"He portrayed the Irish as drunken apes, and the image still remains today."

The New Jersey Ancient Order of Hibernians opposes inclusion of Thomas Nast — the great 19th century political cartoonist — in the New Jersey Hall of Fame.

Nast—whose drawings gave rise to Uncle Sam, Santa Claus and the elephant and donkey that symbolize the American political parties—was critical of the Irish as supporters of Tammany Hall. He pilloried the Vatican for trying to recruit children from public schools into parochial institutions....

Nast was an abolitionist who supported equal treatment for blacks and Asians. The anti-Irish tenure of his cartoons was a product of the times...

Here's Nast's "Uncle Same's Thanksgiving Dinner" in which Uncle Sam and Columbia serve murdered bird to a bunch of racial and ethnic stereotypes:



(Enlarge to see the outrageous details.)

Deadline Hollywood summarizes the movie and TV history of men dressed as women...

On the occasion of the new TV show "Work It" (which we talked about yesterday):

While it may have deeper implications today than it did decades ago, men dressing like women is one of the oldest forms of comedy. It is at the heart of one of the best feature comedies ever made, Some Like It Hot, as well as several other classic comedy films, Tootsie, Mrs. Doubtfire and The Birdcage, and it has had a presence on TV, most notably with the 1980 series Bosom Buddies starring Tom Hanks, and Saturday Night Live where male cast members regularly impersonate female celebrities. And then there is the British school of comedy with Monty Python and Benny Hill. ABC’s president Paul Lee brought up his heritage when explaining his decision to pick up Work It to critics at the summer TCA press tour. “I’m a Brit, it is in my contract that I have to do one cross-dressing show a year,” he said. “I was brought up on Monty Python. What can I do?” As a fellow European who also grew up with Monty Python and Benny Hill, I can actually relate to that...."

I can see the Brit excuse, but it's really awful, if you're going to indulge in argument by listmaking like that, to leave out the most prominent — in more ways than one — cross-dresser in the history of television, the man who was called Mr. Television, Milton Berle.

Here's a great clip of Berle in drag — in a guest spot on Lucille Ball's show.  (If you've only got 2 seconds to spare, click here.)



By the way, what a concentration of comic acting in that 5-minute clip, from everybody involved, including Desi Arnaz, who, if he showed up on TV today, would probably elicit criticism from some dignity-protecting group that doesn't care whether or not comedy has room to breathe.

"The engine of unbridled capitalism, with its unfair system of thought, has reached the end of the road and is unable to move."

"Selfishiness and insatiable greed have taken the place of such human concepts as love, sacrifice, dignity and justice. The belief in the one god has been replaced with self-belief."

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad at the U.N. — as reported in the NYT.

Hey, I hope he really did say "selfishiness"? It's a cool coinage. Like there's something really suspicious about the selfishness of capitalism. And it stinks after 3 days.

AND: Elsewhere in today's U.N. speeches, Gaddafy said: "Perhaps tomorrow we will have a fish flu." Think about it.

An essay on dignity.

That WaPo apology got me thinking about this:



From "Welcome to the Dollhouse," a movie I highly recommend.