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November 16, 1491:  Libel Epoque

Waterboarding works. Without its stimulating edification, Benito Garcia might never have realized that he was the leader of a Jewish conspiracy to murder Christian children and seize control of Spain. Until June 1490 Senor Garcia may have been under the impression that he was only an itinerant woolcomber. His education began with a robbery by some laudably pious thieves. As they ransacked the wayfarer’s possessions, they found a morsel of bread resembling a sacramental wafer. Had Garcia stolen it from a church in order to perform some evil Jewish ritual on the sanctified carbohydrate? The thieves decided to turn Garcia over to the authorities; and the authorities saw only the heresy rather than the irony. Furthermore, if this was heresy, then it was a matter for the Inquisition.

Initially, Garcia seemed unaware of his obvious guilt. Flogging failed to enlighten him. Then the rack also proved uninstructive. However, the water torture convinced Garcia of his guilt. Of course, Garcia’s crime required accomplices; he was persuaded to come up with four names. These people, once they had their tutorials, also had some remarkable self-realizations. More culprits were named and more crimes were confessed. After an edifying soaking, and in hopes of avoiding another, a Yuce Franco admitted to killing a Christian child near La Guardia, Castille as part of a magic spell that would make Spain’s Christians disappear.

Franco’s sensational admission required everyone to be interrogated again. They were persuaded to confess the murder, but no one could agree on the details. They did not concur on the name or description of the child, the site of the crime, or where the body was placed. Even the Spanish civil authorities were uncooperative; they failed to find any reports of a missing child in or near La Guardia. However, the Inquisition decided that those details were irrelevant. The confessions sufficed and could be taken as gospel.

On this day in 1491 Benito Garcia, Yuce Franco, and three others were burned at the stake. So were three corpses of men who had failed to survive until their execution. The trial and auto da fe occurred in La Guardia, but the accusations were known throughout Spain, spread and incited by the Inquisition. Expounding this “conspiracy” as proof of the Jews’ danger and enmity, Grand Inquisitor Tomas de Torquemada demanded the Jews’ expulsion from Spain. Isabella was gullible enough to agree. Ferdinand was craven enough to concur.

So, as Torquemada would have told you, waterboarding works.

If you are not fluent in 11th century English puns, the name of Aethelred the Unready sounds rather endearing. The Angle-Saxon English king might seem a vacillating, knee-knocking fumbler, the role model of Senator Harry Reid. In fact, Aethelred was an assertive, bold catastrophe. Whatever his royal ancestors had built and achieved over 150 years, Aethelred sabotaged and destroyed. Had he anticipated his great-great grandson, Alfred the Great would have had a vasectomy. Alfred had saved a ravaged England from the Vikings, and created the foundation of a prosperous kingdom; Aethelred did exactly the opposite.

Names do have meaning; no one thought of Aethelred for its lilting sound. In Olde Anglische, Aethelred means “well-counselled” , prudent or wise. So, as any medieval Englishman could tell you, “unready” means uncounselled or reckless. Adding the epithet of Unready to Athelred was an editorial pun. (It also demonstrates why English humor is best left to the Irish.)

Aethelred ascended the English throne in 978 at the age of ten, over the body of his half-brother. Aethelred’s mother had arranged that assassination; after all, he was only a stepson. (In posthumous compensation, the late king received a complimentary sainthood; the evil queen mother was also a generous benefactor to the Church, so presumably everyone benefited from the regicide.)

At the time, England was a prosperous country. The same could not be said of Denmark. Its King, Sweyn Forkbeard, had to pay tribute to the Holy Roman Emperor. Sweyn’s father, Harald Bluetooth, was unique among Viking raiders in that he actually lost battles. After some disastrous campaigns in Germany, Bluetooth could save his skin only by converting to Christianity and coughing up annual compensation to the Kaiser. Sweyn may have inherited better teeth but he was stuck with his father’s debts. So to pay the German tribute, Sweyn decided to extort tribute to England.

Beginning in 980 what would become an annual tradition, the Danish fleet would arrive in England, brushing aside the always inadequate defense, and rampaging until a satisfactory ransom was paid. Young Aethelred was no military prodigy; his attempts at battles were invariably defeats. He found it easier to amass tax collectors than an army. Gouging England to pay the Vikings’ tribute did not endear Aethelred to his subjects. So he took the precaution of hiring Danish bodyguards. (Of course, that required even more taxes.)

