Bush and the Christian right

George "Dubya" Bush racked up some good press this week by naming the well-liked Dick Cheney as his running mate (Bush & Dick, a balanced ticket), those who fear the Texas governor is still in the thrall of right-wing fundamentalist Christians appear to have a valid concern. Your superior correspondents recently visited the State of Texas Web site to see what's been going on there, other than the frying of convicts. Seems that Dubya signed a proclamation last month designating June 10, 2000, as "Jesus Day" in the Lone Star State.

The proclamation reads in part, "By volunteering their time, energy or resources to helping others, adults and youngsters follow Christ's message of love and service in thought and deed." While P&J certainly have nothing against messages of love and service, it seems that some all-important context should be brought to this initiative. Has not Texas wrestled with some pretty scary anti-Semitism in recent (and past) times? Not that this isn't a problem elsewhere, but in the South particularly (Fox News recently aired a piece on the continuing problem of anti-Semitism in the South), this continues to be a major concern.

A few questions come to mind: Since the Christian majority in this country is a pretty well established fact, and Christmas and Easter have long been considered major holidays, we wonder what sort of message "Jesus Day" sends to our non-Christian fellow citizens? Are there any states out there proclaiming a "Mohammed Day"? Was not his also a message of love and service? Is the point of proclaiming "Jesus Day" in Texas anything more than a sop to the Fundamentalist Christian right, which is not entirely elated about some of Dubya's more moderate positions?

Thanks, Zeke

The flags are at half-staff at Casa Diablo after the recent death of Phillipe's mentor, Haskell Cohen.

Haskell (the equivalent of Ezekiel in one of those Jewish tribes to which he belonged) taught P everything he knows about public and media relations, and was a giant in the sports world. He was the first PR man for the National Basketball Association, devised the initial NBA All-Star Game and negotiated the first TV contract for what is now the Billionaires Boy Club. He also edited numerous sports magazines, and chose any number of high school All-American teams for Parade magazine. (Hey, Joel Rawson -- at least that was a legit reason to switch to Parade when you sunk the Urinal's Sunday magazine.) The number of sports PR guys whom he helped move on to bigger and better thing are legion.

Haskell also told Phillipe one of the funniest stories regarding the Boston Celtics. Way back during their heyday of Bill Russell, Bob Cousy, Red Auerbach, et al., the dressing room at the old Boston Garden was so small, the team limited the players to having one guest per player in the locker room after the game. It got to the point where you essentially knew all the visitors, because the players would always give their locker room passes to their best friends.

Not so Bob Cousy. For some reason, Haskell said, Red Auerbach noted that Cousy always had a different visitor for home games. Prying into the matter, Red figured Cousy, a notorious skinflint, had a vested interest in picking his diverse companions. Too right.

It turned out that Cousy's teammate Russell just happened to be the Milton Berle of the NBA -- i.e., hung like a Clydesdale. When Cousy would mention this to non-basketball people he knew, they wouldn't believe his description of his teammate's prodigious length. He would then bet them $100 that Big Bill had at least a 10-incher working for him, and would then invite the person into the locker room to watch Russell emerge from the shower. Once Auerbach found out, he immediately pulled Cousy's carte blanche invitational privileges.

Although that's a cheap way to get a laugh from Haskell -- and lighten up, Cooz, you know we love ya -- it is indicative of someone who has been around the block once or twice. Phillipe can't thank you enough, nor can anyone else who benefited from your wisdom and care. Shalom, old friend.

666

Finally, the state Education Department spoke on the infamous White Zombie T-shirt case that emerged from the wilds of Westerly. Basically, they were exactly right in deeming the student dress code in that city vague and unenforceable.

We have no idea where the paranoid fear in Westerly about youth gangs and satanic cults comes from. Jorge, who testified before the Ed Department's hearing officer and was cross-examined by the then-counsel for the school committee in this regard, thinks the over-reaction stems from a committee being held in the sway of reactionary nutbags. Certainly, many of the questions that Jorge was asked by the lawyer for the Westerly School Committee were those of a non-comprehending lunatic.

