HUMOUR
THE MYTH OF CAMELOT
The brilliant American author Joe McGinniss strips away the myth of the Kennedy dynasty in ‘The Last Brother’ (1993), a searing biography of Edward Kennedy. Skillfully crafted by Ambassador Joe Kennedy (senior), who amassed his illegal fortune during the Prohibition years (1920-1933), the fable of the Kennedy family was a wonderful fairy tale. Like the famous English public school motto, the wealthy and photogenic Kennedys epitomised ‘effortless superiority’. And when Jack (John Fitzgerald) Kennedy (born 29 May 1917) was elected President in November 1960, he launched an age of the ‘New Camelot’ when it seemed that everything was achievable by this golden family from Hyannis Port, Massachusetts. The Kennedys were the nearest thing to a Royal Family that America (USA) could ever aspire to.
The truth behind the golden myth is less palatable. Joe Kennedy (Junior) died needlessly in August 1944 trying to bomb V-1 launching sites in France. Jack emerged from the famous PT-109 incident in 1943 as a hero, when the facts suggest otherwise. He was at the helm of his motor-torpedo boat off the Solomon Islands in the Pacific when a Japanese destroyer rammed his craft.
‘During all of world War 11”, writes McGinniss, ‘Jack Kennedy’s was the only PT boat sunk as the result of being rammed by an enemy ship.’ An armed speedboat with three powerful engines could only be hit by a much slower vessel if the PT crew was asleep at the switch. Two of JFK’s 13-man crew died instantly and the others survived by clinging to wreckage.
Eventually, towing a wounded crewmember behind him, Jack led the others on a four-mile swim to the safety of a small island, from which they were rescued three days later. With his money and contacts in the American press, Joe Kennedy senior seized the moment, and saw to it that Jack, instead of facing court martial, was written up as a brave war hero. He alone realised that the future political capital would be priceless. And thus it was that John Fitzgerald Kennedy, Commander of PT-109, went into American legend even before his political career began.
PT-109 lapel pins were manufactured to further the legend and Joe senior also arranged for Jack to ‘write’ a best selling book before his first presidential race. Senator JFK was duly awarded a Pulitzer Prize for ‘Profiles in Courage’ (1956), a work actually ghost written by researcher Jules Davids and then polished by Ted Sorensen, later a gifted speechwriter for the Kennedy election campaign and administration of 1961-63. Jack merely read the proof pages prior to publication in order to familiarise himself with the work.
McGinniss reveals that the only genuine marriage among the family at that time was between Bobby and Ethel. Joe Senior, JFK and Teddy were all locked into loveless charades, which were all about political expediency. Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy was little more than a beautiful trophy wife for a politician on the fast track to the presidency. And even though he was a sick man most of his life, Jack’s promiscuity was legendary. On the day after his inauguration in January 1961, he celebrated by having sex with three women, none of them his wife. “He was known as ‘Jack the Zipper’”, said famous British politician and wit Denis Healey. “His sexual exploits made Bill Clinton look like a fumbling schoolboy”.
Teddy’s political career was forever stalled in July 1969 when he drunkenly drove his car off Chappaquiddick Bridge on Martha’s Vineyard and left a Kennedy aide, Mary Jo Kopechne, to drown inside the vehicle (see ‘True Crimes’, October 2008). They had been in a thinly disguised orgy in a cottage on the island, but family lawyers saw to it that Ms Kopechne was buried without an autopsy and bought the silence of her parents with cash. And when Teddy was expelled from Harvard in 1951 for cheating in his Spanish examination, dad had stepped in and ‘fixed’ the career flaw by putting Teddy into short-term military service to regenerate his image.
McGinniss also offers a plausible motive for the two Kennedy assassinations. They were Mafia hits, he claims. Joe Kennedy (senior) had used his mob connections from the 1920-30’s to forge a Faustian pact: Mafia help in securing vital votes in Chicago and New York during the 1960 presidential race in return for a promise that JFK would authorise an invasion of Cuba. The gangsters wanted to reclaim their casinos in Havana that Fidel Castro had seized in 1959.
