Category: Old Dish

Irresistible story from South Africa. Several pipes excavated from the Bard’s sixteenth century home that date to Shakespeare’s lifetime have been found to show traces of nicotine, coca leaves, and possibly marijuana. Well, that accounts for “Cymbeline,” I guess.

CLINTON SEX SCANDAL: Please not another one. The National Enquirer hits the stands today with an alleged expose of Bill Clinton’s alleged affair with Denise Rich. My heart sinks. At this point, a sexual angle will simply reduce Pardonscam to the same level of tawdriness that we saw in the Lewinsky Affair – and Americans’ admirable reluctance to judge someone’s private life will blur their focus on the real issue of corruption at the heart of the current scandal. Historically, sex has both ruined Clinton – but also saved him. Lets hope history isn’t repeating itself.

Priceless email memo from Marc Rich lawyer, Robert Fink, released to the Congressional Committee. “I learned from Mike Green today that our case is still pending and is part of a large group that may be considered,” Fink wrote January 2 to Rich and Quinn. “But his friend told him that we need a rabbi among the people in the counsel’s office (it seems Mike’s friend believes we do not have one yet).” Somehow, I don’t think Fink was looking for ethical advice.

AMAZON UPDATE: Cryptic emails from their service department and a few trial donations this end suggest the button may be working again – so we’ve removed the ‘temporarily unavailable’ sign. Give it a whirl. Sorry to be so tentative about this, but we’ve reluctantly come to the conclusion that Amazon’s share price is way too high for the kind of service they provide.

We’re still up a creek, waiting for them to lift their arbitrary and hidden cap on donations. So please be patient – and my eternal thanks for those of you who already pushed us close to the $1000 mark within a few hours. My bet is that we’ll have a click and send option working again within a day. And before too long, we’ll have an option that isn’t Amazon. I feel dumb. But it’s hard to beta-test a hidden donations cap of just under $1000. Meanwhile, there’s always checks and the mail: 101, W 23rd Street, Box 2347, New York, New York, 10011. THANKS AGAIN.

The Daily Cal, the University of California’s newspaper ran an apology this morning for running an ad yesterday with the title “Ten Reasons Why Reparations for Slavery Is A Bad Idea – And Racist Too.” The editors, caught unawares, responded today by saying that they would like to “formally apologize for the printing of a paid advertisement in yesterday’s edition. The full-page ad … was not condoned by the Senior Editorial Board, but we realize that the ad allowed the Daily Cal to become an inadvertent vehicle for bigotry.” Bigotry? David Horowitz has found what he thinks is the ad. You can read it here. I just did. Although there are plenty of reasons to disagree with the arguments of the ad, I can certainly find no evidence of actual bigotry in it. In fact, it’s generally quite persuasive, impassioned and informed. It specifically opposes the cause of reparations in part because of the blanket, racist assumptions that lie behind it, e.g. that all contemporary “blacks” are somehow victims of slavery and that all contemporary “whites” or “non-blacks” are guilty of participating in it. It says something about the creeping totalitarianism on many campuses today that even raising these issues is to run the risk of being labeled a “bigot.”

My own levels were rising this morning, thanks to Amazon.com. But the evidence for its significance is growing daily. The BBC this morning reports that University of Liverpool scientists have found a correlation between lengthy ring fingers in men and sports ability. If a man’s ring finger is longer than his index finger, he’s likely to be gifted at sports. Why? Dr John Manning, from the School of Biological Sciences, explains: “There is evidence that our fingers tell us how much of the male hormone testosterone we have been exposed to before birth. It is known that men with long ring fingers compared with their index fingers are highly masculined before birth. Early exposure to testosterone is important in males for the formation of the heart and determining ability in spatial judgment.” Fascinating. Part of the feminist assault on science has included an attempt to deny any profound natural or biological differences between men and women – or between men and men in respect to varying testosterone levels. Data is slowly reversing the p.c. onslaught. My cover essay for the New York Times Magazine last year on testosterone, “The He Hormone,” was pilloried by the usual suspects. But I’m proud to say it has been selected for inclusion in next year’s “Best American Science Writing 2001,” edited by Timothy Ferris. The truth is out there. If only we weren’t so afraid of it.