In 1002, however, Aethelred finally decided to free his kingdom from this Danish subjugation. On November 13th–St. Brice’s Day—he undertook this liberation by ordering the massacre of every Dane in England. The Vikings fleet had already returned home, so the Danes remaining in England were just merchants, artisans and tourists. At least Aethelred found Danes whom he could defeat. Hundreds were slaughtered. This certainly was Aethelred’s greatest victory, but was it really that decisive?

To put it in a modern context, imagine if the United States decided to solve our trade imbalance with China by ordering an attack on every P.F. Chang’s. Would the prospect of hundreds of dead waiters really force China to capitulate? Aethelred’s strategy actually did make an impression on Sweyn Forkbeard. One of the massacred Danes happened to be his sister. Sweyn now was determined to overthrow Aethelred.

It took 11 years but the next king of England was named Knut, a nice Danish name. Knut–alias Canute–was Sweyn’s son. As for Aethelred, he was spending his exile with in-laws in Normandy, a family connection that would assert itself in 1066. Any English resistance was left to his son, Edmund Ironside. Aethelred died of natural causes in 1016; his son managed to regain the English throne for a few months while Knut was busy in Denmark seizing that throne. Of course, upon Knut’s return, so did the English habit of losing. Edmund soon died; and very few think that it was from a natural cause. (One prurient theory postures that he was killed in a privy; apparently, his ironside did not extend all the way down.)

And for the happy ending, Canute proved an excellent king.

The writers’ strike has left us with this shocking realization: Larry King is the most intelligent man on television. He doesn’t need a staff of ventriloquists; he really knows every Esther Williams movie.

In today’s spam, along with the usual offers from billionaire Nigerian princes, was this advertisement:

WRITERS WANTED IN CALIFORNIE

Earn $200 an hour harvesting punchlines. Our workers’ camps have showers and Yoga instructors.

Yes, they tempt you with Paradise. But once you load the wife, the kinfolk and the pug into the truck, then drive to Californie (making a detour to push some of the kinfolk into the Grand Canyon), you’ll find the wages have gone down to $110 an hour. You struggle all day but then don’t get paid; the overseer doesn’t like your satirical commentaries on the Byzantine Empire. (Jay Leno has never heard of it.) So, rather than being beaten up by Ward Bond to the tune of “Red River Valley”, I’ll forego my career in migrant labor.

But without my scab wit, will Hollywood be forced to surrender? Not quite. The producers know the American public and the extent of our attention span. So, expect the networks to premiere such new shows as “I Love Lucy” and “Gunsmoke”. Thanks to computer technology, the shows can be updated to include profanity and nudity. (A nude Spring Byington might be hotter than you think.)

Even the gameshows can prove that they can do without writers. “Wheel of Fortune” now will allow misspellings. On “Jeopardy” the contestants will take questions from the audience.

Furthermore, the networks can buy television shows from abroad. For instance, Britain’s “Coronation Street” has 47 years of episodes, and it is in nearly intelligible English. (Someone from London can dub what they’re saying in Manchester.) Add Japanese samurai series and Mexican soap operas, and you have a full broadcasting schedule.

In fact, the networks may never again have to hire American writers. High school students in India are willing to work for extra credit. As television has repeatedly shown, you can write for any series with just two years of English, a subscription to Playboy, and a copy of “Yiddish for Dummies”.

To justify the cost of my cable television bill, I have to see 47 films a week. It is not that difficult. I sleep and eat on the couch; and the chamberpot fits under it. (Any olfactory indiscretions can be blamed on the pug.)

Here are my reviews of three films that I saw this weekend.

If you don’t have enough contemptible people in your life, “The Squid and the Whale” will make up for that deficit. To paraphrase Tolstoy, “Every unhappy family has its own story but I wouldn’t want it to be this nauseating.” The redeeming feature of the Berkmans of New York is that someday that they will die. Of course, in life and literature there are vicious, self-destructive families; they were a staple of Greek tragedies. However, Agamemnon and Clytemnestra are much more likable than Bernie and Joan Berkman. He is a pompous, pretentious bully; she is a self-absorbed, irrresponsible, aspiring psychotic. They are atrocious but without being interesting: petty monsters. You can imagine how endearing their children are. I suppose that the acting was good. Jeff Daniels and Laura Linney have never seemed so repulsive–although they will never pass for Berkmans. And here is an interesting footnote: one of their horrid brats is played by Owen Kline, the child of Kevin Kline and Phoebe Cates. In his role, the 14 year-old Owen is a thesaurus of obscenity–using language that I have never heard his parents say. (Of course, “Gremlins” did not really offer Ms. Cates the right venue to discuss oral sex.)

