I have been following an incredibly disturbing but revealing series in the New York Times about how the New York City Ultra-Orthodox Jewish community is being allowed to handle  accusations of child molestation within the ranks and how Brooklyn DA Charles J. Hynes is allowing it to happen.  It made me sick to my stomach.  I have read some commentary about how this is just “more antisemitism”  by the Times etc.  Poppycock!  This is news and a dirty secret that needs to be exposed on a national level.   Hopefully the exposure will help bring a stop to this.  Yes, this series could perpetuate a perception that Jews in general are soft on child molesters.  That’s unfortunate but a small price to pay to save abused children hidden within the ultra-orthodox ranks with no true advocate to save them.  If Jews in mass speak up against this, so much for that perception regardless.   This protection and preferential treatment of accused child molesters must stop.  It must stop in the ultra-orthodox community and it must stop within the goverment ranks.  Brooklyn DA  Charles J. Hynes, should be ahsamed of himself using politics to the detriment of abused children and brazenly thumbing his nose at the laws of this country.  We are in fact a nation of laws. We are NOT a nation of laws… and then whatever the ultra-orthodox community wants to do.  I hope he gets voted out.

My heart goes out to the family and friends of NFL legend Jr. Seau.  As most know by know Jr. is dead and suicide is suspected.  Newsworthy because he is a former superstar  professional athlete and celebrity.  Newsworthy because the ravaging effects of head injuries in the NFL are front and center in the media and in a court of law.  All too common however in the grand scheme of life.  In 2007, suicide was the tenth leading cause of death in the U.S., accounting for 34,598 deaths.  In Jr’s case, while maybe uncommon due to the head injury angle,  all too common in that it appears no one suspected.  All too common in the grieving and dumbfounded family and friends are left behind wondering how the hell someone who seemingly had a great life could see only hope in finality and did not cry out.  Depression and suicide do not discriminate between a Lexus and a Pinto.

It was not all that long ago that that I looked into that abyss.  I came all so close to Junior’s fate but for the intervention of people who cared.  Not only cared but were on the ground  able to actually see the changes in my behavior and react quickly.

This  slide into darkness has its own unique components for different people. Some are luckier than others in the support they get or their ability to reach out for that support.    I had family and friends that were in my life.  That is what saved me.  If I did not have that, I would be dead.

Medication works wonders. Talking to professionals helps. Having a family and friends who are active in your life is also important.  I was very lucky.  For whatever reasons which may or may not become clear, Jr. wasn’t.  Many are not.

What’s my point?  Very simple.  Pay attention to the people in your life and NEVER be afraid to speak up when something seems off.  That is what keeps us out of the abyss.

The United States Congress established the Days of Remembrance as our nation’s annual commemoration of the Holocaust. This year Holocaust Remembrance Day is April 18 2012.  In honor of that, here is my annual list of Holocaust films  I feel are worth seeing.

The Holocaust has always been sporadic material for Hollywood.  Every few years a small budget independent or documentary will show up.  Mainstream Hollywood rarely invests big dollars.  While many Holocaust films are done, very few are big budget.  A great documentary on the subject of how Hollywood has addressed the Holocaust is Imaginary Witness:Hollywood and the Holocaust.

There is no denying that sentiments and views of the Holocaust have changed over the years since the end of World War II.  Hollywood has changed right along with those sentiments and views and changed the types of movies and the way events are depicted.  A review of the Internet Movie Database reveals that from 1945-2008  there were over 400 theatrical productions and documentaries made which addressed the Holocaust in one form or another.  Of those, the majority were foreign-made documentaries.

Here is my list of Hollywood movies and television media that I feel offer the most to the viewer in the portrayal of events and figures of the Holocaust.   I am only including films I have seen and whose main focus are the Holocaust as compared to the Holocaust being just one historical event in the movie.  An example would be Band Of Brothers. This mini-series addresses the Holocaust but is not about the Holocaust.

“Lidice“  was not released mainstream in the United States and it is not directly a Holocaust Movie.  I am including it because it is such heart-wrenching story I can’t believe it has never been done mainstream.  It revolves around the  assassination of the “Butcher Of Prague,  Reinhard Heydrich by Czech partisans and the Nazi retaliation against and massacre of the entire town of Lidice.  The movie is hard to find and subtitled but its a must see.

