Controversial pathologist’s rise to fame in 1990s led to national debate in the US over assisted suicide Jack Kevorkian, the pathologist known as Dr Death who claimed to have helped 130 people commit suicide when terminally ill, died on Friday in Detroit. He was 83 and had been in hospital since last month with pneumonia. Kevorkian’s rise to fame, or infamy, in the 1990s led to a national debate in the United States on assisted suicide. He built a suicide machine, known as the Mercitron or Thanatron, which he operated out of a Volkswagen van to inject a lethal drug dose for people who sought his help in dying. After one of his injections was shown on national television, he served eight years in jail for murder, but lived to see his life made into an award-winning HBO movie last year, starring Al Pacino. Kervokian provocatively likened himself to Martin Luther King or Mahatma Gandhi, but the American Medical Association called him “a reckless instrument of death” who posed a great threat to the public. For nearly a decade, he evaded efforts to stop him. Four trials resulted in three acquittals and one mistrial. His home state of Michigan had no law against assisted suicide in the early 1990s, but later enacted one in response to Kevorkian’s activities. During his trials supporters filled courtrooms wearing “I Back Jack” badges. He called his prosecutors “Nazis”, and said that doctors who did not agree with him were “hypocritic oafs”. In 1996 he arrived in court wearing US colonial-era costume of white wig, breeches, gold brocade coat and tricorn hat, and waving a copy of a letter by Thomas Jefferson which he said defended suicide for the terminally ill. “My ultimate aim is to make euthanasia a positive experience,” he told the New York Times. “I’m trying to knock the medical profession into accepting its responsibilities, and those responsibilities include assisting their patients with death.” In March 1999 a Michigan jury found Kevorkian guilty of second-degree murder, after he videotaped himself administrating a lethal injection to Thomas Youk, a man with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. The video was sent to the 60 Minutes TV news show, and caused a national outcry as well as serving as prime evidence for a first-degree murder charge. “You had the audacity to go on national television, show the world what you did and dare the legal system to stop you,” said judge Jessica Cooper. “Well, sir, consider yourself stopped.” Kervorkian was sentenced to 10 to 25 years in jail, and served eight years. Geoffrey Fieger, his lawyer and friend, said: “He was a physician who had an acute sense of compassion and a respect for the dignity of his patients.” Asked if Kevorkian would have chosen to end his life by suicide, given the opportunity, Fieger responded that he had neither the physical or mental strength to make that decision in his final days. “Jack Kevorkian didn’t have an obligation or a duty to society to end his life in the manner in which some of his patients did,” Fieger said. “Everyone chooses the very end for themselves.” Fieger said of Kevorkian: “It’s a rare human being who can single-handedly take on an entire society by the scruff of its neck and force it to focus on the suffering of other human beings. It’s a rare human being who has the courage of his convictions, and is strong enough to stand up against the never-ending threats and attacks of the most powerful figures of our society.” Kevorkian’s life story became the subject of the 2010 HBO movie, You Don’t Know Jack, which earned Al Pacino an Emmy and a Golden Globe award for his portrayal of Kevorkian. Pacino paid tribute during his Emmy acceptance speech, calling Kevorkian “brilliant, interesting and unique”. “You’re all right Jack,” Pacino said waving his award at the doctor, who sat smiling in the audience. Jack Kevorkian United States Dominic Rushe guardian.co.uk
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Bashar al-Assad’s regime also cuts internet access across most of country in attempt to quell popular uprising Syrian security forces killed at least 34 people when they opened fire during one of the largest anti-government protests so far in the 10-week uprising, activists saidat least 34 people were killed on Friday/, in a city where thousands died in a failed revolt against the regime 30 years ago. One of the largest protests calling for the removal of President Bashar Assad was in Hama, where Assad’s father killed thousands in 1982 and emerged to rule uncontested, the carnage seared into national memory. “It is a real massacre,” said a witness who took part in in Friday’s protests in Hama and fled the gunfire. “People were running, shouting. We ran up to people’s homes and hid there until the gunfire died down.” The protests appear to be the biggest since the uprising began in mid-March, with people gathering in ever larger numbers in cities and towns across the country, said Rami Abdul-Rahman, director of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. Protests also swept through several suburbs of Damascus, and the capital’s central Midan neighbourhood, which has seen demonstrations in recent weeks. The movement has been loosely organised on Facebook pages and is increasingly inspired