I did not intend to see “Gone With the Wind” again. The first five times might have seemed enough. But by accident, I switched to Turner Classic Movies just as the film began. Of course, I promised myself that I would just watch the first few minutes of the film–only until Clark Gable appeared; then I set a limit of half a hour, then maybe I’d stop after the burning of Atlanta, then after the first seven hours….The film is ridiculous but irresistible. Its purported history is outrageous: Abraham Lincoln should be ashamed of himself, ruining the lives of those kindly slaveowners and their adoring darkies. The never-ending melodrama of Scarlett O’Hara is absurd; fiddle-dee-dee, the man-eating monstress is laughably obvious.
And yet, Clark Gable and Vivien Leigh, with an almost flawless supporting cast of Olivia DaHavilland, Thomas Mitchell, Ona Munson, keep you mesmerized. (Yes, I am omitting Leslie Howard; I’m saving him for the footnotes.) This is far from the greatest film ever made, but it really is the best example of the glamour and charisma of Hollywood’s golden age. We just don’t make Clark Gables anymore.

Footnote No. 1: The role of Ashley Wilkes is a thankless role; a badly written part, Ashley is little more than an aesthetic cipher. Leslie Howard had certainly distinguished himself portraying men of ideas rather than action: “The Petrified Forest“, “Of Human Bondage” and especially “Pygmalion.” But Mr. Howard really had nothing to do in the film but languidly sigh. Worse, at 49 he clearly was too old to be Ashley. And if I may be so tactlessly ethnic, Mr. Howard’s aquiline nose and dark, world-weary eyes are not found among Southern aristocrats. His Ashley would have had to join the Ku Klux Kohens, wearing a long tallith instead a sheet. The young Tony Curtis, alias Bernard Schwartz, said, “When I went to Hollywood, I wanted to be the Jewish Leslie Howard; then I discovered Leslie Howard beat me to it.”

Footnote No. 2: While watching Vivien Leigh as Scarlett and Butterfly McQueen as her idiot servant Prissy, I kept thinking of Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas.

If I speak of “Narrow Margin” you are likely to think of a mediocre thriller with Gene Hackman and Anne Archer about a cop transporting a witness on a train filled with mafia killers. That film was a padded remake of a taut, excellent, but low-budget movie made some 30 years earlier. The original has been described as “one of the best B-movies ever made”, and I would testify to that before any grand jury. It starred Charles McGraw, a gruff-voiced, hard-bitten actor who most of us would recognize as a second-string villain. For example, in “Spartacus” he was the brutal gladiator instructor who Kirk Douglas drown in a cauldron of boiling stew. Here, however he is the hero, an honest cop with a dangerous and distasteful assignment of protecting an odious character. He doesn’t know whom to trust, and he has to wonder if the assignment is worth the risk. Most of us might be tempted to take the proferred bribe and let the Mafia have the pleasure. The story is gripping and brilliantly filmed; you really sense the constricted space of a train. (Claustrophobes be warned.) Yet, this film’s budget entire cost less than the catering bill for “Gone With the Wind“. Check Turner Classic Movies for the next broadcast of “Narrow Margin.”

And tonight I plan to tape “Night of the Hunter.” After all, I have only seen it once.

WASHINGTON, Oct. 31 — In adamantly refusing to declare waterboarding illegal, Michael B. Mukasey, the nominee for attorney general, is steering clear of a potential legal quagmire for the Bush administration: criminal prosecution or lawsuits against Central Intelligence Agency officers who used the harsh interrogation practice and those who authorized it, legal experts said Wednesday.

The biggest problem for Mr. Mukasey remains his refusal to take a clear legal position on the interrogation technique.

