FinermanWorks

The New York Times:

PARIS — On the elite trading floors here, where France’s brightest minds devise some of the most complex instruments in global finance, few people noticed Jérôme Kerviel.

He was lucky to be there at all. Many of his colleagues had been plucked from the prestigious Grandes Ecoles — the Harvards and M.I.T.’s of France — and wielded advanced degrees in math or engineering. Mr. Kerviel arrived from business school and started out shuffling paper in the back office.

But on Thursday the world came to know Mr. Kerviel, 31, as the most dangerous accused rogue trader ever, a young gambler who found himself sucked into a spiral of losses that left a $7.2 billion hole in Société Générale, one of France’s largest and most respected banks.

So, only an Ivy Leaguer–or at least a Sorbonne graduate–has the right to be a catastrophe. According to The New York Times, your degree of incompetence should be proportional to your degree. Monsieur Kerviel, having gone to Lyons Jr. College, is only entitled to steal office supplies. A 7 billion dollar loss deserves the cachet of Harvard Business School.
Now the Enron debacle had the proper pedigree. Andrew Fastow went to Penn’s Wharton School of Business and Jeff Skilling has his MBA from you-know-where.

And the Ivy prerogative to be a disaster is not limited to finance. After all, George Bush went to Yale. If he had merely gone to Texas A&M, we would only be trapped in a war in Bermuda.

Louis de Cazenave was one of the two last surviving French veterans of World War I. When he died this week, President Sarkozy gave a tribute to the man and the heroism of his generation.

Three weeks earlier Erich Kaestner, the last surviving German veteran of World War I, died. There has no comment, let alone tribute, from the German government. What is German for awkward silence? The Kaiser’s army was comparatively well-behaved; when Belgian civilians were arbitrarily executed, the victims were limited to adult males. Nonetheless, there must be a certain stigma to starting a war and then losing it (except in the American South).

What kind of movie would have the title “Quantum of Solace”? You’d guess that it was an indie film, based on a poem published in the New Yorker, in which the writer/director/star/caterer recounts his artistic and dermatological struggles. You will be relieved to know that you are wrong. But you will be mystified to learn that it actually is the title of the next James Bond film.

I am not making this up!

“The Quantum of Solace” does not convey either the mystique, violence or gilded body part that we expect in a Bond film. Can you imagine the plot appropriate for that title?

Mad scientist Jacques Derrida has created a completely debilitating form of literary criticism, and only James Bond can stop him. With exciting action scenes at the Stamford Crossword Puzzle Tournament, brunch at Tom Stoppard’s, and a hot tub with Joyce Carol Oates.

I can hardly wait. In the meantime, I am going to write the next James Bond script, “The Bildungsroman of Post-Modernism”, where Bond has to stop evil mastermind Simon Schama from hurting Julian Schnaubel’s feelings.

I do believe that there is a time and place for profanity: certainly, when you are driving. When confronted and endangered by buffoons behind a wheel, I surprise myself with words that I didn’t think I knew. However, while occasionally therapeutic, profanity is no substitute for wit. However, an ESPN personality named Dana Jacobson thought that the ever popular “f” made a wonderful punchline. At a celebrity roast for a sports figure, she recited a litany of who should “f” themselves, including Notre Dame University and Jesus Christ. The irony may be lost on her, but she ended up f-ing herself. Jacobson has been suspended from ESPN for at least a week, and her notoriety will last longer than that. Who knows if she will even keep her job?

Willliam Donahue of the Catholic Legion of Hysteria has called for her firing, preferably at the stake. I generally regard Donahue as a vicious medieval relic. He believes that “Going My Way” should win the Academy Award every year. Yet, I am inclined to agree with him about Dana Jacobson. Given her flagrant irresponsibility and her imbecilic judgment, what can she say that would be of any interest or value to the public? Even by the less than cerebral standards of sportscasting, she is just too stupid. You don’t ever “f” Jesus; I wouldn’t publicly say that about Torquemada. If you are going to be sacrilegious, at least be clever. As a measure of wit, profanity is the equivalent of Chapter 11.