by footage of the crackdown on YouTube. Abdul-Rahman said the increase in the number of protesters reflected the lack of trust in any government concessions, including a call for national dialogue. In Hama, the witness and activists said at least 100,000 people took part in the protest, making it one of the largest in the city so far. Thirty-four people were killed, said Abdul-Rahman. Human rights groups say more than 1,100 people have been killed nationally since mid-March. “Today’s protests are a reaction to the so-called overtures by the regime which has lost all credibility. It’s the people saying we will not accept this anymore,” said Najib al-Ghadban, a US-based Syrian academic and political activist. Al-Ghadban said the Hama demonstration was especially significant, calling it “a qualitative leap that will encourage others to do the same.” He said most of the protesters were born after the 1982 massacre and do not harbour the same fear as their elders. “They heard about it, which is positive because it makes them more bent on keeping their protest movement peaceful. They don’t want a repetition of the massacres.” “You cannot separate what happened in 1982 from what is happening now. It’s the same trend, but of course the world has changed so it cannot be on the same scale,” he said. The Syrian Brotherhood, a Sunni Muslim fundamentalist movement, led a violent campaign against the government of Assad’s father, Hafez Assad, in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Hundreds died as it attempted to instil Islamic rule. In 1982, Assad’s army crushed a Sunni uprising by the Brotherhood in Hama over three weeks, flattening much of the city and killing between 10,000 and 25,000 people, according to Amnesty International estimates. A witness in Hama said chaos broke out as troops fired tear gas and live ammunition and snipers opened fire on tens of thousands of peaceful protesters who were calling for freedom and Assad to step down. “People started running while the dead littered the streets,” he said. The activist, who like many involved in the protests requested anonymity to avoid reprisals, said hospitals were calling on people to donate blood. Syria’s state-run TV said three “saboteurs” were killed when police tried to stop them from setting a government building on fire in Hama. The Syrian government blames armed gangs and religious extremists for the violence. Abdul-Rahman said security forces killed one person in the village of Has in the northern province of Idlib, where tens of thousands of people protested. Another activist, Mustafa Osso, said security forces shot dead eight protesters in the city of Homs and three in the north-eastern city of Deir al-Zour. State-run TV said five policemen were wounded in Deir al-Zour but did not say how. The opposition had called for nationwide rallies on Friday to commemorate the nearly 30 children killed by the regime in the uprising. Syrian troops also pounded the central town of Rastan with artillery and gunfire for a seventh day, killing at least two people, according to the local coordination committees, which help organise and document Syria’s protests. They said troops also opened fire on residents fleeing the town. Friday’s deaths bring the toll in Rastan and nearby Talbiseh to 74 killed since last Saturday. In the southern city of Daraa, where the uprising began 10 weeks ago, scores of people rallied in the old quarter, chanting “no dialogue with the killers of children,” an activist said. The protesters were referring to a decree by Assad to set up a committee to lead a national dialogue. The regime also released hundreds of political prisoners this week after Assad issued a pardon. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said leading Kurdish politician Mashaal Tammo and Muhannad al-Hassani, who heads the Syrian Organization for Human Rights, were released Thursday. A Syrian activist said authorities cut internet service in several parts of the country, apparently to prevent activists from uploading footage of the protests and the government crackdown and from organizing new resistance. In Damascus, several people contacted over the phone said the internet was down. The government has cut internet service in areas of military operations before and occasionally disrupted service, but Friday’s service loss appeared to be the most widespread. Many activists found alternate ways to log on and upload videos, such as satellite connections. Video surfaced earlier this week on YouTube, Facebook and websites of Hamza al-Khatib, a 13-year-old boy whose tortured and mutilated body was returned to his family weeks after he disappeared during the protests. The boy has since become a symbol to Syria’s uprising and many people carried his posters during anti-regime rallies this week. Syria Middle East Arab and Middle East unrest Bashar Al-Assad Protest guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …Bashar al-Assad’s regime also cuts internet access across most of country in attempt to quell popular uprising Syrian security forces killed at least 34 people when they opened fire during one of the largest anti-government protests so far in the 10-week uprising, activists saidat least 34 people were killed on Friday/, in a