Turns out we’ve burnt up their system. Many of you have received an error message, saying we can’t receive payments at this time. The reason, apparently, is that Amazon has set some arbitrary limits to how much we can receive in a given period of time. Apparently, this is to prevent fraud or something. And they’ve never had a response of this magnitude for a site like this. So they stopped collecting payments at an arbitrary point. (It happened in the middle of the night). Anyway, it must be EXTREMELY FRUSTRATING to go to the trouble of clicking, only to be told that you can’t give anything. You can imagine how FRUSTRATING it must be to hear it on the other end. The good news, of course, is that there are more of you willing to give than they can process at one time. So please hang in there. We’re asking them right now to increase our Amazon-imposed limit. Until then, please hold on. Or, better still, send an old-fashioned check. Write the check to ‘Fantascope- andrewsullivan.com’ and send it to 101, W 23rd Street, Box 2347, New York, New York, 10011. Thanks for all your generosity and patience. As soon as Amazon has responded, we’ll let you know and you can try again.

Yep, it’s the tipping jar. See the item below (“TO BOLDLY GO”) for what to do, or just click on the Tipping Point button for more info. Thanks to all of you who have already chipped in.

WAIT, THERE’S MORE: No, we won’t move on for a while. I have a feeling we’ve only just begun to find out the true extent of the damage Bill Clinton did to the presidency. Now there’s Tony Rodham, who has had unspecified business dealings with some Southern carnies, and who got his brother-in-law to pardon them for bank fraud as a favor. The Justice Department maintained opposition to the pardons for Edgar Allen Gregory Jr and his wife, owners of a carnival company, but they were over-ruled by Clinton. According to the New York Times, DOJ’s opposition to pardoning these white collar crooks was, in the words of one official, a “no brainer.” The Times elaborates: “The negative recommendation was based on what the officials said was the unwillingness of the Gregorys to accept the criminality of their actions. An appeals court found that the couple ignored warnings of bank regulators and caused the failure of two small banks, disregarding the impact on other depositors. The officials said the White House was told that the case was among the most serious bank fraud case ever prosecuted in Alabama and that pardoning the couple would diminish the seriousness of their crimes.” The interesting thing about this pardon – apart from its typical sleaze, nepotism and association with the Gregorys’ hefty campaign contributions – is its timing. This one was granted last year – long before the current crop of stinkers. More evidence that this was not simply a function of last-minute exhaustion or chaos or incompetence. Pardonscam is inextricable from the entire way in which the White House was run for eight years – as a personal satrapy for money and sex and celebrity. And that’s why it will stain what’s left of the Clinton legacy – because it wasn’t the exception. It was the rule.

SHOAH THE MONEY: Shouldn’t the chairman of the board of the Holocaust Museum resign? Rabbi Irving Greenberg lobbied president Clinton for the Marc Rich pardon on Holocaust Museum stationery, urging the president to “perform one of the most God-like actions that anyone can ever do.” Lobbying for criminal fugitives is one thing. Using the moral stature of the Holocaust museum and the rhetoric of faith to do so is truly sickening. I want to know whether Marc Rich has donated to that museum, how much, and when. And if he has donated money to it, I want to know when it is going to be returned.

That’s probably because you haven’t refreshed your cache. Ahem. Refresh the site or re-load it, and all will be well. Always keep your cache refreshed and your browser attached. That’s what my mother always told me. And she was right as ever. By the way, we have netted over $500 in four hours. Thanks. Thanks. Thanks.

