of its employee
Before we get into that, let's remember that no one knows yet if this is a suicide. It is assumed to be one. The police have ruled out foul play. But no authority has yet determined or announced that this person took her own life or if she died because of some other cause. So while assumptions are that it was suicide, it would be prudent to wait for the official ruling before the condemnations start.
Of course no one else is waiting -- so we'll ignore that recommendation for the purposes of this article.
Let's say for the sake of argument that it was suicide. There then has to be a determination as to what caused this woman to take her own life. Was it solely the tempest in a teacup of the preceding 72 hours? If that minor incident was a factor, was it the only factor in this person's life that prompted her to commit suicide?
Let's think calmly for a second.
This lady's involvement in the prank lasted all of three seconds. There was no massive outcry against her. Did you see screaming headlines "who was the moron who foolishly believed that it was the Queen on the phone and put the call through to the ward?" Was there any mocking of her by anyone? Was she named by any media outlet? Was she shamed by any media outlet? (These are rhetorical questions addressed primarily to the hospital's damage control team since no one else seems to have asked them.) Even the radio hosts, who were incredulous about being put through so easily, did not say anything about the person who connected them to the nurse who volunteered so much information.
In other words, there was no massive public or media outcry against her. The pranksters didn't make fun of her. There was no calling for her scalp by the public or the media. (What may have gone on inside the hospital is another matter -- and we'll get to that in a moment.)
A reasonable, normal reaction to such circumstances is to apologize to those affected by one's mistake, shrug one's shoulders and move on. Her crime was nothing more than gullibility at the vulnerable hour of 5:30 a.m. in the morning after a presumably long night shift doing a task which wasn't in her nurse training. Not a hanging offense in the eyes of the public, the media or the royal family. (Though we don't know what the embarrassed hospital management actually felt.)
So, suicide for such a trivial matter does seem a rather excessive reaction by a 46-year-old woman who has been described in very glowing terms by her colleagues. Especially a woman in a stable marriage with two teenage children. Reasonably balanced people -- and every indication has been that she was a reasonably balanced person -- don't usually commit suicide over such trivial matters.
A plush room in the swanky hospital where the rich pay very handsomely to be protected from intruders, media and Australian radio presenters...
One report described her as a "nervous" person. Taking one's own life after a three-second incident in which one had not been publicly identified would certainly be a new definition of being "nervous."
The apparent source for that definition is quoted in the UK's Sunday Times. That paper's report says: "Jeff Sellick, Saldanha's driving instructor, described her as a 'quiet and shy' person who had been 'quite nervous' when starting her lessons but gained confidence and went on to pass her test." (That sounds like 99.9 percent of people.) The paper quoted Sellick as saying: "She wouldn't say boo to a goose. She seemed quite private and I can only imagine that something like this would have preyed quite heavily on her mind."
If that was the assessment of her driving instructor who knew her only for a few weeks, what was the assessment of the senior management at the hospital where she had worked for four years?
According to the investigation undertaken by the Sunday Times:
"Sources at the hospital insist that Saldanha was not disciplined or subjected to any 'serious interview' over her handling of the call. 'She was telephoned about it and asked what had happened and she explained' said one. 'She was traumatised by it and by the media coverage afterwards. The hospital was working hard to support her. But I don't think anyone realised how traumatised she was. There was a plan to have a chat [with her] at some time.'"
She was telephoned about it?! This poor woman was living in nursing accommodation just yards away from the hospital. And the best that the hospital could do was speak to her on the telephone?! The very means of communication that had caused the issue. What person in the hospital management decided not to visit her or invite her in for a friendly, supportive conversation in person? (Since she was located just five minutes walk away.)
"There was a plan to have a chat [with her] at some time.'"
Really? And when was that due to occur?
Among the many "victims" of phone pranks in recent years. Number of the people who put those phone calls through who subsequently committed suicide? Zero.
Think of some of the other high-profile prank radio calls in recent years. Prank phone calls by radio DJs from different countries have been put directly through to the Queen, Tony Blair, Hugo Chávez, Fidel Castro, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, Sarah Palin and Pope John Paul II, among many. Do you recall hearing about suicides of the people who answered the phones and made the decision to put those prank callers through to their illustrious bosses? Of course not.
In most cases the people and institutions who have been pranked have had the wisdom and grace to put on a rueful smile, admit that their vetting protocols were faulty -- and move on.