city where thousands died in a failed revolt against the regime 30 years ago. One of the largest protests calling for the removal of President Bashar Assad was in Hama, where Assad’s father killed thousands in 1982 and emerged to rule uncontested, the carnage seared into national memory. “It is a real massacre,” said a witness who took part in in Friday’s protests in Hama and fled the gunfire. “People were running, shouting. We ran up to people’s homes and hid there until the gunfire died down.” The protests appear to be the biggest since the uprising began in mid-March, with people gathering in ever larger numbers in cities and towns across the country, said Rami Abdul-Rahman, director of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. Protests also swept through several suburbs of Damascus, and the capital’s central Midan neighbourhood, which has seen demonstrations in recent weeks. The movement has been loosely organised on Facebook pages and is increasingly inspired by footage of the crackdown on YouTube. Abdul-Rahman said the increase in the number of protesters reflected the lack of trust in any government concessions, including a call for national dialogue. In Hama, the witness and activists said at least 100,000 people took part in the protest, making it one of the largest in the city so far. Thirty-four people were killed, said Abdul-Rahman. Human rights groups say more than 1,100 people have been killed nationally since mid-March. “Today’s protests are a reaction to the so-called overtures by the regime which has lost all credibility. It’s the people saying we will not accept this anymore,” said Najib al-Ghadban, a US-based Syrian academic and political activist. Al-Ghadban said the Hama demonstration was especially significant, calling it “a qualitative leap that will encourage others to do the same.” He said most of the protesters were born after the 1982 massacre and do not harbour the same fear as their elders. “They heard about it, which is positive because it makes them more bent on keeping their protest movement peaceful. They don’t want a repetition of the massacres.” “You cannot separate what happened in 1982 from what is happening now. It’s the same trend, but of course the world has changed so it cannot be on the same scale,” he said. The Syrian Brotherhood, a Sunni Muslim fundamentalist movement, led a violent campaign against the government of Assad’s father, Hafez Assad, in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Hundreds died as it attempted to instil Islamic rule. In 1982, Assad’s army crushed a Sunni uprising by the Brotherhood in Hama over three weeks, flattening much of the city and killing between 10,000 and 25,000 people, according to Amnesty International estimates. A witness in Hama said chaos broke out as troops fired tear gas and live ammunition and snipers opened fire on tens of thousands of peaceful protesters who were calling for freedom and Assad to step down. “People started running while the dead littered the streets,” he said. The activist, who like many involved in the protests requested anonymity to avoid reprisals, said hospitals were calling on people to donate blood. Syria’s state-run TV said three “saboteurs” were killed when police tried to stop them from setting a government building on fire in Hama. The Syrian government blames armed gangs and religious extremists for the violence. Abdul-Rahman said security forces killed one person in the village of Has in the northern province of Idlib, where tens of thousands of people protested. Another activist, Mustafa Osso, said security forces shot dead eight protesters in the city of Homs and three in the north-eastern city of Deir al-Zour. State-run TV said five policemen were wounded in Deir al-Zour but did not say how. The opposition had called for nationwide rallies on Friday to commemorate the nearly 30 children killed by the regime in the uprising. Syrian troops also pounded the central town of Rastan with artillery and gunfire for a seventh day, killing at least two people, according to the local coordination committees, which help organise and document Syria’s protests. They said troops also opened fire on residents fleeing the town. Friday’s deaths bring the toll in Rastan and nearby Talbiseh to 74 killed since last Saturday. In the southern city of Daraa, where the uprising began 10 weeks ago, scores of people rallied in the old quarter, chanting “no dialogue with the killers of children,” an activist said. The protesters were referring to a decree by Assad to set up a committee to lead a national dialogue. The regime also released hundreds of political prisoners this week after Assad issued a pardon. