Short Cuts -- While Dodging the Heat

A few quick takes from last week.

Asterisk
Barry Bonds* has passed Hank Aaron on the all-time home run list. The book Game of Shadows can tell you everything you need to know about Bonds* and his legacy.

As for me, Hank Aaron will always be the true home run king, but home runs no longer count for much.

In case you haven’t noticed, I am a massive baseball fan. To be a baseball fan, you have to look at numbers. There’s no avoiding that. Taken a step further, looking at numbers means you have to look at all-time records. So I will say now that there’s only one record that interests me: Joe DiMaggio’s 56-game hitting streak. The rest are details. I will make an exception if A-Rod beats the home run record a decade from now, and if he avoids allegations of drug use.

Hot Air
The enviro-boobs aren’t saying anything about it, but Mark Steyn is: after re-examining faulty data, NASA has changed the hottest year on record to 1934. The steamy, terrifying years from the past decade don’t even make it into the top 10.

This won’t change the enviro-boobs’ outlook on anything for one reason: environmental activism is their occupation. It’s how they make money. To admit their errors and say that they have no idea what they’re talking about would mean a spot on the unemployment line. No more government grants, no more donations, no more sainthood for Earth gigolo David Suzuki. To say nothing of the fact that even this data could be faulty; really, who was checking the temperature back in 10 000 BC?

Summer is hot. Winter is cold. You want me to pay you for saying that? Get real.

Speaking of the Earth gigolo, have you seen those commercials with David Suzuki showing up in people’s houses to change their light bulbs? If I found this weirdo in my house telling me what to do, I know where that light bulb would end up.

Borat
I watched Borat last night. It disturbed me.

I’d been putting it off for quite a while, because the commercials told me everything I needed to know. He was going to make Americans look dumb, and he was going to do it in a faux-reality TV format.

One thing the film did show me is that it’s becoming more and more hip to pick on Jews. Antisemitism is returning to the days of being acceptable as long as its done to a laugh track. One scene that particularly bothered me involved the title character throwing money at two cockroaches. The roaches represented the elderly Jewish couple that had given him a place to stay for the night.

Yes, yes, I know. It was only a comedy. I can laugh at most anything, and I can dish it out as much as I can take it. Still, I had an unsettling feeling creep over me with every new Jew-bash in the picture.

I pointed out some time ago that Hollywood has no problem bashing Asians. Jews get the same treatment. Try that with blacks, Hispanics, or gays, and your career would be over. It's interesting how the degree of your prejudice is measured by what group you happen to be picking on.

The film did manage to show me that while Americans can appear stupid at the hands of a comedian and his editor, they always appear extremely polite and welcoming. I doubt that’s the effect Borat was going for.

See You Later, Merv
Merv Griffin died on Sunday. If you've ever watched Jeopardy or Wheel of Fortune, then you've seen his name at the end of each episode.

I remember staying in the Beverly Hilton about six years ago. It was one of his hotels. Merv's greatest hits were on one of the hotel's channels, and I watched an old interview he did with Richard Burton. Burton said to Griffin, "You're more successful than I am."

Merv looked suitably surprised, and asked Burton to elaborate. Burton said, "You're more successful than I am. Because you're on television." His emphasis on that last word was a sign of Burton's smarts.

He was correct, of course. Movie stars are movie stars, but they only reach us once a year or so. Merv Griffin reached everybody, all the time. Though he was passed over for the Tonight Show after Jack Paar retired (Carson was chosen instead), Griffin later went on to great success with The Merv Griffin Show. It was on the air for 20 years.

His real windfall came from his game shows. Jeopardy and Wheel of Fortune are still smash hits. When he sold their rights to Coca-Cola back in 1986, Griffin grabbed a cool $250 million in the deal. From there, he went on to buy resort hotels, including the Atlantis in Nassau, Bahamas.

I was at the Atlantis a few years ago, and I told a friend, "Hey, did you know Merv Griffin owns this pad?"

"Griffin?"

"Yeah, the guy that created Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy."

"No kidding. Man, he must be worth a ton."

He was. And Richard Burton was right. Any time during the primetime week, you can flip on the tube and find Merv Griffin's name written somewhere, welcoming you as his next guest.