Cuba under General Fulgencio Batista had been a gold mine for the Cosa Nostra during the 1940-50’s; bringing in billions of dollars, and American gangsters were openly bankrolling Batista’s corrupt regime. Kennedy duly won the 1960 election from Richard Nixon, but both he and Bobby, awarded the post of Attorney General, reneged on the deal. (Joe senior suffered a bad stroke in 1961, and no longer had so much influence over his sons). JFK pulled the rug out from under Cuban exiles who made a disastrous attack on the island in April 1961, known as the ‘Bay of Pigs’ invasion. At the last minute, he withdrew vital air cover for the CIA-led operation. Then Bobby appalled Joe senior by waging a ruthless war on organised crime and the Mob-controlled Teamsters’ Union led by Jimmy Hoffa. He harassed Hoffa mercilessly, and formed a mutual hatred with J Edgar Hoover (1895-1972) a despotic director of the FBI for 48 years. Hoover also had information on the Kennedys that enabled him to blackmail them.
Hoover’s extensive files included explosive evidence that the president shared a mistress named Judith Campbell with mobster Sam Giancana. Crime bosses were enraged that the Kennedy clan had not kept its’ promise, and so both brothers were, in due time, ‘taken care of.’ Jack was killed in Dallas in November 1963 and Bobby was gunned down in Los Angeles in June 1968 just after he had won the California Democratic primary for the upcoming election, which was won in a landslide by Nixon. During his tenure as Attorney General, Bobby particularly had earned the bitter hatred of many Mafia bosses, including Carlos Marcello, who was named in a 1979 House Select Committee’s report as being involved in a conspiracy to assassinate JFK in Dallas.
To his credit, Edward (Teddy) Moore Kennedy was the first of the clan to really champion civil rights, and in spite of his youthful indiscretions has courageously stuck to his democratic ideals throughout a long career in American politics. Now 76 years old, he is a senior member of the Senate in spite of recent ill health.
Perhaps most shabby of all is the revelation that Joe senior had his eldest daughter, Rosemary, lobotomised and hidden away in a care home when he realised that she was incurably retarded. The first ‘royal’ family in American history could not tolerate a mental case, perhaps because Joe had openly admired Adolf Hitler’s fascist regime during his tenure as American ambassador in Britain during the 1930-40’s. To Joe Kennedy senior, patriarch and skilled mythmaker, a Kennedy could not be anything but perfect.
AMERICAN PRESIDENTS
I am continually dismayed at how so many prominent Americans appear to be ignorant of their own political history. In his inauguration address on Tuesday, 20 January 2009, Barack Obama stated that “44 Americans have now taken the presidential oath.” Err, wrong Mr President. Counting you, it’s actually 43, because Grover Cleveland was President Number 22 and 24. He remains unique in serving two separate terms of office (1885-1889 and 1893-1897) as President of the United States of America, and evenif Mr Cleveland is the only American President to take the oath on two occasions, he’s still only one man.
MORE DOOR SIGN HUMOUR
In a Podiatrist’s office: ‘Time wounds all heels’
On a septic tank: ‘Yesterday’s meals on wheels’ and ‘We are number one in the number two business’
On a plumber’s truck: ‘We repair what your husband fixed last week’
At a plumbers’ office: ‘Don’t sleep with a drip. Call your plumber’
Pizza Shop Slogan: ‘Seven days without pizza makes one weak’
At an auto repair shop: ‘Invite us to your next blowout’
At a plastic surgeon’s office: ‘Hello. Can we pick your nose?’
At a towing company: ‘We don’t charge an arm and a leg. We just want tows’
On an electrician’s truck: ‘Let us remove your shorts’
In a non-smoking area: ‘If we see smoke, will assume that you are on fire and take appropriate action’
On a maternity room door: ‘Push. Push. Push’
At an optician’s office: ‘If you don’t see what you’re looking for, you’ve come to the right pace’
On a Taxidermist’s window: ‘We really know our stuff’
On a fence: ‘Salesmen welcome! Dog food is expensive…’
At a muffler shops: ‘No appointment necessary. We hear you coming’
At an electric company: ‘We would be delighted if you send in your monthly payment. However, if you don’t; then you will be’
In the front yard of a morticians’: ‘Drive carefully. We’ll wait’
At a propane filling station: ‘Thank heaven for little grilles’
At a radiator shop: ‘Best place in town to take a leak’
HISTORICAL QUOTES
“You have created a desert, and called it Peace.” (Tacitus, AD 56-120, to the Roman general Scipio Africanus after the Battle of Zama in 202BC, where Hannibal’s army was finally defeated)
“Only three things count in oratory: delivery, delivery, and again, delivery.” (Demosthenes of Athens, 384-322BC)
“We have state of the art bombing systems, which allow us to strike military targets with surgical precision. We don’t want to kill any more enemy civilians than we have to. That is just bloodthirsty, and it can even turn the enemy against you.” (Donald Rumsfeld, just before the invasion of Iraq in March 2003)
IN THE COURTROOM
Prosecutor: “And what happened next, Miss Reed?”