At one point, Jorge was read some typically silly promotional blather from Geffen Records, the company White Zombie was recording for. Apparently the lawyer's take was that these were serious devil worshippers whose main goal is to subvert the youth of the nation. Nefarious groups with such motives usually do not hire top-flight Madison Avenue types to create their propaganda. And usually, they do not take the form of touring rock bands which are recording for a major label.

It's interesting that the Westerly School Committee members who were most enthusiastic about pursuing this suit and wasting tens of thousands of dollars of the taxpayers' money seemed to be more conversant than most fans with the lyrical content of mock scary heavy metal bands. Nine out of ten kids you might ask about White Zombie would tell you they are not exactly acolytes of Aleister Crowley.

In fact, the kids would typically have no idea what he, Anton LaVey or Kenneth Anger are all about. But apparently a few Westerly residents with over-active imaginations are spending a great deal of time poring over the fringe writings of such lunatics. We guess they still can't get over the fact that the Beatles continue to be more popular than Jesus.

Waiting for Godot.com

Sorry, this item has nothing to do with the headline, but it's indeed a link between two generations whose twain shall never meet. P&J like it almost as much as "Of mice and Mensa," which is, of course, what your superior correspondents would title Walt Disney's biography, if we ever wrote it.

This is instead a follow-up to P's missive last week from Indonesia, where he went to recruits new plagistes -- better known to non-Francophiles as pool boys. But this week's letter from afar has a less upbeat theme:

Halo Jorge --
Hey, it's just like Rhode Island here, even down to the Jakarta Post headlines that read, "Corruption still dominates in RI," using the same abbreviation for Republik di Indonesia that we use for Rhode Island. It's like reading the Urinal, right down to the local attorney general's office getting bombed for having the audacity to suggest that Tommy, ex-President Suharto's son, might have actually been as corrupt as his dad. Hello, Tommy and Dennis DiPrete?

Fortunately, since no one is lobbing grenades in the direction of our own AG, Weldon Shitehouse, or the queen of Plunder Dome, US Attorney Meg Curran, we do have at least some dignity left. But life on the other side of the world is pretty grim, despite the fact that in Farad Khan, a local movie star, they have managed to clone Tom Jones -- however frightening that thought may be. And we can always mention the crossdressers singing competition featured on Japanese TV, but that would be wrong.

Perhaps the weirdest moment we've experienced so far was waking up to find a round sticker with the word "Kiblat" on it, along with an arrow pointing toward the ceiling above the bed. After wetting the bed thinking it was the world's largest cockroach, I then thought it might mean something like "Fire Exit." No such luck. Actually, it's used to point the direction to Mecca for the Muslim majority who may wish to pray while on excursion. No one's thoughts ran immediately to a person in the bed, engaged in the horizontal limbo, who may be reaching Nirvana without the need for a Geographical Informational Systems mapping device.

Oh well, enough for now. My tiny brain just can't take any more. Say hi to the gang, and tell John Harwood we're still thinking of him.
-- Love, Phillipe

Short cuts

. . . Our tireless fact-checker, Myrna Nussbaum, points out to your superior correspondents that the song "Satin Doll," mentioned two weeks ago in cool, cool world, was written by Duke Ellington, Billy Strayhorn, and Johnny Mercer. While we mentioned that it was part of "the Ellington canon," we neglected to note Duke's long-time partner, Strayhorn, and Mercer, who is undoubtedly responsible for the word "flipparooney" in the lyric.

. . . Anyone out there get the feeling that the "mistaken" apprehension and jailing last week of Antonio Freitas, the government's chief witness in the Plunder Dome case, was a little more than a boo-boo? Jim Taricani was definitely onto something when he suggested on Channel 36's "Deadly Experiment" that there seemed to be more than meets the eye with this embarrassment. C'mon people, let's quit the monkey business.

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