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said leading Kurdish politician Mashaal Tammo and Muhannad al-Hassani, who heads the Syrian Organization for Human Rights, were released Thursday. A Syrian activist said authorities cut internet service in several parts of the country, apparently to prevent activists from uploading footage of the protests and the government crackdown and from organizing new resistance. In Damascus, several people contacted over the phone said the internet was down. The government has cut internet service in areas of military operations before and occasionally disrupted service, but Friday’s service loss appeared to be the most widespread. Many activists found alternate ways to log on and upload videos, such as satellite connections. Video surfaced earlier this week on YouTube, Facebook and websites of Hamza al-Khatib, a 13-year-old boy whose tortured and mutilated body was returned to his family weeks after he disappeared during the protests. The boy has since become a symbol to Syria’s uprising and many people carried his posters during anti-regime rallies this week. Syria Middle East Arab and Middle East unrest Bashar Al-Assad Protest guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …Bashar al-Assad’s regime also cuts internet access across most of country in attempt to quell popular uprising Syrian security forces killed at least 34 people when they opened fire during one of the largest anti-government protests so far in the 10-week uprising, activists saidat least 34 people were killed on Friday/, in a city where thousands died in a failed revolt against the regime 30 years ago. One of the largest protests calling for the removal of President Bashar Assad was in Hama, where Assad’s father killed thousands in 1982 and emerged to rule uncontested, the carnage seared into national memory. “It is a real massacre,” said a witness who took part in in Friday’s protests in Hama and fled the gunfire. “People were running, shouting. We ran up to people’s homes and hid there until the gunfire died down.” The protests appear to be the biggest since the uprising began in mid-March, with people gathering in ever larger numbers in cities and towns across the country, said Rami Abdul-Rahman, director of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. Protests also swept through several suburbs of Damascus, and the capital’s central Midan neighbourhood, which has seen demonstrations in recent weeks. The movement has been loosely organised on Facebook pages and is increasingly inspired by footage of the crackdown on YouTube. Abdul-Rahman said the increase in the number of protesters reflected the lack of trust in any government concessions, including a call for national dialogue. In Hama, the witness and activists said at least 100,000 people took part in the protest, making it one of the largest in the city so far. Thirty-four people were killed, said Abdul-Rahman. Human rights groups say more than 1,100 people have been killed nationally since mid-March. “Today’s protests are a reaction to the so-called overtures by the regime which has lost all credibility. It’s the people saying we will not accept this anymore,” said Najib al-Ghadban, a US-based Syrian academic and political activist. Al-Ghadban said the Hama demonstration was especially significant, calling it “a qualitative leap that will encourage others to do the same.” He said most of the protesters were born after the 1982 massacre and do not harbour the same fear as their elders. “They heard about it, which is positive because it makes them more bent on keeping their protest movement peaceful. They don’t want a repetition of the massacres.” “You cannot separate what happened in 1982 from what is happening now. It’s the same trend, but of course the world has changed so it cannot be on the same scale,” he said. The Syrian Brotherhood, a Sunni Muslim fundamentalist movement, led a violent campaign against the government of Assad’s father, Hafez Assad, in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Hundreds died as it attempted to instil Islamic rule. In 1982, Assad’s army crushed a Sunni uprising by the Brotherhood in Hama over three weeks, flattening much of the city and killing between 10,000 and 25,000 people, according to Amnesty International estimates. A witness in Hama said chaos broke out as troops fired tear gas and live ammunition and snipers opened fire on tens of thousands of peaceful protesters who were calling for freedom and Assad to step down. “People started running while the dead littered the streets,” he said. The activist, who like many involved in the protests requested anonymity to avoid reprisals, said hospitals were calling on people to donate blood. Syria’s state-run TV said three “saboteurs” were killed when police tried to stop them from setting a government building on fire in Hama. The Syrian government blames armed gangs and religious extremists for the violence. Abdul-Rahman said security forces killed one person in the village of Has in the northern province of Idlib, where tens of thousands of people protested. Another activist, Mustafa Osso, said security forces shot dead eight protesters in the city of Homs and three in the north-eastern city of Deir al-Zour. State-run TV said five policemen were wounded in Deir al-Zour but did not say how. The opposition had called for nationwide rallies on Friday to commemorate the nearly 30 children killed by the regime in the uprising. Syrian troops also pounded the central town of Rastan with artillery and gunfire for a seventh day, killing at least two people, according to the local coordination committees, which help organise and document Syria’s protests. They said troops also opened fire on residents fleeing the town. Friday’s deaths bring the toll in Rastan and nearby Talbiseh to 74 killed since last Saturday. In the southern city of Daraa, where the uprising began 10 weeks ago, scores of people rallied in the old quarter, chanting “no dialogue with the killers of children,” an activist said. The protesters were referring to a decree by Assad to set up a committee to lead a national dialogue. The regime also released hundreds of political prisoners this week after Assad issued a pardon. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said leading Kurdish politician Mashaal Tammo and Muhannad al-Hassani, who heads the Syrian Organization for Human Rights, were released Thursday. A Syrian activist said authorities cut internet service in several parts of the country, apparently to prevent activists from uploading footage of the protests and the government crackdown and from organizing new resistance. In Damascus, several people contacted over the phone said the internet was down. The government has cut internet service in areas of military operations before and occasionally disrupted service, but Friday’s service loss appeared to be the most widespread. Many activists found alternate ways to log on and upload videos, such as satellite connections. Video surfaced earlier this week on YouTube, Facebook and websites of Hamza al-Khatib, a 13-year-old boy whose tortured and mutilated body was returned to his family weeks after he disappeared during the protests. The boy has since become a symbol to Syria’s uprising and many people carried his posters during anti-regime rallies this week. Syria Middle East Arab and Middle East unrest Bashar Al-Assad Protest guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …Bashar al-Assad’s regime also cuts internet access across most of country in attempt to quell popular uprising Syrian security forces killed at least 34 people when they opened fire during one of the largest anti-government protests so far in the 10-week uprising, activists saidat least 34 people were killed on Friday/, in a city where thousands died in a failed revolt against the regime 30 years ago. One of the largest protests calling for the removal of President Bashar Assad was in Hama, where Assad’s father killed thousands in 1982 and emerged to rule uncontested, the carnage seared into national memory. “It is a real massacre,” said a witness who took part in in Friday’s protests in Hama and fled the gunfire. “People were running, shouting. We ran up to people’s homes and hid there until the gunfire died down.” The protests appear to be the biggest since the uprising began in mid-March, with people gathering in ever larger numbers in cities and towns across the country, said Rami Abdul-Rahman, director of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. Protests also swept through several suburbs of Damascus, and the capital’s central Midan neighbourhood, which has seen demonstrations in recent weeks. The movement has been loosely organised on Facebook pages and is increasingly inspired by footage of the crackdown on YouTube. Abdul-Rahman said the increase in the number of protesters reflected the lack of trust in any government concessions, including a call for national dialogue. In Hama, the witness and activists said at least 100,000 people took part in the protest, making it one of the largest in the city so far. Thirty-four people were killed, said Abdul-Rahman. Human rights groups say more than 1,100 people have been killed nationally since mid-March. “Today’s protests are a reaction to the so-called overtures by the regime which has lost all credibility. It’s the people saying we will not accept this anymore,” said Najib al-Ghadban, a US-based Syrian academic and political activist. Al-Ghadban said the Hama demonstration was especially significant, calling it “a qualitative leap that will encourage others to do the same.” He said most of the protesters were born after the 1982 massacre and do not harbour the same fear as their elders. “They heard about it, which is positive because it makes them more bent on keeping their protest movement peaceful. They don’t want a repetition of the massacres.” “You cannot separate what happened in 1982 from what is happening now. It’s the same trend, but of course the world has changed so it cannot be on the same scale,” he said. The Syrian Brotherhood, a Sunni Muslim fundamentalist movement, led a violent campaign against the government of Assad’s father, Hafez Assad, in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Hundreds died as it attempted to instil Islamic rule. In 1982, Assad’s army crushed a Sunni uprising by the Brotherhood in Hama over three weeks, flattening much of the city and killing between 10,000 and 25,000 people, according to Amnesty International estimates. A witness in Hama said chaos broke out as troops fired tear gas and live ammunition and snipers opened fire on tens of thousands of peaceful protesters who were calling for freedom and Assad to step down. “People started running while the dead littered the streets,” he said. The activist, who like many involved in the protests requested anonymity to avoid reprisals, said hospitals were calling on people to donate blood. Syria’s state-run TV said three “saboteurs” were killed when police tried to stop them from setting a government building on