If only Ms. Jacobson has asked me, I would have offered this commentary to an audience of Notre Dame alumni:

When I saw a picture of the shroud of Turin, I was surprised that Jesus wasn’t wearing a Notre Dame t-shirt. Well, actually He was more of a Brandeis type. Let’s face it: Jews are not the best athletes. What sport would the twelve Apostles play? Six chess games. Would you really want Jesus as your quarterback? Yes, He could cure blind referees but He would keep giving the ball to the neediest team. And he would be a disaster for your concession business, feeding 30,000 spectators with one hot dog and a cup of beer.

And since I know what Jews look like–I’m rarely out of sight of a mirror–let me tell you that your “Touchdown Jesus” is all wrong. Here is how you improve that mosaic: give him a loud but expensive jacket, a Rolex watch and some very stylish titanium glasses. Now, there’s a Jew who belongs on a football field…as a sports agent.

Act I, scene one: the wreck of a living room. A body stirs from the debris.

Bill: That was a good debate. Hill…Where are you?

voice offstage: I am tweezing the broken glass from my forehead.

Bill: Put ’em back in. Scars might help us with the veteran vote.

A ragged woman staggers in.
Hillary: Why couldn’t I have been President first?

Bill: It’s too late to change our strategy now.

Hillary: Well, we didn’t plan on being the victims of a vast left wing conspiracy.

Bill: It’s your charisma deficit. You’d think that the New York Times would appreciate an Ivy League, emasculating, quasi-Lesbian, cyborg bitch.

Hillary: ********white trash ***** lecherous*****parasite.

Bill: You know, campaigning against me would be a good idea for the general election. But we haven’t got the nomination yet. We need to cut a deal with Obama. Offer him the Vice Presidency and give Oprah two or three seats on the Supreme Court. I’m inviting him and Michelle over for drinks this evening.

Act II: The same wrecked living room, but now a few bottles are standing upright. Bill ushers the Obamas into the room.
Michelle: What an impressive decor. Arkansas traditional?

Bill: No, it’s Democrat contemporary.

Hillary: Save the charm for the voters. Listen, Barak, you scrawny upstart, this is my turn to be President and you are ruining it for me.

Bill: She said upstart, not uppity!

Barak: Don’t worry about the race thing. Michelle’s the only Black here. And if you are going to try buying me off, I’ll want more than 40 acres and a mule.

Hillary: The Vice Presidency.

Barak: That’s just 50 acres and a mule. If Michelle were here, she’d say that you were jiving me. That means you are attempting to deceive and cheat me.

Hillary: Yes, I learned that term from watching “Diff’rent Strokes”?

Barak: Was that the show with Will Smith?

Hillary: Gary Coleman. But I am willing to offer an ambassadorship to both of them.

Barak: Hillary, I want to be President, and People Magazine says I should be. So why should I wait for your turn?

Hillary: I could kill you.

Barak: I could kill you.

Hillary: Would you consider killing Bill?

Barak: Um. Where is he?

Hillary: I imagine that he is with Michelle, and you can imagine the rest.

Barak: Should we have sex in revenge?

Hillary: We can do better than that.

Act III: The inauguration of President Barak Obama. Standing next to him is his Vice President and wife Hillary.

America is definitely in recession. With oil commanding $100 a barrel, Mobile-Exxon evidently can no longer afford to subsidize Masterpiece Theater. (Actually, with oil at that price, the petroleum moguls no longer bother maintaining a friendly public image.) For some reason, PBS has renamed the series “Masterpiece.” Either deleting that extra word saved money, or today’s public no longer has the attention span for a two-word title.

The new host of “Masterpiece” is Gillian Anderson, who needs Cliffs Notes just to read the teleprompter. Ask her if she has ever read Austen, and she would think that you referred to a Texan city map. Worse, the production staff is not much brighter than Ms. Anderson. Reading with all the expression of Wolf Blitzer in a coma, Ms. Anderson relates how Ms. Austen sold the publishing rights to her first novel for a mere 10 Pounds. However, a little research might have provided a correct appreciation of that amount. Ten Pounds Sterling in 1800 would be worth $5000 today. That is not a fortune, but first-time writers are still at the mercy of their publishers. (And that explains the need for literary agents.) The average British laborer in 1800, one lucky enough to have a steady income, did not earn a Pound in a week. Miss Austen’s servants did not; but they were compensated with a drafty place to sleep and the used food leftover by the Austen family.