And, prior to this week, we have never heard that the first contact point in a prank call has committed suicide. It's just not a normal reaction to what, in essence, was just a very bog-standard phone prank. The sort of prank that has been a staple throughout the world for five decades on TV shows such as Candid Camera and large numbers of radio shows.
An emotionally mature professional whose sole culpability in a matter was to be too trusting and not savvy enough to think carefully before putting through a call might be upset to have made a mistake. But to end one's life over such a matter? -- when one has a family and children to live for... ? Something is not adding up here.
So let's look at the one entity with something to lose in this matter.
I'm not referring to an Australian radio station that might lose a few advertisers for a while. That's part and parcel of modern-day media.
I'm thinking of the very tony private hospital that makes vast profits by charging substantial sums of money to the fabulously wealthy -- whether they be self-made billionaires, inheritors of vast stashes of lucre or royal family members on the very healthy annual stipend they get from UK taxpayers. If you're going to charge patients thousands of pounds a day for services that in real world terms probably cost £37.50 daily -- to keep your customers satisfied you have to maintain an image of supreme efficiency and utter security. Or at least project an illusion of those qualities.
What's at stake for the hospital is the reputation it brags about in its brochure and on its website
Obviously the Edward VII Hospital has found some additional ways to boost its already sumptuous profits. Why pay to have a trained telephone receptionist -- who has experience fielding incoming phone calls -- answer your switchboard at nights when you can save money by getting a registered nurse on night duty do the chore?
The Sunday Times confirms that the hospital was cheapskating its high-paying customers.
"Britain's most prestigious private hospital, a favourite with royalty and celebrities, does not employ trained telephone operators to work night shifts. Instead Saldanha, 46, a mother of two, had been asked to take calls -- a task she had done before and now considered routine."
The fact that a nurse has almost certainly not received training in how to field phone calls at a high-profile hospital with VIP patients likely to be of keen interest to media and others is something to ponder.
Especially give the pledge it makes to its patients (key passage highlighted)
This is what patients paying thousands of pounds a day are promised. Note the reference to "contractual and legal obligations" of the hospital's personnel
The initial reaction by the hospital's chief executive John Lofthouse to having its security breached by a pair of panto-level royal impersonators from an Australian radio station was: "We take patient confidentiality extremely seriously and we are now reviewing our telephone protocols."
Ya think?!
A fourth-rate boarding house in Blackpool domiciling a few scraggly end-of-the-pier variety performers would have had better protocols to prevent phone calls seeking celebrity residents being put through without at least minimal vetting. That's a basic courtesy to those who are guests (or patients) and pure common-sense.
Lofthouse also said: "I think this whole thing is pretty deplorable. Our nurses are caring, professional people trained to look after patients, not to cope with journalistic trickery of this sort."
Absolutely correct. So if the hospital's nurses are "caring, professional people trained to look after patients, not to cope with journalistic trickery" -- why was a nurse press-ganged by the hospital into undertaking such an important non-medical function that has major security implications? Why does the hospital not employ trained telephone operators at night-time? Cheaper to slough that chore onto a nurse perhaps?
The second and more pressing issue that we might never hear an honest answer to is what precisely was the initial reaction of the hospital management towards Jacintha Saldanha when she was telephoned by hospital management?
Especially given that the hospital's website pledges that:
"All personnel working at King Edward VII's Hospital are under both contractual and legal obligations to keep all patient information and records confidential."
Which of these two postulated reactions do you think is most likely to resemble what was expressed to Jacintha Saldanha when the hospital realized that its careful veneer of being a place worthy of £10,000 a night had been demolished within a few minutes?
Jacintha my dear... what a dreadful experience for you to have suffered. How could you have been expected to suspect that a voice sounding like a 30-year-old native of Sydney, Australia was not actually Her Majesty The Queen? Of course you were tricked. But think nothing of it. We aren't going to discipline you. Even though this is desperately embarrassing to us and might cost us millions in lost revenue. We don't care about that at all. All we care about is you. So take a few days off on full pay. And don't worry at all. We love you and we support you without any reservation.
Saldanha! You are a total moron! What were you thinking?! You know full well that we pride ourselves on our reputation. On making sure that our rich and famous punters always feel secure. You knew that there was enormous media frenzy about the Duchess. How on earth could you have put through a phone call from someone claiming to be the Queen without checking it first with another staff member. Your gross stupidity has embarrassed us. Don't come in for a couple of days while we think about what we're going to do with you...
