Tarantino sucks
By the way, one other thing:
I don't like the Jews*

I don't have that much to say on the matter of TNR columnist Gregg Easterbrook's vaguely anti-semetic comment and his subsequent apology and firing by ESPN.

But I knew he had a problem years ago!

First, for those out of the loop, here were the offending comments, from the last paragraph of an article that was mostly meant to trash Quentin Tarantino and his new flick Kill Bill:

Set aside what it says about Hollywood that today even Disney thinks what the public needs is ever-more-graphic depictions of killing the innocent as cool amusement. Disney's CEO, Michael Eisner, is Jewish; the chief of Miramax, Harvey Weinstein, is Jewish. Yes, there are plenty of Christian and other Hollywood executives who worship money above all else, promoting for profit the adulation of violence. Does that make it right for Jewish executives to worship money above all else, by promoting for profit the adulation of violence? Recent European history alone ought to cause Jewish executives to experience second thoughts about glorifying the killing of the helpless as a fun lifestyle choice. But history is hardly the only concern. Films made in Hollywood are now shown all over the world, to audiences that may not understand the dialogue or even look at the subtitles, but can't possibly miss the message--now Disney's message--that hearing the screams of the innocent is a really fun way to express yourself. (italics TFM's)

Easterbrook, having painted himself into a corner, issued a mealy-mouthed apology, pleading "poor wording", a rationalization that the Anti Defamation League's Abraham Foxman found understandably insufficient.

We expect more from The New Republic. Gregg Easterbrook's mea culpa is insufficient. It's a rationalization. There is no excuse for bringing religion into a discussion about greed and the film industry. Greed is a human frailty. Money is not only colorless, it is faithless.



By injecting religion into his criticism about the film industry – in his identifying Harvey Weinstein of Miramax and Michael Eisner of Disney as Jewish – Mr. Easterbrook summons up classic stereotypes that Jews are greedy, money-grubbing and morally deficient. His column feeds into the classic canard of "Jewish control" of Hollywood, a charge that has led to blaming Jews for contributing to the general decline of society through their "control" of popular culture.



Sadly, instead of making a clear apology and a rejection of anti-Semitic stereotypes, Mr. Easterbrook says he "wrote poorly" and was misunderstood. Mr. Easterbrook's remarks reflect either absolute ignorance or total bigotry. We find it hard to fathom that a senior editor at The New Republic could have absolutely no knowledge of the hateful canards about greed and Jewish moneylenders that have contributed to two-thousand years of persecution against the Jewish people.

Anyway, one of the results of Easterbrook's comment was that he was fired by ESPN, which completely removed from its site all traces of his weekly football column "Tuesday Morning Quarterback", or TMQ. Part of me is regretful, because TMQ was, far and away, the best sports column on the planet, and a staple of my tuesday reading in the autumn months. But if you print stupid crap like he did, and then make excuses for it, then I understand ESPN's actions, and will look elsewhere for amusing sports commentary.

Earlier I mentioned that I had proof years ago that Easterbrook had it in for the Jews. Namely, me!

From the 12/18/01 edition of TMQ, back in its Slate days:

Brendan Getzell pointed out that Kurt Warner's walk-away-from-the-line fake on fourth down against the Niners, however clever-looking, should have drawn a flag because as part of the act, the space alien unbuckled his chin strap. They may allow that on your homeworld, but not here, buddy! NFL rules require that chin straps be buckled at the snap; an unbuckled strap is illegal procedure. Getzell further notes that the Niners defenders who turned away from the line just as the trick play began are thus not to blame—seeing Warner unbuckle, they assumed zebras would wave the play dead.

The 49ers went on to lose that game 27-14, though if Garcia's deep ball to a wide open TO, on the game's initial snap, had been on target, perhaps things would have gone di-- sorry, I wandered off.

He uses my last name. And it's a Jewish last name! And then he uses it again -- BY ITSELF!!! As if it were for no other earthly purpose than to tell the entire world about my ethnicity! Obviously, he's a Jew-hating Jew-hater.

I wonder why no one from the media has asked me about this.


* - for those who don't read tmq, Easterbrook often employs haiku to make his points, as do his readers