I know it took us a while, but the tipping jar is now up and running. It’s down there on the right, just under the three most recent pieces. (Alas, this is true only of the lite site. The heavy site will be fixed soon to include a tipping feature). In the end, we’ve kept it to two options. You can send from $1 to $50 by credit card to Amazon.com and they’ll send 85 percent of it onto us. Or you can write us a check and send it to the address you’ll find if you click on the Tipping Point. (Another option – a direct credit card link to our site – proved too expensive and cumbersome for now. But if we get some cash, and pay off our debts, we hope to add an e-commerce credit card option soon as well.) What’s this all about again? Bottom line: we’re trying to help pioneer a new way to bring fresh content to the web. Most traditional journalism sites are having a hard time. Ads aren’t working too well. Mandatory subscriptions suck. This way, you can voluntarily support a site with low overheads and keep us on the web. How much should you give? Your call entirely. Anything would help. If our regular readers all gave a buck a month, we’d be fine. If some of you want to really help, more would be great. Lots more would open up a host of new possibilities. There are all sorts of options we can add to the site – a feedback page, quicker scrolling, more regular updates – but these need money. I’ll report back on progress (or not) as soon as we have any hard numbers. The skeptics are saying we don’t stand a chance. Prove them wrong.

2-4-6-8, Time to go triangulate. Bush’s speech was uninspired but very smart. He worked the room – especially the Democrats. The Moakley schmalz was particularly effective. Putting Ashcroft up to tackle racial profiling was exactly right. The line about the nobility of public service was such a perfect, deflected use of the Clinton hangover that W should give Dan Burton some coaching lessons. For those of us who have long realized Bush is a heavy-weight, no big surprise. But I’ll bet you there’s a significant uptick in public support for him – if only because he seems like such a straightforward, normal guy after you-know-who and because expectations are so low. Thanks, Molly! But I worry about the emphasis on the good that government can do. Not because he isn’t right – reflexive opposition to everything government does is silly. I worry just because that huge guzzling monster needs no encouragement. On the other side, the old Dems looked truly pathetic. They kept referring to the Reagan years as a ‘ditch’. Huh? But if they’re befuddled by Reagan, they’re crippled by Clinton. Whenever they mention working families, my mind immediately sees Beth Dozoretz taking the Fifth. That’s not fair, but I can’t help it. I can’t be the only one. They then have to be in favor of tight budgets and class warfare – the grinch meets Trotsky. Not an appealing combo. Or a winning strategy. They’ll have to wait this out like the Republicans did Nixon.

GREEN ROOM: As always, entertainment in the NBC waiting room. John McCain punched me in the gut and winded me. Terry McAuliffe came and went, a strange green slime on the floor remaining the only trace behind. Tim Russert breezed through, commiserating on the Wolff hatchet-job. (He’d been a victim of a half-assed job in the same mag by the same guy only a week before.) Don Evans, Commerce secretary and FOW, sat awkwardly among the hacks. Michael Grunwald, a smart, nice man who now has to put years of writing speeches for Clinton on his resume chatted earnestly. I started to go after him on the Clinton stuff, but it’s just cruelty now. Michael is clearly a decent guy dragged into a swamp. Similarly, all of Clinton’s lower apparatchiks seem to have taken this very hard. Wouldn’t you? Honestly, I’m not gloating. When you live in this town, you meet lots of twentysomethings and thirtysomethings, people who came here to do good or make a difference. Many of them worked for Clinton – although most of those who got real jobs had money connections. It’s really unpleasant to see what they’ve been put through. I think of Jake Siewert, a great guy and longtime acquaintance, having to defend all this sleaze, when he has nothing to do with it. In fact, one of the sickest aspects of Clinton’s blaze-out was the seemingly deliberate swipe he took at all the people who had ever been foolish enough to go to bat for him. You see the big machers on tv. They’ll survive. It’s the less famous ones who feel deflated, depressed. Clinton may have crushed the idealism of an entire Democratic generation. And as I saw McAuliffe breeze into his chauffeur-driven SUV in front of the capitol, I could all too easily see why.