Witness: “He forced me down in the back of his car and began to rape me, sir.”
Prosecutor: “Did he have a climax?
Witness: “No sir, he was driving a Ford Mustang.”
FAMOUS REJECTIONS
“If I were you, I wouldn’t touch them with a barge-pole!” (Manager Allan Williams to Brian Epstein about the Beatles; circa 1960)
“You seriously want us to consider marketing something called a ‘mouse’?” (IBM management to members of the company’s Research and Development team who had just designed a handy device for use with home computers; circa 1972)
“In my view, you just haven’t got what it takes to become an Olympic champion in this sport.” (Southern Staff Coach Frank Horwill to 14-year-old Steve Ovett in 1970)
News of the weird
News of the Weird, March 2009
Latest Religious Messages
*The streak for the longest continuous chanting (already noted twice in the Guinness Book of World Records) is still active, according to an August Indo-Asian News Service dispatch from Ahmedabad, India. Clerics at the Shri Bala Hanuman temple started intoning "Shri Ram Jay Ram Jay Jay Ram" on 1st August, 1964. That’s 44 years and counting, folks.
*‘Intercessionary’ prayer (having other people pray for you) is proliferating on the Internet, with the oldest such broker, Unity Church, now a Web presence (200,000 requests a year) after a century's operation by mail (500,000 last year) and telephone (another 1.3 million). Other Web sites also handle requests for life-saving miracles, inner peace and financial recovery; and one, on OurPrayer.org, quoted in a November New York Times report, asked for success on her financial accounting exam: "This is my third attempt on this paper, and I pray that the Lord will grant me wisdom and a clear mind".
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Questionable Judgments
*It seemed like an obviously good decision by the Toronto Transit Commission in 2006 to curb counterfeiting of its aluminum coins and paper tickets by phasing in larger metal-alloy tokens as substitutes. By earlier this year, when the tokens had completely replaced the lighter coins and paper, the commission realized that its fare-sorting room was beginning to crack at the foundations because the tokens to be counted weigh about 60 tons more than pre-2006 aluminum and paper. A commission spokesman told the Toronto Sun in November that engineers were working on a solution.
*In September, Atlanta-area educator Phillipa Faust, working on a $455,000 annual federal sex education grant, offered a $10,000 contest prize for an engaged local couple who had so far abstained from sex and would continue to do so until the wedding. (Any sex would be "risky behavior," said Faust, but worst of all would be living together before marriage, which is a "set up for the kill.") However, despite the large population of the area, she had no takers, and as the deadline approached, she told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution that she even considered opening the contest to engaged couples who had had sex but regretted it. Faust eventually had to scrap the contest altogether because of conflicting federal grant rules.
*In November, a judge in Dublin, Georgia, sentenced Rico Todriquez Wright, 25, to at least 20 years in prison for the 2006 shooting of Chad Blue, who had told police initially that he didn't know who had shot him. Blue later heard a thug-life song on CD, ‘Hitting Licks for a Living’ in which rap singer Wright brags, "Chad Blue knows how I shoot", and realized Wright was the one who shot him that night.
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People Different From Us
*For 15 years, Eduardo Arrocha, 46, was known as ‘Eak the Geek, the Pain-Proof Man’ at New York's Coney Island Sideshow, where he lay on nails, walked on glass, ate light bulbs, and put his tongue in a mousetrap. However, in 2007, he traded everything in for a spot in the class at Thomas M Cooley Law School in Lansing, Michigan, where he is in his second year ("from one freak show to another," he said, "it's the most bizarre thing I've ever done in my life"). Job interviews may be tough because a three-piece suit will hide only his chest-to-toe tattoos; and recruiters can't miss the stars and planets that cover his face.