And what would be governing the hospital's reaction? Well of course they would be concerned about the opinion of their primo customers the royal family.
Here's what Dickie Arbiter -- the queen's longtime former press secretary -- told the Daily Mail earlier in the week:
"This is a shocking breach of security. The Royal Family have been clients of the King Edward VII Hospital for many, many years and it simply beggars belief that a member of the public could call up and obtain details of the Duchess's medical condition in this way. Where on earth were the checks and balances? The hospital will be livid at what has happened and I am sure the palace will be demanding answers. There will be fireworks over this, for sure."
Based on that very expert analysis -- one is inclined to agree...
So you be the judge of what Jacintha Saldanha heard from the hospital.
What we're hearing now -- and we have zero means of determining whether its truth or self-protective spin -- is that the hospital was not going to discipline her. And that they were fully supportive of her.
Meanwhile -- in full damage control -- the hospital is blasting the radio station. It was all their fault.
As Mandy Rice-Davies would have put it so eloquently some 50 years ago -- "well they would say that, wouldn't they?"]]>Impeach the President Over the Recent U.S. Deaths in Middle-East!tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.21372842012-11-15T11:13:32-05:002013-01-15T05:12:01-05:00Martin Lewishttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/martin-lewis/
Of course the fact that it happened as the president was obviously focused on running for a second term couldn't have had anything to do with it!
And the White House has admitted that the news of the deadly attack also caused the president to break off from his golfing schedule. Boo-hoo!
It's a disgusting cover-up and we need to find out exactly how and why it happened!
• What did the president know and when did he know it?
• What was the Secretary of State doing?
• How come there wasn't proper security at an American compound in such a hotbed of Middle-Eastern terrorism?
• How come multiple warnings about the vulnerability of the facility were ignored? Especially after the attacks in that same area earlier this year.
• How come a CIA warning just three days before the attack was ignored?
• What role, if any, was played by the head of the CIA -- a man with plenty of war-time experience that should have helped the U.S. avoid this catastrophe?
The president has offered up platitudes: ''There are no words to properly express our outrage and, I think, the outrage of all Americans at the despicable act.'" Yeah big deal...
And the best that the vice president has said was that the U.S. "would not be cowed by terrorists."
None of that explains why security was so lax.
None of that explains why the president didn't act to prevent this.
And why he hasn't explained it all and sacked everyone whose negligence led to such a tragedy.
We need Watergate-style hearings immediately! And then this president should be impeached!
Yes... the murder of 241 U.S. Marines in their Beirut compound this October is a massive disaster. And we demand that President Reagan be held accountable and impeached!
The above blog was written in November 1983 -- but was misplaced until today.
FACT: 241 U.S. marines were killed in the Beirut barracks bombing on October 23rd 1983 -- as Ronald Reagan was gearing up to run for re-election in 1984. (The attack caused Reagan to cut short one of his many golfing vacations.)
FACT: The Reagan administration had been warned that the Beirut barracks was vulnerable following the bombing of the U.S. embassy in Beirut just 6 months earlier on April 18, 1983. But nothing was done to beef up the Beirut barracks security.
FACT: The CIA under Director Bill Casey -- who got his first experience serving during World War II -- showed no leadership. And he was unable to explain why the intelligence service he headed failed the USA
FACT: The Long Commission (report published in December 1983) investigated the bombing attack and found that senior military officials were responsible for security lapses and blamed the military chain of command for the disaster. The Commander-In-Chief was not held accountable.
FACT: Despite evidence that emerged about the Reagan administration's negligence, the Democrats did not challenge the President or his administration on the topic for ONE ENTIRE YEAR AFTER THE ATTACK. The Democrats in the House and Senate were patriotic and supportive of the USA and the President for a full 12 months after this terrorist attack. (Just as the Democrats were in 2001 after 9/11).
FACT: The Democrats did not try to score political points against the President and his administration in the aftermath of the deadly tragedy. They put their country before their political agenda... ]]>Petraeus on How to Surge!tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.21050282012-11-09T20:54:38-05:002013-01-09T05:12:01-05:00Martin Lewishttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/martin-lewis/General Petraeus tells his Boswell (sic) how he surges...
