October 11, 2015

Michael Mayo

The Sun Sentinel

RE: “Capitalism at its Vilest” – How the auction of Adolph Hitler’s tsatchkes drives modern American Liberals crazy – Some comments on your Page 1 Above the Fold PR bit in today’s Sun Sentinel about a heretofore unknown auction going SRO.

Me. Mayo,

Every punter dreams of a daily double. The thought of a tri-fecta is inconceivable.

If you ever wonder why the short fat guy who looks like he should be ringing a bell has an obscene pinky ring, a zoftig blonde on each arm and a big house on the hill it’s because he owns the casino that books bets such as those.

You, as a former sports writer, should be familiar with the above. When I read your story I put it down and waited 10 minutes before returning to it. I thought that maybe I had skipped the second act.

I hadn’t because there was no second act.

My next thought was how a tri-fecta became a chalk bet.

“Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?” - Juvenal, a DWEM

“Congress shall make no law” – A lot of DWEMs

Che Guevara – the quintessential anti-DWEM

So who will guard the custodians? You? Me? The fellow behind the tree? 

I was once an amateur bibliophile. I got a set of books written in English, published in 1924, about Hinduism. Each of the books featured a swastika on its spine. The swastika was an ancient Hindu good luck sign. They were published long before Hitler came to power. Is guilt retroactive?  Should I have burned those books? Should I burn any books?

It resembles the dust-up over GlobalCoolingGlobalWarmingClimateChange. Anytime someone begins to defend his position by saying “The consensus of opinion is that…” I reach for the barf bag.

Thomas Nast whose caricatures of Boss Tweed and Santa Claus are still enjoyed today, was a bigoted xenophobe. He particularly hated Irish Americans of the late 19^th century. His feisty green clad leprechaun was originally an ugly, drunken gnome with a distinctly Simian appearance. The crowd in South Bend cheered yesterday when this year’s version ran up and down whenever Notre Dame scored a TD. [It is passing strange but it is also a sign of American Exceptionalism that a school founded in the middle of nowhere by French priests has come to symbolize the Irish in America, don’t you think?] I am, forgive me, as Irish as Patty’s Pig. Should I have a disproportionate say in censoring the character?

Should Mayo have the final word on which, if any, of Hitler’s bric-a-brac are OK and which of them are beyond the pale?

Despite the fact that he died 9 years before Hitler was born Wagner’s music has long been associated with Hitler. I believe that Israel banned it for at least 50 years. Should his wedding music be verboten?

As a Roman Catholic I find “Piss Christ” and “Corpus Cristi” offensive. The first consists of a crucifix suspended in a clear plastic container of piss. The other is a play that says Crist was crucified because He had a spat with Judas Iscariot, his lover. Judas dropped a dime on Him and the rest is History. I also find the photographs of Robert Mapplethorpe to be offensive. I suppose there might be some artistic value in a picture of one man peeing into another man’s mouth. The one with the bullwhip handle inserted into a compliant Hershey Highway may need a few more years of seasoning before it enters the general public consciousness. Should they be banned?

Would you oppose an auction featuring the Mohammed cartoons? How about the ones that led to the slaughter in Paris at the cartoonist’s office? I think I may be able to get my hands on an autographed first edition of “Satanic verses”. If I can would you promote it? I don’t care if you praise it or pan it just as long as you do it on Page 1 above the Fold. I’ll cut you in for a piece of the selling price. It goes without saying that mum’s the word on the side deal.

Justice Black, himself a former Klan member, always kept a copy of the Constitution on his lap, particularly in speech cases. He would interrupt the government’s attorney with but one question. He would hold up Constitution and say, “Where does it say you can do that?”

Justice Holmes, an unwitting supporter of Margaret Sanger and an expert witness whose opinion was used in the defense of Nazis at Nuremberg, said “You must have room for what you hate”.

Does your aversion to Nazi and Klan items extend to Che Guevara tee shirts? How about Andy Warhol’s portrait of Chairman Mao? He killed more people than Hitler and Stalin combined.

Could this be the deadly combination of a “chilling effect” and a treacherous “slippery slope” that modern American Liberals are always telling us that the Tea Party and the Koch Brothers are bringing to us. We live in a time of limitless peril, don’t ’we?

Kevin Smith

WARRIOERBARDIT@BELLSOUTH.NET