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Barack Hussein Obama must be a Moslem because of his middle name. Using that same irrefutable criterion, one must conclude that John Sidney McCain is Jewish. Just say the name Sidney and you conjure the images of a schlub accountant, a wisecracking deli man, or the retired garment worker in Florida. What do they have in common? Certainly not a foreskin.

Yes, I know that Sidney McCain does not look Jewish. But neither did Kirk Douglas until he turned 75. (So any minute now….) And the evidence is already there: Oy, is he a Sidney! Consider his campaign pledges. He denounces pork barrel legislation; so what has he got against pork? He also promises to cut government spending: the man just does not want to pay retail. As for his personal life, the stereotype holds true: his second wife is a younger, blonde shiksa. And what real Gentile would willingly hang around Joseph Lieberman? (Even we Jews are tempted to give the little nebbish a wedgie and steal his lunch money.)

Now that the world knows the truth, beware of a President Sidney. Would you want to see state dinners replaced by Sunday brunches? Do you want “The Star Spangled Banner” to be replaced by a Gershwin tune, even if it is easier to sing? (”Strike Up the Band” sounds patriotic but “I Got Plenty of Nuttin’ would be a more accurate state of the union.) Would you want an America run like a Hollywood studio? Well, that actually might be an improvement. If only we could be sure that Sidney McCain were as good as Louis B. Mayer.

The citystate of Venice was a republic by default. None of its ruling families was able to eliminate or terrorize its rivals. So the aristocrats agreed to share power but only among themselves. Their idea of a republic would be our idea of a country club. The club—the Grand Council–had 450 members; and the rest of Venice’s population amounted to 140,000 waiters and caddies. (But the club members were good tippers.)

However, even the Grand Council did not govern Venice. The club’s steering committee and executive board managed the day to day affairs of the mercantile empire. There was also the club president: the Doge. The Doge was elected for life, but the election process would have bewildered a Byzantine.

It was as much a lottery as an election. First, 30 members of the Grand Council were chosen by lot. from this group, 9 were chosen by lot. Those 9 members selected 40 members of the Grand Council; and from the 40, then 12 were chosen by lot. The 12 would select 25 members; and a lottery would pick 9 of them. They would elect 45 members, and then a lottery would choose 11 from them. The 11 would choose 41 members–who actually would elect the Doge. Oh, the Doge had to receive at least 25 out of 41 votes.

And you thought that our Electoral College was stupid. Yet, this convoluted system served Venice for five centuries, from 1268 to 1797.

Furthermore, this bewildering process did enrich our vocabulary. In the electoral lottery, each member received a wax ball which had to be broken open. If his wax ball contained a piece of parchment with the word “lector”, the lucky member proceeded to the next stage of the election. The word for these wax orbs was “ballotes.”

That does sound familiar.

Karl Rove described Barak Obama as an Ivy League, martini-sipping, country club elitist. Barak Obama denies that Barbara Bush is his mother.

Zimbabwe tyrant Robert Mugabe has announced that he is taking a leave of absence in order to run John McCain’s campaign. The new campaign manager criticized his candidate’s only theme: ‘Vote for McCain or the terrorists will kill you.’ According to Mugabe, the threat is too weak and vague. “Which terrorists? Somebody Muslim? I don’t want people to respond to our ads by public burnings of Omar Sharif’s bridge column. We have to focus the paranoia. No, our theme should be ‘Vote for McCain or WE will kill you.’ Voters will believe that. Homicidal hysteria is the one issue where Republicans still have any credibility.”

SCHOLARS SET DATE FOR ODYSSEUS’ BLOODY HOMECOMING

Using clues from star and sun positions mentioned by the ancient Greek poet Homer, scholars think they have determined the date when King Odysseus returned from the Trojan War and slaughtered a group of suitors who had been pressing his wife to marry one of them. It was on April 16, 1178 B.C. that the great warrior struck with arrows, swords and spears, killing those who sought to replace him, a pair of researchers say in Monday’s online edition of Proceedings of the National Academy of Science.

Now that the “Odyssey” can be taken as gospel, this divinely-inspired book should be taught in high school biology classes. We all know that puberty turns boys into pigs but “Odyssey” tells that it can be done literally. In fact, the Odyssey should be the core curriculum of all classes. Don’t worry–Odysseus is consistently heterosexual. The book’s advice for dealing with unwelcome house guests should be the basis of our immigration policy. (Perhaps Odysseus could have spared the lives of any of Penelope’s suitors who were willing to do yardwork.) The Odyssey can be also be the foundation for an improved criminal justice system; blinding certainly discouraged Polyphemus and is likely to have the same effect on drunks, cannibals and the annoyingly handicapped. Finally, Homer’s divine work offers us a winning strategy for Iraq: a giant wooden horse. If that ruse ended one war in Asia, why not another?