General David Petraeus's Rules for Living Broadly And Well
Inspired by his recent emission on the topic -- as told to his Boswell-style biographer Paula Broadwell -- who was embedded with him in Afghanistan...
1. Bed by example from the front. Take your sexual performance personally. If you are proud to be average -- you will droop.
2. A bedder must provide a vision -- and communicate those ideas throughout the entire organ and to all those who are holders.
3. A bedder needs to have energy. Don't be a Viagra thief.
4. There is an exception to every rule. It is up to bedders to determine when sexceptions should be made and to sexplain why they made them.
5. We all will make mistakes. The key is to recognize them and admit them, to learn from them, and to take off the rear view mirrors--drive on and avoid bedding them again.
6. Be humble. The people you'll be bedding already have on-the-ground experience.
7. Be a player. Your triumphs and failures will, obviously, be yours. Take ownership of both.
8. Don't rely on wank. If you rely on wank, rather than on the persuasiveness of your log, the problem could be you and either your thinking or your communication skills. Likewise, sometimes the best times come from bottom-up.
9. Bedders should be thoughtful but decisive. Don't shrink. Embrace. Some times the best move is the bold move.
10. Stay fit to fling! Your body is your ultimate weapons system. Physical fitness for your body is essential for marital fitness.
11. The only thing better than a little copulation is a lot of copulation.
12. Everything on your team is emission critical. Instill in your member a sense of great self-worth.
13. Dr Johnson had a Boswell as a biographer. Your Johnson deserves a broad well equipped to be a biographer.
General Petraeus gets a woman to put him in her binder...
FURTHER STUDY
• Paula Broadwell's 2012 book: Fall In!: The Beducation of General David Petraeus
• Paula Broadwell - Feb. 2012 interview: "I'm not in love with David Petraeus, but I think he does present a terrific role model for young people..." ]]>Mitt Romney Lands Mega-Star Endorsement! (Video)tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.20507502012-10-31T14:51:09-04:002012-12-31T05:12:01-05:00Martin Lewishttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/martin-lewis/
He's just secured the support of iconic TV pitchman JOE ISUZU! A man who knows a thing or two about using TV to sell "deals" to the American public!
His endorsement comes in a brand-new series of web-adverts. A 60-second spot and two 10-second spots.
Full Disclosure
The "Mitt Isuzu" adverts star David Leisure who originated and portrayed Joe Isuzu 1986-2001. Directed by Michael Salomon. Editorial Consultant: Peer Shelton. The spots were conceived and produced by humorist/producer/marketing strategist Martin Lewis.
This post is meant as satire and does not represent factual events.]]>Donald Trump Offered Hair-Raising Five TRILLION Dollars to Reveal All!tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.20106632012-10-24T14:16:23-04:002012-12-24T05:12:02-05:00Martin Lewishttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/martin-lewis/
Many Americans have serious questions -- questions that should not be part of the national dialogue. Is it real? Is it a rug? A comb-over? Did the young Donald yearn to be one of the Ronettes or Dusty Springfield? Was he a closet fan of the tribal-rock musical "Hair"? Is his hair really made from Yellow Matter Custard?
It is for this reason that I have a deal for the Donald -- a deal that I do not believe that he can refuse. If Donald Trump agrees (or has his barber or make-up artist agree) to give all of his hairdressing records and dye applications, I will give to a charity of his choice (Therapy for Maniacal Moguls, Assistance for People Suffering from High Self-Esteem, Balder Relief Fund etc) a check for five trillion dollars!. That's a five with twelve zeroes. $5,000,000,000,000.
(That's right. Enough to pay for the entire Mitt Romney tax cut!)
When he does that to my satisfaction, and if it's complete, the check will be delivered immediately. A lot of people will be very, very happy.
Frankly, it's a check that I very much want to write. I absolutely would be the most happy of all if I did in fact make this contribution through the Donald to a charity of his choice. One caveat -- the records must be given by October 31st at 5pm in the afternoon.
(Americans dressing up as Trump for Halloween that night need the information to help them perfect their "Delusional Donald" look.)
So Mr. Trump, not only will I be happy and totally satisfied, but the American people will be happy and the selected charity will be very very happy. Thank you Mr. Trump!