Those servants knew their place, which was not in Ms. Austen’s novels. She was a chronicler of her class–the gentry–and its travails of being snubbed by the aristocracy and crowded by the upcoming middle class. Even Britain’s war against Napoleon is seen through this social lorgnette. The navy, no matter how victorious, lacked the “suitability” of the army. You see, the naval officers were promoted on that vulgar criterion of merit. Horatio Nelson was just a vicar’s son. Army officers, however, purchased their commission; they need never stoop to earning their rank. Wellington, of course, was from gentry; his ability was simply a fortunate coincidence.

Yes, Jane Austen is a delightful writer. She regales us with the foibles and eccentricities of her world, but her insight stops short of realizing the inequity and injustice on which that world so smugly rests. There were two Englands. In Miss Austen’s, the heroines hungered for true love or at least an amiable marriage. In the other England, people simply hungered.

News Headlines:

“ISRAEL LAUNCHES LATEST SPY SATELLITE”

Designed to monitor the Iranian nuclear program, the Kibitzer Spy Satellite knows when you’re overpaying for uranium and using more heavy water than you should. The Kibitzer can also tell if there are any new Pakistani or North Korean physicists in the neighborhood, if they are married, where they go to brunch and what’s wrong with those restaurants.

JON VOIGHT CAMPAIGNS FOR RUDY GIULIANI

In the long awaited sequel to “Midnight Cowboy” we find Ratzo Rizzo and Joe Buck in Florida, and Ratzo is running for President. Although Ratzo died in the original film, the U.S. Constitution does not exclude corpses from the Presidency. Furthermore, there is a remarkable similarity between Rudy Giuliani and a decomposed Dustin Hoffman.

FRENCH WORLD WAR I VETERAN DIES

By Associated Press

PARIS – World War I veteran Louis de Cazenave died Sunday at age 110, his son said, leaving just one known French survivor of the 1914-1918 conflict.

The Wall Street Journal said Mr. de Cazenave’s death was proof of the inferiority of French socialized healthcare. Columnist John Fund insisted that de Cazenave would still be alive if only he were American. “Just look at all the Confederate veterans running for President.”

As the ongoing–and ongoing–political campaign reminds us, the history of rhetoric is replete with the shameless and the preposterous. Let me reassure you, however, that it could be worse. From a speechwriter’s perspective, the Roman Empire was the Golden Age of hypocrisy.

There has never been a more shameless gang of orators than the Roman Senate. Those patricians once ruled the Roman Republic, but they abdicated their power and self-respect. Their sole remaining responsibility was to flatter the Emperor. The senators did not merely praise the tyrant; they prayed to him. Their speeches were orgies of hyperbole. Of course, such profuse unction was often prudent. If faced with the choice of death or hypocrisy, you too might decide that Nero was an artistic genius. Most of the Emperors, however, were not mad or particularly murderous; they limited their killing to predecessors, their own relatives and the aspiring saints.

If terror did not inspire the speakers, ambition did. The speeches actually were audition for government office. Within the Empire’s bureaucracy, there were many prestigious positions that offered wonderful opportunities for graft. When the Emperor had to fill such posts, he certainly chose his most devoted advocates. The positions required some ability, but the Emperor did not mistake flattery for talent. On the contrary, the Romans appraised a man’s talents by his mastery of rhetoric. An excellent speaker demonstrated intelligence, education and discipline. His sincerity was irrelevant, but his eloquence made him a suitable candidate for honors and office.

One can only imagine the ambition that prompted this praise of the Emperor Elagabalus. The third-century ruler was proclaimed the son of a god, “the unconquered, the supreme, the harmonious.” In fact, Elagabalus was a teenage transvestite; he was considered such an embarrassment that his own grandmother arranged his murder. From the third century, we also have this example of a profitable speech.

The Emperor Philippus was depressed by his own incompetence, so he went to the Senate for reassurance. In that chorus of sycophants, Senator Decius distinguished himself. The orator exclaimed that the Gods were devoted to Philippus; an Emperor so beloved by Olympus need have no worries on earth. Philippus’ confidence was restored, and he rewarded Decius with a strategic command in the army. Perhaps the Gods were devoted to Philippus, but the army and Decius were not. A year later, Decius was the Emperor. He was to reign only two years, but at least he was not killed by a fellow speechwriter.