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Least Competent Criminals
*Embarrassing: A 49-year-old Leavenworth, Kansas, man was hospitalised in November after (according to police) using a front-end loader to pluck an ATM from the Frontier Credit Union. He was hurt when he drove to the edge of a 50-foot embankment and tried to drop the ATM, imagining that the fall would break it open, but instead, he, the loader, and the ATM all crashed to the bottom.
*British Muslim convert Nicky Reilly, 22, pleaded guilty in October in Exeter, England, to ‘attempted terrorism’ for detonating a homemade nail bomb in the Giraffe restaurant. The plan failed when Reilly triggered the bomb in the men's room, intending to take it into the dining area, but then could not unlock the men's room door to get out. His lawyer called him perhaps the "least cunning" person ever to be charged with terrorism in Britain.
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Recurring Themes
*As animal hoarding goes, the 30 seized from Darlene Gardner's double-wide trailer home in Kootenai County, Idaho, last year weren't particularly noteworthy, even though two of them, (deer), were living inside, each in its own bedroom. Authorities released the deer and other healthy animals into the wild and euthanised the rest, and Gardner's husband pleaded guilty to one animal cruelty charge. However, in November, Darlene filed a $2 million federal lawsuit against the county's "jack-booted thugs" who, acting without a search warrant, she said, had "killed my babies," referring to the animals that "were my life and my family."
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A News of the Weird Classic (June 1994)
In Toronto in March 1994, Sajid Rhatti, then 23, and his 20-year-old wife brawled over whether Katey Sagal, who plays Peg Bundy on the ‘Married with Children’ TV show, is prettier than Christina Applegate, who plays her daughter. First, the wife slashed Rhatti in the groin with a wine bottle as they scuffled, but, remorseful, she dressed his wounds, and the couple sat down again to watch a second episode of the show. Moments later, the brawl erupted again, and Rhatti, who suffered a broken arm and shoulder, stabbed his wife in the chest, back, and legs before the couple begged neighbours to call an ambulance.
(COPYRIGHT 2008 CHUCK SHEPHERD)
Winner of ‘In Praise of the Underdog’ competition
My background is quite simple. I am 51 (yikes!) English but moved to
Canada two years ago. I have always made animals a very important part
of my life. I had a feral colony of cats in England I cared for
(trapped, neutered, returned) and five cats of my own at one time - all
rescued. I also have a great passion for horses. I did have two horses,
both rescued from slaughter. Cream Crackers came into my life at 5
months old. He is now 26 years old and living it retired luxury back in
an outstanding livery yard for old horses in England. Moo Moo (yes,
really), who I rescued when she was 25 years old, very sadly died in
September last year at the great age of 39.
The story of Molly, as written, is absolutely true. She is my girl, through and through. She
sits here at my feet in the study as I type this. My activities here in Calgary include volunteer dog walking on Monday`s and Wednesday`s for the local shelter - from whom I rescued a dog late last year as he was destined for euthanasia - and another true no-kill shelter about an
hour`s drive away (called Heaven Can Wait) who helped with this rescue and has now found this great dog a fantastic forever home. I dog walk for them on Sundays. I also care about wildlife. I worked for twelve years in a wildlife hospital in England but I have only managed to rescue one pigeon since I came here to Canada - but it is a start!
I have probably rambled on enough but once you get me talking about
animals .......................
I have looked through the dogs on your web site and it is so difficult to choose just one. Dizzy certainly touched my heart as I recognised in her many of my darling Molly`s traits. Naughty but very lovable. I have found a photo of the two of us together but I am afraid I am rather camera shy so I hope it will do.
Thank you again and, also, for all the wonderful work you do for the animals. Thank you.
Very truly yours
Susan Blissett
Exam Howlers
This is an indication of a wonderful future that awaits the UK. Some of the level of answers in GCSE exams…
The following is a compilation of actual English students’ General Certificate of Education (GCE) answers:
1. Ancient Egypt was inhabited by mummies and they all wrote in hydraulics. They lived in the Sarah Dessert and travelled by Camelot. The climate of the Sarah is such that the inhabitants have to live elsewhere.