Sarah’s Key addresses the very sensitive and hushed subject of French complicity in the Holocaust.  It revolves around the Vel’ d’Hiv roundup, in which French police arrested thousands of Jews in Paris in July 1942.

Julia Jarmond, an American journalist married to a Frenchman, is commissioned to write an article about the notorious Vel d’Hiv round up, which took place in Paris, in 1942. She stumbles upon a family secret which will link her forever to the destiny of a young Jewish girl, Sarah. Julia learns that the apartment she and her husband Bertrand plan to move into was acquired by Bertrand’s family when its Jewish occupants were dispossessed and deported 60 years before.

Defiance is the story of the Jewish Bielski brothers. succeeded in escaping from the massacre of the German in their village where their parents were killed. They hide in the woods and sooner other runaway Jews join them.  They guerrilla resistance created a makeshift village in the woods to shelter and protect more than 1,200 Jews.  Five generations later, “20,000 Jewish people are alive because of the work the Bielski brothers.

“The Boy In The Striped Pajamas”  and “The Reader”.

The Boy In The Striped Pajamas.  Adapted from the book of the same name by John Boyne.  A short, faithful adaption to the book.    The story is told from the perspective of the child of a Concentration Camp Commandant who befriends a Jewish child imprisoned in the a camp. The child has been shielded by his father from the horror, brutality and the truth of the purpose of the camp.  This movie received quite a bit of criticism in portraying an unrealistic view of German ignorance of the Holocaust.

The Reader(2009).   Ralph Fiennes reminds us of his brilliant performance in Schindler’s List to once again tackle the Holocaust in a much different light. His character has an affair with his care-taker. Years later, while a law student observing a Nazi war crime trial, he is re-united in a shocking way.   She is a defendant charged with war crimes. The Reader has sparked some revisionist sentiment in the Jewish community.  The criticism is that  film through its central theme attempts to  legitimize a notion that ordinary Germans were completely ignorant of The Final Solution until after the war.

Paperclips(2004) An extraordinary documentary that I stumbled across surfing cables channels once night.  Whitwell Middle School in rural Tennessee is the last place you would think would be a hot bed of Holocaust study.  It however is the setting for this documentary about a unique experiment in Holocaust understanding. The students at Whitewell collect six-million paper clips to better understand the extent of Holocaust and share that understanding with Holocaust survivors.

The Diary Of Anne Frank(1959). The 1959 version appears to be Hollywood’s first mainstream attempt to bring the Holocaust to the masses although it did so by sacrificing the depth and emotion of the Holocaust to give the public a Hollywood blockbuster movie. The movie itself was a Hollywood hit by the standards of the day. It won three Oscars. An interesting side note is that Audrey Hepburn turned down the role of Anne Frank because she herself lived in occupied Holland and witnessed Nazi atrocities first-hand.  To get a feel for early Hollywood treatment of the Holocaust, the Diary of Anne Frank is a must see, but be sure to view the original before viewing the remakes.

Holocaust(1978).  A four-part made-for-TV mini-series. That was the first major network big time portrayal of the subject. The series was a monstrous success, drawing a 49 percent market share. So many people watched this mini-series in New York City when first broadcast, that when commercials were on, the local water pressure dropped due to the large number of people using their toilets at once. It won Golden Globe and Emmy awards. It was instrumental in rocketing the career of Meryl Streep.  Michael Moriarty is brilliant as an out of work lawyer who enters the Nazi party and advances through brutality and helping implement “The Final Solution.”

Schindler’s List(1993). The Holocaust comes to Generation X with the Steven Spielberg story of Oskar Schindler, a German industrialist and Nazi party member who started out getting rich off the backs of Jewish slave labor and ended up finding his own humanity.  He went on to save thousands of Jews from the gas chamber, risking both his personal wealth and his safety to save as many Jews as possible. He spent his entire fortune to bribe Germans and buy the lives of the  Jews who worked for him.  He kept them for the most part safe until Germany’s surrender.  He ended up penniless.  Today, there are more than 6000 descendants of “Schindler Jews” living around the world.   The movie is done in and black and white and riveting from beginning to end.  The movie itself was a huge critical and box office success winning seven Oscars

Sophie’s Choice(1982). Sophie’s Choice is a brilliant performance by Meryl Streep as a Holocaust survivor with dark secrets in her family’s past. Her performance as Sophie Zawistowska is ranked #3 on Premiere Magazine’s 100 Greatest Performances of All Time.  She won an academy award for her performance.  It should be noted that this film was released 11 years prior to Schindler’s list. It contains one of the most heart wrenching moments in movie history when Sophie recounts the night she arrived at Auschwitz with her children, and of how she was forced by a Nazi officer to choose life for one child and death for the other.