]]>Now Then! Now Then! Sir George Young Gives Sir Jimmy Savile 'ell!tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.19910742012-10-20T00:47:50-04:002012-12-19T05:12:01-05:00Martin Lewishttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/martin-lewis/
Or -- to give new Tory Chief Whip Georgie his full name -- George Samuel Knatchbull Young (6th Baronet)!
Just hours after he was appointed as Chief Whip to replace the disgraced, unfrocked and de-cycle-clipped Andrew Mitchell, bloggers exhumed the long-forgotten nugget that a youthful Sir George Young -- with two of his then Savile-bait-age kids -- had featured in a British Rail poster with Jimmy Savile in 1982.
A copy of the poster appears lurking on a page of George Young's official website
Apparently not-so-young George has been too absorbed this past month with the possibility of getting back into government as a replacement for the universally-loathed Andrew Mitchell to notice that the plebbish disc jockey beaming from a page on his website is someone whose name and smirking likeness must now be totally expunged from one's history.
(Tech note to George Young: Delete text and image. Empty cache and refresh page).
Alas when George Young supervised the creation of his hagiographic website, he didn't bother to proof-read the text that accompanied the BR poster. A minor point of accuracy that some people think is the sort of skill that those in government should consider mastering.
Jimmy Savile has been a prominent national figure for 50 years. Long enough that the spelling of his surname isn't exactly a state secret.
Margaret Thatcher -- who proposed him for his knighthood in June 1990 -- certainly knew how to spell the name of her buddy on the invitations she frequently sent him to visit her at Chequers during her eleven-year reign.
But there it is on Young's website.... Savile's surname spelled incorrectly.
George gave him 'ell alright. An extra "L" in his surname! Spelling the name SaviLLe instead of Savile (just one "L").
Howzabout that then guys 'n' gals?! Perhaps Eton didn't crack the educational whip sufficiently on young George...
UPDATE!
GEORGE YOUNG FOLLOWS MY ADVICE AND SCRUBS SAVILE FROM HIS WEBSITE!
Golly gosh! That was quick! No sooner than we draw attention to the proudly displayed British Rail poster of Sir George Young and his Youngsters with Jimmy Savile on Georgie's website -- replete with embarrassing spelling error -- and make the suggestion that he launder his site -- than he actually undertakes the expungement!
With all the ruthless efficiency of Stalin air-brushing Trotsky out of the official Communist Party photographs -- George Young, aided no doubt by some Conservative Central Office apparatchik such as Michael Green (aka Grant Shapps) who knows a thing or two about deleting embarrassing websites -- has cleansed his website of all traces of Jimmy Savile!
Fortunately for those that care about Tory posterity, we have the before and after screen-grabs to document the rewriting of history...
NOW YOU SEE IT...
NOW YOU DON'T!
]]>Memo to Axelrod: Mis-Underestimating Romneytag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.19463972012-10-07T12:11:28-04:002012-12-07T05:12:02-05:00Martin Lewishttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/martin-lewis/]]>Un-Fair And Un-Balanced! Murdoch's UK Tabloid Denounced By Official UK Report For Its "Despicable Untruths"tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.18780582012-09-12T14:02:06-04:002012-11-12T05:12:01-05:00Martin Lewishttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/martin-lewis/
The "Despicable Untruths" smeared by Murdoch's UK tabloid in 1989 about the Hillsborough disaster
The 1989 Hillsborough tragedy in Sheffield, Yorkshire in the north of England in which 96 fans of Liverpool Football Club died after being crushed to death at a soccer game has finally, belatedly and definitively been laid solely at the hands of those responsible. The local police. Responsible both for the tragic, avoidable deaths in the first place. And for the sickening 23 years of victim-blaming and cover-up that followed.
But the police didn't act alone in blaming the victims and perpetrating a cynical and hurtful cover-up.
Prime Minister David Cameron -- of whom I am not a fan -- gave a very gracious full apology on behalf of the British nation for what he called the "double injustice" of the appalling tragedy and the foul cover-up by the police, government and some media (i.e. Murdoch media) that blamed the victims for their own deaths.
The fans were crushed to death because of failures in crowd management that were ultimately the responsibility of the local police. Not content with their culpability in the death of 96 individuals, the police chiefs then pro-actively covered up their felony and fabricated a narrative that the victims were responsible their own deaths.