fire in Hama. The Syrian government blames armed gangs and religious extremists for the violence. Abdul-Rahman said security forces killed one person in the village of Has in the northern province of Idlib, where tens of thousands of people protested. Another activist, Mustafa Osso, said security forces shot dead eight protesters in the city of Homs and three in the north-eastern city of Deir al-Zour. State-run TV said five policemen were wounded in Deir al-Zour but did not say how. The opposition had called for nationwide rallies on Friday to commemorate the nearly 30 children killed by the regime in the uprising. Syrian troops also pounded the central town of Rastan with artillery and gunfire for a seventh day, killing at least two people, according to the local coordination committees, which help organise and document Syria’s protests. They said troops also opened fire on residents fleeing the town. Friday’s deaths bring the toll in Rastan and nearby Talbiseh to 74 killed since last Saturday. In the southern city of Daraa, where the uprising began 10 weeks ago, scores of people rallied in the old quarter, chanting “no dialogue with the killers of children,” an activist said. The protesters were referring to a decree by Assad to set up a committee to lead a national dialogue. The regime also released hundreds of political prisoners this week after Assad issued a pardon. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said leading Kurdish politician Mashaal Tammo and Muhannad al-Hassani, who heads the Syrian Organization for Human Rights, were released Thursday. A Syrian activist said authorities cut internet service in several parts of the country, apparently to prevent activists from uploading footage of the protests and the government crackdown and from organizing new resistance. In Damascus, several people contacted over the phone said the internet was down. The government has cut internet service in areas of military operations before and occasionally disrupted service, but Friday’s service loss appeared to be the most widespread. Many activists found alternate ways to log on and upload videos, such as satellite connections. Video surfaced earlier this week on YouTube, Facebook and websites of Hamza al-Khatib, a 13-year-old boy whose tortured and mutilated body was returned to his family weeks after he disappeared during the protests. The boy has since become a symbol to Syria’s uprising and many people carried his posters during anti-regime rallies this week. Syria Middle East Arab and Middle East unrest Bashar Al-Assad Protest guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …Jon Stewart did a good job of making me really sad that Bill Moyers is no longer on the air at PBS anymore with this interview this week. Stewart was Moyers first interview segment after coming back on the air at PBS and Stewart was happy to return the favor with him plugging his new book, Bill Moyers Journal: The Conversation Continues . Stewart and Moyers discussed the state of journalism today and our media relying on opinion rather than actual reporting to fill their airways.
Continue reading …Jon Stewart did a good job of making me really sad that Bill Moyers is no longer on the air at PBS anymore with this interview this week. Stewart was Moyers first interview segment after coming back on the air at PBS and Stewart was happy to return the favor with him plugging his new book, Bill Moyers Journal: The Conversation Continues . Stewart and Moyers discussed the state of journalism today and our media relying on opinion rather than actual reporting to fill their airways.
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The Pew Research Center and the Washington Post teamed up to find out how America feels about the current (possible) candidates for the Republican party’s 2012 bid. The top response was unimpressive, perhaps because it was the most polite way to say many of the other words on the list. Researchers surveyed 1,000 people—a pretty
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O2 Arena, London The great master of observational comedy is back. This was Jerry Seinfeld’s first show in the UK in 12 years, and he arrived in the midst of a live comedy boom in full swing: a country crazy for standup, crazy for “have you ever noticed … ?” and “what is it with … ?” – all those things of which Seinfeld is the supreme exponent. And he soon demonstrated his superb knack for hyper-inflating the implications of some absurd little detail, getting massive laughs and making it all look very, very easy. He sets the joke up in the normal conversational voice – and builds, inexorably, to the cartoon-indignant voice: a squeaky-gravelly hysterical rant in which he will briefly fling his arms around with abandon, but complete control, and never a hint that he is seriously exercised or upset about anything. Can it really be true that Jerry Seinfeld is 57 years old? This great comic still appears to have the perky buoyancy of his great TV heyday: the 1990s –that innocent era between the fall of the Berlin Wall and that of the Twin Towers sometimes known, with various levels of irony or insensitivity, as the “Seinfeld decade”, the decade about nothing. Jerry Seinfeld could have been twenty years younger, and