Life Is Beautiful(1997).   Life Is Beautiful is told from the view of a man who uses the gift of humor to protect his only son from the inhumanity while in a concentration camp. The film is incredible in that it allows you to smile and laugh with Guido right up until the tragic end and not feel sad.  This movie won three Academy Awards. While classified as a Holocaust film, this film is also a joyous celebration of the human spirit.

The Pianist(2002). This movie is told from the viewpoint of a very talented piano player played by Adrian Brody.  He  hides out in the Warsaw Ghetto throughout the Warsaw Ghetto Liquidation and the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising.  When the German occupation begins, he simply wonders when he will be able to return to his music. When the killing begins, he is forced to hide and change his priorities to simply trying to survive. Even though he can no longer play, music is the hope and salvation that keeps him alive.

The Grey Zone(2001). The Grey Zone is gritty, dark and sometimes hard to follow.  It is, however, a must-see for all those who want an understanding of the Holocaust beyond the basics. The Grey Zone deals with an issue that is very sensitive to Holocaust survivors.  Jews sending other Jews to the gas chamber.  These Jews were called “Sonderkommandos“.  Sonderkommando members did not participate directly in the killing  which was reserved for the guards.  While their primary responsibility was disposing of the corpses, they often took a much more active role in getting the inmates ready to enter the gas chambers. These inmates were kept in close groups and had much better living conditions than the average inmate.  They were also killed off at regular intervals to prevent any word of the inner workings of the Nazi death apparatus from leaking to the outside world.  This movie is about one of several Sonderkommado revolts that took place.  It features an outstanding peformance by Harvey Keitel.

Playing for Time.    Playing for Time is a made-for-T.V piece that is worth seeing.  It ias another movie that gives a perspective on the inner workings of  Nazi concentration camps in which some inmates were forced to play music for the others as they marched to the gas chambers or life-death selection process. The purpose was to keep them calm and reduce the chances of revolt.

Europa Europa(1991). A young Jewish boy poses as a German “Aryan” orphan and joins the Hitler Youth in the early days of World War II.  An interesting look at the racial, moral and religious identity struggles faced by Jews as they did what they could to prevent their extermination in Nazi Germany.

Music Box(1989).This is one of the few movies dealing with the issues of aging former Nazis and Nazi sympathizers who committed war crimes living in the United States.  Jessica Lange and Armin Mueller-Stah give great performances. The movie is based on the true story of John Demjanjuk.   While the premise of a daughter representing her father on trial with such high stakes is a stretch, it works well here.  Jessica’s emotional opening statement is also unrealistic and inadmissible. The movie is incredibly moving on all levels. You are torn between her father as a loving grandfather and a brutal murderer guilty of terrible war crimes. In an interesting twist of life imitating art, the father of Joe Eszterhas who wrote the screenplay, was accused of writing anti-Semitic propaganda before and during World War II. Like the character in Music Box, his father denied being the person who wrote these materials. Mr. Ezterhas denies knowing anything about his father’s past at the time he wrote the screenplay.

That is my list of Holocaust films that I feel are must sees for anyone wanting to get a good understanding of the subject through Hollywood and also be entertained.  Is this a definitive list?  Absolutely not. There are numerous other US and foreign mainstream films and documentaries dealing with general and specific issues surrounding the Holocaust.

Please feel free to comment and add you own movies to the list with an explanation of why you feel it is an important film or simply why you enjoyed it

I know eating disorders.  I have suffered from both bulimia and anorexia.  I graduated from  living on 600 or so calories a day to sticking my finger down my throat.  It all stemmed from my obsession to fit in and be accepted.  To achieve what can’t be achieved through body change.  The mind has to change.  Not the body.

I  am not a psychiatrist but I feel comfortable in stating that anyone who is sticking a feeding tube down his/her throat to achieve the same result that I stuck my finger down my throat for whether it be for a wedding or any other aesthetic reason has the mindset of an eating disorder simply manifested in a different manner.  Any doctor who  tells me that it is a physically and mentally safe procedure to put an otherwise healthy person on a feeding tube to lose weight is full of dog do-do and should have his/her medical license revoke for “doing harm”.