Despicable lies that were trumpeted as "The Truth" by Rupert Murdoch's British tabloid The Sun. And also spread by then Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher who sanctioned her press lackey Bernard Ingham to publicly decry the dead victims as a "tanked-up mob" (i.e. a mob fueled by alcohol). Calumnies that have now been proven to be -- in the words of the official report -- "despicable untruths".
Just disclosed official government documents from the time of the release of the initial (1990) report on the tragedy reveal that Thatcher expressed her concern that the "broad thrust" of that first report constituted a "devastating criticism of the police." Not an acceptable narrative for the "law 'n' order" uber-conservative who depended on the police to inflict her policies of union-busting and poll-taxing on the British people.
This article isn't to recount the story of the tragedy and the 23-year history of cover-up -- which is very ably documented elsewhere on the internet. But to flag the names of some of the most loathsome people in this dreadful saga. And to call for them to be belatedly held to account.
• Rupert Murdoch. His UK tabloid The Sun reflected the worst instincts of Murdoch by publishing a front-page story that it KNEW was not substantiated -- that accused Liverpool soccer supporters of being the cause of the disaster and (among other things) of pick-pocketing the dead and urinating on the police who were trying to save victims. All demonstrable LIES.
• Kelvin MacKenzie. Murdoch's hand-picked puppet editor of The Sun (1981-1994) at the time of the 1989 tragedy. He exhorted one of his journalists to write the vilest story possible then ran it under a massive front-page headline "THE TRUTH." He has never made a sincere apology for what he knows were demonstrable LIES. He made one apology in 2004 and then publicly retracted it on a BBC TV show saying that he had only apologized because he was told to do so by Rupert Murdoch. In 2006 he added: "All I did wrong was tell the truth ... I was not sorry then and I'm not sorry now because we told the truth.""
• Harry Arnold. The "journalist" on The Sun who wrote the offending story. He claimed that editor Kelvin MacKenzie had encouraged him to write the story and he blamed the editor for the headline and presentation. He also unwittingly echoed Fox News' disingenuous slogan when he recently described his 1989 story as being "balanced and fair" (sic).
• Margaret Thatcher. British Prime Minister. On Monday April 16th 1989 -- just one day after the disaster -- records reveal that she huddled with the police chief for the area (Peter Wright -- Chief Constable of South Yorkshire), her media operative Bernard Ingham and her cabinet member for judicial matters (Douglas Hurd -- Home Secretary). At that meeting it was agreed to blame the Liverpool soccer supporters for the tragedy and exonerate the police.
• Peter Wright. Chief Constable of the South Yorkshire Police. Faced with the knowledge that it was his police department that had monumentally screwed-up and been responsible for the death of 96 innocent victims -- his instant response was to fabricate a narrative that the 96 victims had caused their own deaths.
The new official report has produced irrefutable evidence that no less than 164 statements made by policemen on duty that day were significantly amended as part of the cover-up and 116 of them had negative comments about the policing operation explicitly removed. Those reports were doctored to reflect the cover-up narrative sanctioned at the day-after meeting of Wright and Thatcher.
And what of the reprehensible reptiles who maligned the dead and who smeared an entire city?
These are not the only guilty parties -- but one has to start somewhere...
• Margaret Thatcher still has her fancy title: The Right Honourable The Baroness Thatcher LG OM PC FRS. She still draws a handsome government pension.
• Douglas Hurd is now: Baron Hurd of Westwell, CH, CBE, PC. He still draws a handsome government pension.
• Bernard Ingham is now a knight of the realm - Sir Bernard Ingham. He still draws a handsome government pension.
• Peter Wright retired as Chief Constable of South Yorkshire. He died last year without any official blemish on his character. His family still draws a handsome police pension arising from his now-tarnished service.
• Kelvin MacKenzie is no longer editor of The Sun. He still draws a handsome pension as a former employee of News International.
• Rupert Murdoch is still a citizen of the United States of America -- after undergoing a naturalization process that is designed to exclude anyone who is not "a person of good moral character"...
]]>The President Bragging About His Wartime Success in an Election Ad?tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.14675062012-05-02T08:30:08-04:002012-07-02T05:12:13-04:00Martin Lewishttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/martin-lewis/
While it is true that the President took the gutsy decisions that led to the success of the invasion and the many military successes of the last three years, as a Democrat he is expected to unilaterally disarm himself during a presidential election and allow his Republican opponent to attack his integrity and question his patriotism without defending himself by referring to any of the military successes that are to his credit as Commander-In-Chief.