Addressing the Judiciary Committee, Mr. Mukasey explained, “I am personally opposed to waterboarding because I look terrible in a bathing suit. However, Sandre Dee, Annette Funicello and Deborah Walley looked great. And James Darren and Frankie Avalon weren’t bad in their pre-toupee days. I would not condemn surfing per se, but would judge each of the beach movies on its individual merits.

Beach Party is problematic. It is painful to see Dorothy Malone in such a dumb role; otherwise the film is okay. Regarding Muscle Beach Party, Bikini Beach and Beach Blanket Bingo , individually each is within the limits of the Geneva Convention. But a double feature could be torture. How to Stuff a Wild Bikini and The Ghost in the Invisible Bikini are crimes against humanity. And Harvey Lembeck is definitely a terrorist.”

The headliners read like a who’s who of music: Aerosmith, 50 Cent and Don Henley of the Eagles. No, it wasn’t the Grammys, it was 13-year-old Elizabeth Brooks’ birthday party — a $10 million mega bat mitzvah.

How could anyone spend ten million dollars on a bat mitzvah? From an ethical perspective, you can’t; and even from a financial view, it is a daunting challenge. But there are ways…

The traditional form of overkill would be to buy 250 tons of lox, along with cream cheese and assorted bagels. Aside from sating your guests–provide them with doggie bags by Gucci, this strategy would likely corner the lox market, preventing anyone else from having a bar mitzvah. In effect, you would be the most powerful Jew since Herod or at least Louis B. Mayer.

Of course, if you think that cholesterol is Anti-Semitic, consider a California theme. All your guests get plastic surgery. The bat mitzvah’s rhinoplasty can be done during the temple service: What better gift for a bat mitzvah than looking Gentile. Your guests will have their clips, lifts, and tucks during the luncheon: the open bar is all the anesthesia they’ll need. Everyone leaves looking like a 13 year old! For those who actually are 13, the California motif offers body piercings by Bulgari. And in honor of our Jewish roots, we can also provide designer tattoos based on Marc Chagall.

If you prefer a more mental form of ostentation, then you would want a bar mitzvah theme that would look good on a college application. For ten million dollars, the thirteen year-old can receive a Junior Nobel Prize. Fly your guests–and don’t forget the Harvard admissions office–over to Stockholm for the ceremony. King Carl Gustav will present the award (what else has he got to do). The ceremony will include the world premiere of Harold Pinter’s translation of the Torah.

Here is an excerpt:

God: Thou shall not kill.

Moses: I never do.

God: I wasn’t accusing you.

Moses: I might cheat at cricket.

Burning Bush: What kind of Jew plays cricket?

God: Now I can’t remember what I was going to command next.

Moses: Does it matter?

At the very least, this bar mitzvah will also be nominated for a Tony.

However, since there are already so many Nobel laureates, you might want a truly distinctive celebration. Do something that no one has ever done before: rent the Vatican for your bar mitzvah. What could be classier than having chopped chicken liver in the Sistine Chapel? Why settle for ice sculptures when you can have the actual Michelangelo Pieta lactating champagne? And who wouldn’t enjoy the Gregorian version of “Hava Nagillah”? Make your 13 year-old feel like a Messiah.

Remember: when money is no object, neither is taste.

What happens when you combine a Greek and a Jew? You either get 241 jokes about lawyers or the national flag of Great Britain. Since I have writer’s block, I will skip the 241 jokes and just give you the historical gossip about the Union Jack.

Until April 12, 1606, the flag of England was ostensibly the “cross of St. George”, two straight red lines transecting on a white background. St. George was the patron saint of England, although you can hardly imagine a cosmopolitan 4th century Greek bishop visiting the backwoods of Britannia.

Until April 12, 1606, the flag of Scotland was ostensibly “the cross of St. Andrew”, two white diagonal lines intersecting on a blue background. St. Andrew was the patron saint of Scotland, although you could be certain that an illiterate first century Jewish fisherman never heard of Caledonia.

On April 12, 1606, however, the two flags were combined, because both country were ruled by James, England’s first and Scotland’s sixth. King James was somewhat brighter than the average Stuart and considerably shorter, but he had the full extent of Scottish parsimony. (Being cheap did spare him a conflict over money with Parliament; his son should have been so stingy.) He probably thought that combining the two flags would save on fabric.