My wife displayed an unusually sadistic pleasure in anticipation of my dental appointment. And most of you probably would have been on her side! Apparently, I am insufferable where teeth are concerned. No, I am not one of these hygiene fanatics who will brush and floss their teeth in a movie theater. On the contrary, my teeth are effortlessly and unjustly perfect. I chug soda, I devour candy and I inhale ice cream. Yet in 55 years, I had one cavity–at the age of 47.

But now Karen was confident that justice–or at least overdue vengeance–would prevail. You see, I had a new dentist. My old practioner finally retired and with him the old, minimalist standards of the past. In the 47 years I had been his patient, he had never seen a need to X-ray my teeth. He evidently knew a masterpiece when he saw one. Karen, however, was shocked that my mouth never had been x-rayed, sonared or carbon-dated. She knew that modern science would reveal a series of caverns and catacombs that could be a PBS special. (National Geographic and Nova discover an ancient Egyptian Temple in Eugene’s mouth.) Although she failed to sell the television rights, Karen did organize an informal pool to guess how cavities I would have. The lowest estimate was two. Karen guessed (hoped) between four and six.

Well, I went to the new dentist and was subjected to all the latest advances in dental technology.

And, on the subject of my teeth, I am as insufferable as ever.

POPE CANCELS SPEECH AFTER PROTEST AT UNIVERSITY

January 16, 2008

ROME — Pope Benedict XVI, in a rare papal acquiescence to protest, has canceled a speech at the prestigious Sapienza University here amid opposition by professors and students who say he is hostile to science.

The pope’s speech at the university, which was founded by Pope Boniface VIII in 1303 and is now public, was to mark the start of the academic year. But professors and students objected, citing specifically a speech that Benedict gave in 1990, when he was Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, on Galileo, condemned by the Inquisition in the early 1600s for arguing that the Earth revolved around the Sun.

In that speech, Cardinal Ratzinger, who would become pope in 2005, quoted the Austrian philosopher Paul Feyerabend as saying: “The church at the time was much more faithful to reason than Galileo himself, and also took into consideration the ethical and social consequences of Galileo’s doctrine. Its verdict against Galileo was rational and just.”

Memo from the Pope to Gino:

Hold off on writing that excommunication of Nicholas Sarkozy. We’ll force that lecherous little Frog to go back to his first wife, but it can wait ’til next week.

Now I–that means my speechwriter–must deal with this Galileo thing from 18 years ago. This whole issue never had anything to do with science, you know. It was all a matter of tact–and Galileo didn’t have any. The Church knew that the earth evolved around the sun. We wouldn’t have spent all that money on the Gregorian Calendar without figuring out what made the calendar work in the first place.

Galileo had nothing new to say on the subject, but he just had to say it louder. The Church even gave him permission to publish his conclusions, so long as he followed Pope Urban VIII’s recommendation to be diplomatic to the supporters of the geocentric theory. Unfortunately, Galileo did not feel like being polite to advocates of idiocy; and he wanted to insult anyone who even tolerated the geocentric club. So instead of a nice, scholarly discourse, Galileo had to write a satire. In his “Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems”, Galileo has the geocentric theory espoused by a pretentious fool named Simplicius. Apparently overestimating the Church’s sense of humor, Galileo gave Simplicius a remarkable resemblance to the Pope.

And this was in 1632, right in the middle of the Thirty Years War. In the midst of religious genocide, the Church really did not need the distraction of a debate among our parishioners over the sun’s and the earth’s itinerary. Let’s face it: everything has to evolve around the Church. If Galileo couldn’t keep a civil tongue, he was lucky to have a tongue at all. We had nothing against the actual science; it was just at a really inconvenient time. Yes, the first convenient time turned to be 350 years later: nostra culpa.

But it really was Galileo’s fault. Did we condemn anyone else? No, because they were polite. Newton was willing to give God credit for inventing gravity. Einstein, Heisenberg, quantum physics–no problem; as long as it is unintelligible, the Church approves. Freud, well, that is just Jewish psychosis and is of no concern to the Church, at least since St. Paul. Did Edward Jenner brag, “Why didn’t Jesus think of this?” No, he didn’t; otherwise, we might have had to endorse smallpox. As for Darwin, he and the Church got along fine by ignoring each other.

So, it was always just a question of good manners. If science wants a grand unification theory, how about the Golden Rule?

Ex Cathedra Yours,

XVI