And while -- based on his prior statements calling for the USA to stay out of World War II -- it would normally be very reasonable to question whether his Republican opponent Governor Thomas Dewey would have ordered the D-Day invasion -- to do so in an advertisement in the middle of this 1944 presidential election campaign is unfair and breaks the unwritten rule that Democrats are supposed to turn the other cheek to all attacks on their patriotism and fitness to protect the nation.
It is true that Governor Dewey was an isolationist and non-interventionist, opposed to the US sending any military aid to Britain or fighting the Nazis.
It is also true that Dewey has alleged that President Roosevelt knew ahead of time about the attack on Pearl Harbor.
It is additionally true that Dewey has stated about the President that "instead of being re-elected he should be impeached".
But tradition is tradition. Democrats must always be falsely portrayed as being weak on military matters and national security. And the fact that the Republican Governor's own on-the-record words make it questionable whether he would have ordered American troops to invade Nazi-occupied Europe is immaterial.
President Roosevelt must fight this presidential election with both his hands tied behind his back and give the Republican Governor a chance to obfuscate his isolationist statements that underscore the differences between the Democratic President and the Republican Governor...
And let The Best Man win...
The Democratic President vs The Republican Governor
• This blog was originally written during the presidential election campaign of 1944
• The great Internet outage of 1944 contributed to a slight (68 year) delay in it being published on Huffington Post
]]>Hello Goodbye: Why the Great Mike Wallace Instantly Forgot His Beatles TV Exclusivetag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.14114952012-04-08T22:14:45-04:002012-06-08T05:12:02-04:00Martin Lewishttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/martin-lewis/
Before Ed Sullivan introduced them live on his CBS variety show on Sunday February 9th 1964...
Before Jack Paar introduced a film clip about them on his weekly NBC entertainment show on Friday January 4th 1964...
Before Walter Cronkite introduced a news story about them on his CBS evening newscast on Tuesday December 10th 1963...
Mike Wallace actually beat them all to the Beatles punch.
Not that he remembered it.
Because just two hours after he became the very first person to introduce American TV viewers to the Beatles via a five-minute film story about the phenomenon of Beatlemania sweeping Britain -- something rather more newsworthy occurred.
Mike Wallace hosting "CBS Morning News" in 1963 (photo: CBS Photo Archive/Getty Images)
For the day that Mike Wallace scooped Sullivan, Paar, Cronkite, Brinkley, Huntley and every other American TV host by presenting a film clip of the Beatles on his mid-morning show CBS Morning News With Mike Wallace was... Friday November 22nd 1963.
The tragedy of President Kennedy's assassination naturally meant that everything else that happened earlier that day was of zero consequence. And as the world mourned JFK and became engulfed in the awful news, the light-hearted story that Mike Wallace had presented just two hours earlier faded very rapidly.
Wallace himself forgot all about it.
But 18 days later one man DID remember it.
Mike Wallace's senior colleague at CBS News -- Walter Cronkite.
Cronkite was looking for a way to lift the spirits of the devastated American public with a cheerful segment. And he recalled the film clip that Wallace had introduced on his Morning News show that dreadful Dallas morning. The clip had originally been intended to be repeated that same night (November 22nd) on Cronkite's own newscast. But of course the regular Nightly News was preempted by rolling news coverage about the assassination.
Cronkite decided to resurrect the story and on Tuesday December 10th 1963, he re-aired the sparkling five-minute film clip of the Beatles enchanting their British fans. To a nation still reeling from the massive emotional trauma of JFK's assassination, the exuberant optimism of the Fab Four offered solace and the glimpse of a New Beginning. The film clip triggered an astonishing chain reaction that kick-started Beatlemania in the USA. The Beatles would have happened in America anyway of course. But the velocity and magnitude of their American breakthrough sprang from that Walter Cronkite news story. The one that Cronkite saw Mike Wallace introduce...
As so many of his colleagues and competitors would discover over the years -- Mike Wallace got there first.
So... Hello Goodbye Mike Wallace. And thank you.
FASCINATING FOOTNOTE - WHAT THE BEATLES WERE DOING IN BRITAIN AT THE EXACT SAME TIME THAT MIKE WALLACE WAS INTRODUCING THEM TO AMERICA -- THE DAY THAT JFK DIED...