Topic I: The Depths of My Depravity

This weekend I attempted to corrupt an innocent mind by telling her that John Wesley had founded the Methodist School of Acting. I even offered her a famous example of Methodist acting:

“I couldah been a contendah–which would notah been possible if we was subject to predestinarian determinism. So my one-way ticket to palookaville was a mattah of Free Will.”

Topic II: What is Chinese for Aquitaine?

I recently discovered that China has a recycling policy. No, I am not referring to the use of human waste for fertilizer or packing material. (And keep in mind, the “compost’ on your Walmart purchases may not all be from China; Walmart rarely gives its employees washroom breaks.) My revelation occurred while watching the Chinese costume epic “Curse of the Golden Flower.”

Set in Medieval China (of course, that could be only 70 years ago), the film depicts a web of palace intrigues. The Empress and the Emperor are plotting against each other; their three sons are exploited as pawns but those young princes have machinations of their own. In the first 30 minutes, I saw one poisoning, one of those marvelously choreographed martial arts duels, and two seductions (one verging on incest). For all this hectic activity, something about the film seemed remarkably familiar. Suddenly, I recognized what it was: a Chinese version of “The Lion in Winter.”

As Mr. and Mrs. Tang, Henry II and Eleanor of Aquitaine have lost their sense of humor but gained a much better wardrobe. Tenth century China was richer and more sophisticated than twelfth century Europe. The Tangs’ casual opulence surpassed the best that the Plantagenets had to offer. But the Tang dynasty also seems more disfunctional than the Plantagenets. At the end of “The Lion in Winter”, Eleanor is going back to prison, the princes are in rebellion, but everyone is alive and in a comparatively good mood. As “The Curse of the Golden Flower” ends, the Emperor is still cheerful, but he has beaten to death one son, forced another to suicide, and driven the Empress mad. Spare the rod…

And I am looking forward to more Chinese recycling. I anticipate an epic about a headstrong if footbound heroine during the Taiping Rebellion: “Gong with the Yin”.

Notre Dame, NBC agree to 5-year deal through 2015

In what may be the hiring coup of the millennium, NBC will have the political insights, the theological gossip and the Jewish mothering of the Virgin Mary. The ancient lady will be NBC’s equivalent to Barbara Walters.

The introductory reception featured fish and loaves. “Jeshie used my recipe” exclaimed His Mother who insisted that everyone called Her Miriam. “Virgin sounds much too formal. After all, I’m not Oprah.”

People noted her excellent command of English. She was asked if she had picked up the language from watching reruns of Fulton J. Sheen. “No, dahling. I was personally taught by Mr. Shakespeare. But first I made him apologize for that nasty ‘Merchant of Venice.’”

Addressing rumors, NBC denied that Miriam would be the new host of “Meet the Press.” “It just wouldn’t work,” explained a spokesman. “No one would want to lie to Her, so no one would come on the show.”

The stock market rallied on the news of the deal. Analysts noted that the Second Coming now definitely would not occur before 2015. “Jesus isn’t going to throw his mother out of work.”

Today is the 193rd anniversary of Waterloo. As you can imagine, I have spent the day comforting Catherine Deneuve, Carol Bouquet, Juliette Binoche and Eva Green. (All right, try to imagine it.)

I just turned in a magazine article on “The Rise of Napoleon.” The editor asked for 1200 words; the least that I could write was 1600. For a small man, Napoleon defies brevity.

Napoleon had a thick Corsican accent. A Corsican accent could be described as bad Italian and worse French. In fact, Napoleon did not learn French until he was ten. When the Emperor of France met the Tsar of Russia in 1807, they spoke to each other in French; but it was noted that the Tsar had the better accent.

Desperate for attention, Fox News has announced the “tragic death of John Gibson.” The network reports that Mr. Gibson was killed, shielding the pregnant body of Ann Coulter, in a terrorist attack by Keith Olbermann. When reporters disputed the pregnancy of Ms. Coulter, the Fox media liaison exclaimed, “So Olbermann did kill the child.” When John Gibson was seen working in the Fox mailroom, the media liaison responded, “It truly is a miracle. His overbite must have absorbed the explosion.”

CNN has denied the death of Wolf Blitzer. “That is just the way he is.”

And CBS is offering a guest appearance on “How I Met Your Mother” to anyone who can make Katie Couric “disappear.”

To celebrate Father’s Day, let’s consider some of the worst fathers in history.

Surprisingly, very few Roman emperors would qualify. Perhaps that is one of the benefits of sterility. Marcus Aurelius was one of the few potent potentates, and he was too good a father. He left the Empire to his completely incompetent son. (And we know George H.W. Bush’s role model.) The Emperor Constantine demonstrated his Christian virtues by executing his oldest son; the prince was rumored to be having an affair with stepmother. The lady died rather abruptly, too. Somehow this episode did not inspire the saying “Chastity begins at home.”

