The Week’s Most Inharmonic, Histrionic, and Cacophonic Headlines
JEWISH SOAP OPERA
Arguably, somewhere in the world there might exist a worse human being than Sacha Baron Cohen…but it’s doubtful. This is a guy who’s made millions of dollars by pushing his free-speech rights to the limit and beyond, indulging in racial humor and profiting from the surreptitious recording of duped bystanders, only to reveal himself—when speaking of anyone but himself—as a vocal supporter of anti-speech laws and online censorship.
Cohen believes that while he has the right to profit from racially offensive humor, no one else does, and he’s said as much in talks before pro-censorship orgs like the ADL. More recently, Baron’s been on a bender against Facebook for continuing to allow “Holocaust denial” material to be posted on the site, a policy that was reversed last week by Facebook CEO and Bond villain Mark Zuckerberg (in part because of Cohen’s tireless hectoring, according to the ADL).
So it was extraordinarily satisfying to see Cohen’s new “Borat” film become embroiled in a Holocaust imbroglio of its own a mere week from its release date. Cohen is being sued by the estate of Judith Dim Evans, a Holocaust survivor who was interviewed for Cohen’s film before passing on to the big selection ramp in the sky. Evans’ family claims the survivor was cruelly duped by Cohen, who failed to inform his mark that the interview was “a comedy intended to mock the Holocaust and Jewish culture.” This has put Cohen in the unique and (unlike his films) hilarious position of claiming that a Holocaust survivor lied!
Cohen’s spokesperson told Deadline that Evans “was clued in on the gag after it was shot and there is footage of it” (funny enough, not the first time photographic evidence has called a survivor’s claim into question). The spokesperson even listed a whole bunch of favors the production did for Evans and her family, as thanks for their assistance with the film.
And since every good joke needs a punchline, here it is: On her website, which Cohen claims he set up as thanks for Evans’ help, Evans states that during the war she bathed with soap “manufactured from the marrow of Jews,” a long-discredited myth that even the most prominent Holocaust historians agree is patently false.
Talk about a mess! In trying to “fight deniers,” Cohen has exposed a survivor as definitely untruthful about her wartime experiences and possibly untruthful about her claims of being misled by the filmmaker. Nothing in his new movie could possibly be funnier than that.
VOTE NO ON RACIST ROBOTS! Nov. 3 in California should be referred to as Kevorkian Day, judging by the number of potentially suicidal ballot choices the people of that scare-quotes “great” state will face. Those choices include whether or not to eliminate gig economy jobs (no more Uber, Lyft, Postmates, Instacart, Grubhub, etc.), give 17-year-olds the vote (because movie producers love the idea of turning polling stations into pickup joints), give parolees the right to vote, bring back affirmative action (a.k.a. the Chinese Exclusion Act), and eliminate cash bail.
Yes, no more cash bail…the policy that’s worked so scare-quotes “well” in New York City, where a revolving-door no-bail criminal justice system has helped ensure that the guy who mugs you on your way to work will be able to hit you again during your lunch break (and again on your way home).
The list of special interest groups that support Proposition 25’s plan to eliminate bail for poor oppressed violent criminals is filled with exactly the names you’d expect: the California Democrat Party, the League of Women Voters, the L.A. Times, the California Teachers Association, Jewish Family Services, MALDEF, NARAL, SEIU, and the Harvey Milk Club. “If you’re going to be a theocratic, terrorist bully, fine…but do you have to be such a dick about it?”
No surprises there. The surprise can be found on the list of organizations that oppose the initiative. Along with the orgs one would expect—police protective leagues, crime victims advocates, and the state GOP—there’s a wild card: the NAACP.
Yes, the NAACP opposes eliminating bail for thugs, purse snatchers, muggers, and gangbangers.
Has this esteemed organization finally come to its senses? Have the ministers and speechifiers who run the NAACP realized that flooding the streets with criminals is as bad for the black community as it is for everyone else?
What do you think? Of course not. No, the NAACP’s reason for opposing the initiative is so very, very “black America”: They skeered o’ racist robots.
See, in place of bail, arrestees will be held or released based on a “risk assessment model” that will be used to determine whether the accused is a risk to the community. And NAACP leaders have gotten it in their heads that this means computers will be making the decisions. California NAACP honcho Alice Huffman explained the reasoning in a “No on 25” campaign spot: “Prop. 25 replaces bail with computer algorithms. Academic studies show that these algorithms are biased. Some call them black boxes.”
Last week, The Sacramento Bee’s editors did their darnedest to convince the NAACP that no, it won’t be robots but humans who’ll make the risk assessments: “Judicial officers remain the final authority in making pretrial release or detention decisions…. That means that while judges may rely on algorithm-assisted risk assessment models and recommendations, they have the power to override those recommendations.”
Bless their hearts for trying, but no dice. The NAACP isn’t that easily tricked by whitey. Racist robots are real, like Jussie Smollett’s attackers and Bubba Wallace’s spooky string. You gotta get up pretty early in the morning to fool the people who invented the traffic light and twerking.
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