On the day that Mike Wallace gave the the Beatles their American TV debut, the Beatles were far away in England and blissfully unaware of the existence of Mike Wallace -- and of the tragic events in Dallas that changed the world.
The Beatles in November 1963
They played two concerts that night in a theatre called The Globe in a little town in the north-east of England called Stockton. The first concert started at 6.15pm GMT and the second at 8.30pm GMT.
Poster advertising the Beatles concert on November 22nd 1963
The Beatles on stage the night of Friday November 22nd 1963
The Beatles had been focused all that day and night on the release that day of their second LP (long-player) - the album titled With The Beatles -- with its iconic cover photographed and designed by Robert Freeman. Just two months later that same cover would be re-purposed by the Beatles' new US label Capitol Records for their debut US album Meet The Beatles.
The cover of the Beatles' second album With The Beatles -- released in the UK on Friday November 22nd 1963
The five-minute film clip presented by Mike Wallace that introduced the Beatles to the USA on Friday November 22nd 1963 -- and again when presented by Walter Cronkite on Tuesday December 10th -- has survived. But alas the introductions by Mike Wallace and Walter Cronkite no longer exist. The film clip can be seen on YouTube. Please note that the well-intentioned fan who posted the clip has erroneously dated the clip as November 21st 1963. But all the historical records -- including those of CBS News -- confirm definitively that this film clip aired on Friday November 22nd. Just two hours after America first met the Beatles -- the world lost John F. Kennedy. Hello Goodbye...
]]>George Zimmerman's Lawyer Prepares His Twinkie Defense Strategy "The Monty Python Defense"tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.13792892012-03-26T19:37:06-04:002012-05-26T05:12:01-04:00Martin Lewishttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/martin-lewis/
Further, my client was raised on a steady diet of the educational television program "Monty Python's Flying Circus" in which people are taught to use a gun to shoot people armed with such frightening weapons.
Assailant armed with a lethal banana
For example in the lesson "Self-Defense Against Fresh Fruit" (Season 1: Episode 4), a man who is attacked by an assailant wielding a banana is only prevented from being murdered by shooting the attacker with a handgun.
Dangerous banana-wielding assailant stopped by Stand-Your-Ground gun blast from a Colt 45
The same program makes clear that homicidal maniacs bearing such dangerous weapons as oranges, apples, lemons, grapefruit, pomegranates, grapes, passion-fruit, plums, cherries (both red and black) and mangoes in syrup can ONLY be thwarted by using deadly force.
So my terrified client -- confronted by a teenage boy who was eleven years younger than him and an intimidating one hundred pounds lighter -- dressed in full-military combat hoodie and brandishing an inter-continental ballistic bag of Skittles -- quite naturally flash-backed to the educational TV programs of his youth and the sequence in which vulnerable people can only defend themselves against such dangerous assailants by shooting them stone-dead with a gun at point-blank range.
The deadly weapon (over 2,700 calories) facing George Zimmerman that he was forced to defend himself against
Given this, I say that the only possible course of action is for my client to be found not chargeable for any breach of law. Especially not the **NRA-instigated statute enthusiastically signed into law in 2005 by the admirably porcine Florida governor John Ellis Pierce ("Oh just call me 'Jeb'") Bush that guarantees all Floridians the right to blow away anyone they don't like the look of. The so-called "shoot-first-be-exonerated later" law.
Furthermore he deserves to receive profuse and full apologies for any suggestion that just because there is audio of his 911 call in which he clearly mutters the words "fucking coons" immediately before shooting to death a 17-year-old African-American boy -- he was in any way motivated by racist beliefs. He is an American hero in the same vein as Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity and Michael Savage -- and he fully deserves to be given his own regular prime-time TV show on Fox News.
He is a gentle man who simply tried to protect his neighborhood from the dark side of life. One day -- when George Zimmerman has been exonerated of these fallacious liberal media smears -- he will be seen as a great American hero. In the vein of other patriots such as the great Oliver North... G. Gordon Liddy... Mark Fuhrman, who were all also once willfully accused of misdeeds only to be exonerated and given their own radio and TV shows.
** "NRA" - acronym for Neanderthal Reactionary Agitators]]>
General Petraeus tells his Boswell (sic) how he surges...
General Petraeus gets a woman to put him in her binder...
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