Herod the Great really did not massacre innocent children, but he could be ruthless with annoying ones. He executed three of his sons. One was a treacherous weasel (his paternity was never in doubt). The other two were merely obnoxious and overbearing; imagine if Meyer Lansky had somehow sired Ben Stiller and William Kristol. You could have guessed the outcome, and can we really blame Herod? Besides, Herod had an additional four sons, so he could afford the braticide.

Among the privileges of being a Tsar was killing your son. Ivan the Terrible won an argument with the Tsarevitch by applying a staff to the young man’s skull. Ivan immediately regretted his impetuosity and ordered the execution of anyone who might have caused him to be in a bad mood. Peter the Great’s reforms did not include a liberal approach to childrearing. Finding his son supported the Court’s conservatives, Peter had the Prince tortured to death.

Of course, who is to say that Ivan and Peter were being prudent? Spare the rod…lose the throne. When Alexander I seized the Russian throne from his father Paul I, Dad was “accidentally” strangled.

I suppose we should consider Henry II of England as our role model for both father and ruler. When your sons plot against you, just do enough to thwart and defeat them; but try to refrain from killing them.

There was a fifty/fifty chance that one of our states might have been “Henriettaland”. Fortunately, the wife of Charles I had a more palatable middle name: Marie. That probably was the most tolerable thing about her.

On this day in 1625, she became the wife of Charles I. What an unfortunate time for an English king to be a heterosexual. It did not help that Charles was a weak-willed dolt. The French Princess Henrietta was a domineering, belligerent moron. Her father, Henri IV was a wise, adoit, charming, tolerant ruler but who died when his daughter was an infant. Henrietta took after her mother, a blundering battle-axe (yes, Henri cheated on her) whose inept regency of France triggered rebellion and coups. In fact, the Queen Mother was eventually exiled by her annoyed son Louis XIII (on the always wise advice of then Bishop Richelieu).

However, England had no Richelieus. (James I had picked his ministers for their looks.) Charles I simply…very simply…deferred to his wife. Henrietta’s goading and provocations triggered the civil war that would kill her husband. In fairness, Cromwell should have beheaded her, too–but she was watching the Civil War from a spectator’s box in France.

Upon Restoration of the monarchy, she returned to England where her belligerent nature quickly exasperated her wise, adoit, charming, tolerant son Charles II (who obviously took after grandpere). She was encouraged to retire to France.

Nonetheless, as an observant Catholic, Henrietta Marie did have some admirers–among them her fellow parishioner Lord Calvert. In 1632 Calvert decided to sponsor a Catholic colony in North America, and it seemed a clever idea to name the haven for both the Queen of England…and the presumed Queen of Heaven.

If you enjoy reading coroner’s reports or watching road kill decay, that I would highly recommend The Chicago Tribune’s new comic strip, “The Adventures of Sam Zell.” (Any resemblance between this strip and a real person would be appallling.) In a brilliant innovation, the strip is the entire newspaper. It is the story of a ruthless wheel-dealer who acquires the bankrupt Tribune on terms indistinguishable from a license to steal. The strip’s hero basically uses the employees’ pension fund to buy the newspaper. The business euphemism for this is “leverage”; you could say that the Vandals certainly leveraged Rome. Of course, he promises to reimburse the pension fund by cutting the newspapers’ costs–such as the employees’ jobs.

He also intends to raise revenue. The newspaper is to reduce all that ink-wasting, eye-straining journalism and replace it with advertising: his stated goal is a newspaper that is half ads.
Furthermore, the reporters are told to think of ways to bring in money. Zell’s employees cannot afford ethics, so perhaps they should “leverage” a slant to their stories. The newspaper also apparently wants to increase its circulation by lowering its standards. The statuatory rape case of singer R. Kelly is receiving pornographically detailed coverage. A recent Tribune story described his alleged fetish; let’s just say that Kelly’s next single could be “My Groin is a Fountain.” The old Tribune would not have printed the word “bladder”, let alone illustrates its deviant uses.

So, each day now, I open the Tribune to see Zell’s latest havoc. Will he save ink by eliminating double consonants. Ilinois, basebal, batle, gramar–I still can decipher the words. Go ahead, Zell: spelling is such an affectation. I also am waiting to see product placement in the comic pages. You know that the Tribune’s Op-Ed page will endorse John McCain; for a little extra money, so will Dick Tracy. And wouldn’t you like to know Dagwood and Blondie’s favorite beer? But I am especially anticipating more “popular features” such as nude illustrations of all the First Ladies. If you have ever been “curious” about Lucy Rutherford and Mamie Eisenhower, Sam Zell thinks that you have the right to know!

So read the Chicago Tribune and see it go to Zell in a handbasket.