{"id":69,"date":"2003-10-20T13:44:48","date_gmt":"2003-10-20T17:44:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vmalt\/?p=69"},"modified":"2005-12-04T10:53:37","modified_gmt":"2005-12-04T15:53:37","slug":"tuesday-morning-quarterback-gets-sacked","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/tuesday-morning-quarterback-gets-sacked","title":{"rendered":"Tuesday Morning Quarterback gets sacked"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ouch. Gregg Easterbrook — whose essays I enjoy and whose Tuesday Morning Quarterback columns on ESPN Page 2 are always a hoot — just got canned from the latter gig. I meant to write about his blog on The New Republic’s site last week, because he wrote an entry that I found pretty incomprehensible. Since the blog doesn’t use internal bookmark hyperlinks, you’ll have to go to here<\/a> or over the Easterbrook link on the left side of this page, and scroll down to the 10.13.03 entry about Kill Bill<\/em> and Quentin Tarantino’s fatuousness.<\/p>\n

I don’t agree with his stance on the complete uselessness of Tarantino’s work, and I think Ron Rosenbaum makes a very neat case for Oliver Stone and Tarantino serving as stand-ins for Hemingway and Fitzgerald, but it was the closing paragraph that I found troubling and incomprehensible. And it’s why he’s been fired from his ESPN gig (and, in Soviet fashion, throw in the memory hole of the Page 2 site).<\/p>\n

If you’re too lazy to go to the page itself, shame on you. But here’s the paragraph in question:<\/p>\n

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.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I’ve read a bunch of Easterbrook’s work. I know that he’s a devout Christian, but not, as near as I could tell, an anti-semite. So the notion that Eisner and Weinstein, as Jews,<\/em> “worship money above all else,” was disturbing. There’s been an uproar (I hate when people use the term ‘furor’ for this sorta thing, for obvious reasons) about the blog, and Easterbrook’s editor, a Jew, spoke out to defend him and criticize blogs (somewhat predictably).<\/p>\n

Anyway, one of the reasons I didn’t write about this entry at the time was because I simply didn’t understand where he was coming from. The criticism of Jews came so out of left field that I actually thought the blog had been hacked that morning. It hadn’t. On Thursday, Easterbrook wrote an apology. Unfortunately, it didn’t make his argument that much clearer, and it seemed to imply that all Jews, as Jews, should think in certain ways. If you read it differently, please drop me an e-mail<\/a> so we can discuss it.<\/p>\n

PS: I won’t buy a Volkswagen. My father drives a Mercedes-Benz. We differ on a lot of subjects, and we’re just two Jews.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ouch. Gregg Easterbrook — whose essays I enjoy and whose Tuesday Morning Quarterback columns on ESPN Page 2 are always a hoot — just got canned from the latter gig. I meant to write about his blog on The New Republic’s site last week, because he wrote an entry that I found pretty incomprehensible. Since … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Tuesday Morning Quarterback gets sacked”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-69","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4C7K-17","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":68,"url":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/standing-offer","url_meta":{"origin":69,"position":0},"title":"Standing Offer","author":"Gil","date":"October 20, 2003","format":false,"excerpt":"Over at Slate, Jack Shafer and Mickey Kaus both have pretty good takes on the debacle of Easterbrook's strange Kill Bill blog. Kaus also links to about 10 million other blogs that discuss (or mindlessly rant about) Easterbrook's entry and subsequent apology.Funnily enough, Shafer actually had the exact same reaction\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1060,"url":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/malibus-most-wanted","url_meta":{"origin":69,"position":1},"title":"Malibu’s Most Wanted","author":"Gil","date":"August 1, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"We all say dumb things when we're hammer drunk, and I think they generally fall into one of three groups: Maudlin sentimentalities: \"I love you guys,\" \"I could've gone pro if I didn't blow out my shoulder,\" or \"My life is f***ed.\" Pronunciamentos: \"David Duke is right! Who's standing up\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Big Business"","block_context":{"text":"Big Business","link":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/big-business"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":122,"url":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/rip","url_meta":{"origin":69,"position":2},"title":"RIP","author":"Gil","date":"January 26, 2004","format":false,"excerpt":"Gregg Easterbrook writes about the death of Captain Kangaroo much better than I ever could.","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1242,"url":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/mars-bitches","url_meta":{"origin":69,"position":3},"title":"Mars, bitches!","author":"Gil","date":"December 9, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"Gregg Easterbrook writes about the incredibly misguided lunar base initiative: In deadpan style, the New York Times story on the NASA announcement declared, \"The lunar base is part of a larger effort to develop an international exploration strategy, one that explains why and how humans are returning to the moon\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Big Business"","block_context":{"text":"Big Business","link":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/big-business"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":6532,"url":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/podcast-four-quartets-and-other-pilgrimages","url_meta":{"origin":69,"position":4},"title":"Podcast: Four Quartets and Other Pilgrimages","author":"Gil","date":"September 5, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"Virtual Memories - season 2 episode 10 Lyn Ballard - Four Quartets and Other Pilgrimages It\u2019s time for a new episode of The Virtual Memories Show! In this one, guest Lyn Ballard talks about her gateway books, the metaphysical poets, reading Huck Finn at the age of 5, an embarrassing\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Podcasts"","block_context":{"text":"Podcasts","link":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/podcasts"},"img":{"alt_text":"Lyn Ballard","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/farm9.staticflickr.com\/8311\/7936339036_5d55e89d22_z.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/farm9.staticflickr.com\/8311\/7936339036_5d55e89d22_z.jpg?resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/farm9.staticflickr.com\/8311\/7936339036_5d55e89d22_z.jpg?resize=525%2C300 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":1868,"url":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/risky-business","url_meta":{"origin":69,"position":5},"title":"Risky Business","author":"Gil","date":"January 29, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"It's gettin' so a businessman can't expect no return from a fixed fight. Now if you can't trust the fix, what can you trust? 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