The News Shticker: Safire on the moon, Bar Refali, making Lenny Bruce proud on SNL
- Gawker posted a speech prepared by the late William Safire for President Richard Nixon in the eventuality that astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin would have become stranded on the moon.
- A. O. Scott, film critic for The New York Times, riffs on this year's abundance of Jewish-themed flicks, including Tarantino's "Inglourious Basterds," the Coen brothers' "A Serious Man" and Edward Zwick's "Defiance."
- A photo of a bikini-clad Bar Refali sent by a cellular phone company to clients as part of an ad campaign enraged women's rights group WIZO in Israel this week.
- Jewish comedian Jenny Slate, Saturday Night Live's most recent addition, got in trouble this week when she accidentally used the f-word in a live sketch. Lenny Bruce would be effing proud.
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Ross Nicholson
10/02/09 05:00 PM
Once upon a time, people who happened to be Jewish were fearful that no one would be interested in their stories. So many foreign words, you know? With help from Heaven, I set out to change the attitude of Steven Spielberg after he had made his first film, Dual. Spielberg was extremely reluctant to present a Jewish themed film, but I insisted upon it. I was eager to learn of the Shoah experience and encouraged him to teach us all. To us Christians, the Bible is a history book with an ending: our Jewish savior. To Jews, the Bible is Jewish History as well as religion. Jewish history continues forever and so will Shindler’s List, the concept that Steve and I fit together in a Chinese restaurant in Dallas, Texas, in 1972.
Back then there were many things wrong with the world. Jews, so slandered by those loathsome nazis, were hesitant to speak up to get to know their neighbors for fear of the same fate that befell their European brothers and sisters and children and old people. Spielberg learned his numbers with tattoos, and expected all Hebrew children would always learn their numbers similarly. African Americans had never been seen on TV, even the great Spielberg believed that merely using them as extras would doom a film. But no! Our Creator knew best that flicks could change minds and end segregations of thought, act, and suggestion. Suddenly there were Jews in films, and there were African-Americans in films, too. They added color and style, they added realism and charm, and they became welcome and expected--in every film everywhere. Pandering to prejudice ended in August, 1972, with the beginning and rise of little Stevie Spielberg. I talk too much. Read my book, free on google dot com, do a booksearch on Hillary’s Angel. I am the author, Ross Nicholson, and once the only real friend Steven Spielberg ever had in the whole wide world. Now the whole wide world is the friend of Spielberg.