2. The Bible is full of interesting caricatures. In the first book of the Bible, Guinessis, Adam and Eve were created from an apple tree. One of their children, Cain, asked, “Am I my brother’s son?”
3. Moses led the Hebrew slaves to the Red Sea, where they made unleavened bread which is bread made without any ingredients. Moses went up on Mount Cyanide to get the Ten Commandments. He died before he ever reached Canada.
4. Solomon had three hundred wives and seven hundred porcupines.
5. The Greeks were a highly sculptured people, and without them we wouldn’t have history. The Greeks also had myths. A myth is a female moth.
6. Actually, Homer was not written by Homer but by another man of that name.
7. Socrates was a famous Greek teacher who went around giving people advice. They killed him. Socrates died from an overdose of wedlock. After his death, his career suffered a dramatic decline.
8. In the Olympic Games, Greeks ran races, jumped, hurled the biscuits, and threw the java.
9. Eventually, the Romans conquered the Greeks. History calls people Romans because they never stayed in one place for very long.
10. Julius Caesar extinguished himself on the battlefields of Gaul. The Ides of March murdered him because they thought he was going to be made king. Dying, he gasped out: “Tee hee, Brutus.”
11. Nero was a cruel tyranny who would torture his subjects by playing the fiddle to them.
12. Joan of Arc was burnt to a steak and was canonised by Bernard Shaw. Finally Magna Carta provided that no man should be hanged twice for the same offence.
13. In mid-evil times most people were alliterate. The greatest writer of the futile ages was Chaucer, who wrote many poems and verses and also wrote literature.
14. Another story was William Tell, who shot an arrow through an apple while standing on his son’s head.
15. Queen Elizabeth was the ‘Virgin Queen’. As a queen she was a success. When she exposed herself before her troops they all shouted “Hurrah!”
16. It was an age of great inventions and discoveries. Gutenberg invented removable type and the Bible. Another important invention was the circulation of blood. Sir Walter Raleigh is a historical figure because he invented cigarettes and started smoking. And Sir Francis Drake circumcised the world with a 100 foot clipper.
17. The greatest writer of the Renaissance was William Shakespeare. He was born in the year 1564, supposedly on his birthday. He never made much money and is famous only because of his plays. He wrote tragedies, comedies, and hysterectomies, all in Islamic pentameter. Romeo and Juliet are an example of a heroic couplet. Romeo’s last wish was to be laid by Juliet.
18. Writing at the same time as Shakespeare was Miguel Cervantes. He wrote Donkey Hote. The next great author was John Milton. Milton wrote Paradise Lost. Then his wife died and he wrote Paradise Regained.
19. During the Renaissance America began. Christopher Columbus was a great navigator who discovered America while cursing about the Atlantic. His ships were called the Nina, the Pinta, and the Santa Fe.
20. Later, the Pilgrims crossed the ocean, and this was called Pilgrim’s Progress. The winter of 1620 was a hard one for the settlers. Many people died and many babies were born. Captain John Smith was responsible for all this.
21. One of the causes of the Revolutionary War was the English put tacks in their tea. Also, the colonists would send their parcels through the post without stamps. Finally the colonists won the War and no longer had to pay for taxis. Delegates from the original 13 states formed the Contented Congress. Thomas Jefferson, a Virgin, and Benjamin Franklin were two singers of the Declaration of Independence. Franklin discovered electricity by rubbing two cats backwards and declared, “A horse divided against its self cannot stand.” Franklin died in 1790 and is still dead.
22. Soon the Constitution of the United States was adopted to secure domestic hostility. Under the Constitution the people enjoyed the right to keep bare arms.
23. Abraham Lincoln became America’s greatest Precedent. Lincoln’s mother died in infancy, and he was born in a log cabin which he built with his own hands. Abraham Lincoln freed the slaves by signing the Emasculation Proclamation. On the night of 14 April 1865, Lincoln went to the theatre and got shot in his seat by one of the actors in a moving picture show. The believed assassinator was John Wilkes Booth, a supposedly insane actor.
This ruined Booth’s career, and he never recovered.
24. Meanwhile in Europe, the enlightenment was a reasonable time. Voltaire invented electricity and also wrote a book called Candy.
25. Gravity was invented by Issac Walton. It is chiefly noticeable in the autumn when the apples are falling off the trees.
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