yet he still looked a very conservative figure in his sober dark suit and pale yellow tie done all the way up to the top button. This was an old-fashioned set in many ways, and it’s not too much of a stretch to imagine Bob Newhart doing it. His best material is about being middle-aged, about not being on Facebook and not being about to “twitter” any time soon. “I could actually set up a little round mirror for me to peck at between tweets,” he snapped, peevishly, exposing his top row of teeth. Only Jerry Seinfeld could do such utterly apolitical material – “The Middle East! Are they all crazy because it’s all sand and no beach?” – without it seeming bland. He talked about his mom in Florida, and we all grinned and applauded – perhaps imagining that his imaginary Florida-dwelling mom on the TV show was in fact his real mother and that we knew all about her. Nowadays, as he indirectly acknowledged in other parts of his set, Jerry himself is getting very close to the oldster time of life. And yet the eternal thirtysomething in him lived again on stage. His gags about marriage, and marriage problems are brilliant – though they do not have the edge of real pain, even despair, that Chris Rock brings to the same subject. Incautiously, Seinfeld sets up the fantasy that marriage is like a game show in which the wife is always last week’s returning, undefeated and undefeatable champion – incautiously, because it ran the risk of reminding the audience of Seinfeld’s recent, unhappy TV show The Marriage Ref. But the gags were just so good that nobody cared. Seinfeld still has the dependable alchemy that transmutes ordinariness – or at any rate a slightly unfamiliar American ordinariness – into comedy gold. His most brilliant line is about things like restaurants or movies which are supposedly “great” yet simultaneously “suck” – and that he longs for a restaurant which is “not bad”. Perhaps his comedy has that same unshowy, inspired not-badness which is also very, very good. There will always be something enigmatic about Seinfeld: he is a comic whose heart is worn invisibly, well away from his sleeve. What does he really think? What does he really feel? Who knows? Who cares? Seinfeld is just a naturally brilliant performer, who only gets better. He is becoming the Sinatra of comedy. Rating: 4/5 Jerry Seinfeld Comedy Peter Bradshaw guardian.co.uk
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Alright, class, are we ready for our American History class, courtesy of Sarah Palin? You betcha ! It’s been at least a few seconds since we last checked in on Sarah Palin’s Tour de Grift, which stopped yesterday in Olde Boston Towne. Her bus visited such historical sights as Paul Revere’s old shack, where Palin explained the colonist’s famous “midnight ride” before the 1775 battles at Lexington and Concord. The Internet is aflame in scholarly debate over this interpretation: He who warned, uh, the British that they weren’t going to be taking away our arms uh by ringing those bells and making sure as he’s riding his horse through town to send those warning shots and bells that we were going to be secure and we were going to be free and we were going to be armed. ::facepalm:: There’s a very well known saying that history is written by the victors. Can someone please tell Sarah she’s not winning??? Can we all just breathe a collective sigh of relief that this is not the person one heartbeat away from the Oval Office? But this brings me to my current state of disgust at the breathless way she is covered by the traditional media–or the “lamestream media” as she refers to them. She cannot even recall the most dumbed-down conventional history of Revere’s claim to fame (remember ” One if by land, two if by sea? “, turning it instead into some bizarro treatise on gun rights and the inherent liberty of being armed. Not to put too fine a point on it, but this is a non-serious person. Why does the media insist on treating her otherwise? Greg Sargen t: Come on, this is just crazy. Palin is not in this race, and even if she does run, most credible observers agree that she will be a weak candidate. Just imagine this kind of thing happening with regularity on the campaign trail. The GOP establishment doesn’t want her to run. If polls are to be believed, not even her own supporters want her to run. The other day, her camp actually leaked word that she would not be meeting with party leaders in key primary states in order to encourage a sense that she’s planning an unconventional presidential campaign ! To put it mildly, that’s not exactly credible. The bus tour itself has no coherent rationale whatsoever. She launched it, transparently, after media interest in her had died down precipitously. Palin is openly mocking reporters who are treating it as real news. Until she actually declares her candidacy, mark this his whole thing down as a complete con job. I’m with Justin Elliott on this : The sight of scores of reporters chasing after Palin’s shiny new bus is one of the most dispiriting media displays we’ve seen in a very long time. Even worse, it’s happening barely days after the political media got whipsawed badly by Donald Trump’s birther hucksterism! Please make it stop.
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