The flag soon was named the Union Jack, an allusion to the fact that the Latin form of James is Jacobus, alias Jack. Initially, the Union Jack was the monarch’s personal banner. England and Scotland continued to fly their respective “crosses.” But in 1707, someone kept Queen Anne sober enough to sign the Act of Union, combining Scotland and England into one country and under one flag.

In 1801, the Union Jack’s appearance was “freshened” and updated with the addition of a red sash of intersecting diagonal lines: “the cross of St. Patrick”. (St. Patrick was the patron saint of Ireland and, in an unprecedented coincidence, he really had been there.) You can just imagine just how thrilled the Irish were to be be represented on the Union Jack.

Wales, however, is excluded from the Union Jack. Its “cross of St. David” is two straight yellow lines transecting on a black background. Wales might have stayed independent if its soldiers had clashed as ferociously as its color scheme.

Mercy was the stock and trade of the Roman Empire. True, an Empire of mad Caesars, blood-crazed mobs and well-fed lions would not seem very charitable or lenient. (You could ask a Carthaginian if there were any left.) However, in its original Latin, mercy had nothing to do with virtue. It meant “trade.” The Latin word “mercari” proved remarkably versatile, the root for market, merchant, mercenary and even the name of a God. Fleet-footed and sleight-of-hand, Mercury was the patron of traders…and thieves. Mercari also provided France a way to say “thank you.” Finally, and unintentionally, mercari became the English word for clemency.

Let’s begin this mercurial odyssey. The Romans introduced “mercari” to Gaul but it hardly made a good first impression. After all, at Roman insistence, the Gaulish traded their liberty, land and livestock in exchange for the right to keep breathing. For four centuries, mercari meant supplying the local garrison with wine and pornographic pottery. Beginning in the fifth century, however, the word was reinvented, “new and improved” by a software company called Christianity.

Its sales force understood the principles of marketing. Prospective converts needed an incentive if they were to trade Jove for Jesus. So, the missionaries offered their customers a mercedes. No, it was not a deluxe German chariot, but it was a miracle of marketing. The word mercedes , in fact, was a variation of mercari, but its meaning had been embellished and burnished. A mercedes was more than a mere trade; it was a bargain, a reward, a blessing!

Those missionaries made a compelling sales pitch, guaranteeing morality and salvation. All that paganism could promise was provocative theater. The Gaulish realized which religion was the mercedes. In the fifth century, the conquering Franks came to the same conclusion and traded in Wotan. Since mercedes was synonymous with reward or blessing, the French began saying it to express appreciation. They did abridge it to two syllables-”merci”-but the French were never long on gratitude.

The English learned “mercy” from the Normans, and the lesson was in both Latin and French. The Norman conquerors included bishops as well as barons. The new prelates of England were bound by the tenets of Christianity, and the Church still promised “mercedes.” However, after six centuries in the Dark Ages, the Church really wasn’t feeling chipper. In this bleak 11th century perspective, the world was sinful, and mankind was unworthy of God’s mercedes. Such blessings were an undeserved favor. Of course, the Norman clergy were eager to terrorize their conquered congregations, promising eternal damnation unless the English proved abjectly servile. Even then, their hope of salvation was slim, dependent upon the generosity of Heaven. Any fate other than Hell was an act of mercedes.

Living under the Normans, the English already had a familiarity with Hell. The Normans were descended from Vikings who had overrun France. Over a century, they had acquired a facade of French culture, although the Norman idea of Christian conduct was limited to shaving. Now the new masters of England, they made no attempt to endear themselves to their subjects. On the contrary, the Normans routinely terrorized the English to teach them their place-with the livestock. The battered and cowed English became accustomed to abuse and degradation.

Then, the unexpected occurred in the 12th century. It might have been during Lent or in the wake of the Chivalry craze. An English servant had just finished his debasing drudgery (perhaps licking the stables) and now expected to receive a slap or a kick from the Norman lord or lady. Instead, the Norman muttered “merci.” The servant kept waiting for some affliction but nothing happened. The Norman repeated “merci” and waved the Englishman away. The amazed and relieved servant had never before heard the word “merci” but he could guess its meaning. The Norman was saying, “I won’t hurt you.”

By the 13th century, the distortion of mercedes and the misinterpretation of merci had converged into our meaning of mercy. So, from Roman greed, medieval gloom and Norman arrogance, we derived an expression of virtue. Whether or nor mankind is inherently sinful, we are habitually ironic.