This is really just another extension of society’s unhealthy preoccupation with the looks of others and how others perceive us.  I was part and am part of that obsession. Once it is ingrained in your mind it really never really goes away.  You simply find healthy ways to channel it.  Despite the preoccupation, I know this much.   The only time you will see a feeding tube down my throat is if there is a medically necessary reason for it.  Shame on these doctors.  I empathize with their patients for the inability to overcome the obsession. I pity them for their choice.  The obsession will always be the obsession. It won’t end there.

I was going to head to my local 12-Step group the other day to celebrate hitting five years sobriety and pick up a chip.  It totally slipped my mind.  I guess it was not that important to me to go through that ritual. Not sure what that means. Getting lazy in my sobriety?  My priorities of what’s important to me in my sobriety have certainly changed since day one.  I’ve gone from chaos to basically whittling my life down to very fundamental aspects that do not vary much one way or another day to day.  This helps  eliminate drama potential unless it occurs within those parameters.  I’ve seen too many recovering addicts living in a constant state of drama because they never got control over their surroundings. My family, my girlfriend ,my pets and a few very close friends that I have had for many years are part of that equation.  Is that sustainable with a productive and overall happy life in the long term?

I often wonder how I will react when things really spike outside the norm.  Will the thoughts of Jim Beam and cocaine cross my mind to even out the drama?  Is my program as off the 12-step beam as it is providing me with the balance for the bad times?  I got a little taste of that recently when my dog Peanut was diagnosed with Cushings disease.  Before I found out it was treatable,  I thought I was going to lose her.  I was immobilized with grief.  Drinking or drugs never crossed my mind.  What I thought about was seeking out the people in the fundamental circle I had created.  That’s my program.  Won’t say that it’s always sunny skies and margaritas(pardon the joke).  It’s a constantly evolving cycle of the peaks and valleys of life.  Just like anyone else.  It works for me.   That is what matters.

Hooman Karamian  a/k/a Nik Richie  who runs the “Trash Your Former Best Friend“  website, TheDirty.com  has long been the “Teflon Don” against accusations of defamation and other nastiness posted on his web site. His bullet proof armor has been Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act which provides passive web site operators liability immunity for content posted by others including anonymous comments.  In other words, a blogger or forum host isn’t responsible for defamatory comments by anonymous commenter.

It appears that Senator Joe Lieberman is about to strip that armor and render the emperor of vile posts and defamatory comment as well us all other web across the internet naked to potential liability for passive postings on their sites.

Senator Lieberman is proposing an amendment to section 230 of the Communications Decency Act.  The bill would amend Section 230 Of The Communication Decency Ac to strip immunity from web sites for hosting anonymous comments.

Without CDA 230 immunity from these comments, sites like theDirty and practically all consumer rating sites such as Yelp and The Rip Off Report would be sitting ducks for litigation would be forced to shut down.  Many may think this is a great idea to shut down sites like theDirty but the hit to Free Speech will be much further reaching affecting all of us.

According to the Free Speech website “McIntyre v. Ohio”:

This amendment to that law would change that, by stripping out the immunity and leaving web hosts potentially liable.  A draft of the bill, apparently to be introduced tomorrow, is here: Section 230 Amendment  The act as it stands now reads:

 No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider.

The amendment reads (underline is an addition and strike through is a deletion in legislatureland):

No A provider or user of an interactive computer service shall may be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content providerThe amendment reads (underline

One may look at this and think, “good riddance to sites like the Dirty” but free speech for one is free speech for all, even commentary we find offense.  If this amendment passes, we are all stripped naked in our ability to engage in the honest and blunt discourse that anonymous commenting protects. It  puts an unbearable burden on not only the sites we might not like but the sites that encourage legitimate discourse. All consumer rating sites would disappear practically overnight.

Shame on emperor Lieberman.

A child with an eerie resemblance to a Hitler Youth in the context of the photo, holding  a plane with a Nazi insignia on the side and a glib caption about the Nazi Party does not seem like the traditional or appropriate way to write a story about how to deal with your “gifted youth’ but apparently  Joylyn Niebes, the publisher of “Dallas Child Magazine”  thought it was a good idea.  The photo is part of a story entitled, “What Do I Do With This (Gifted) Kid?”.  It is in the print edition only.  The fact that it is not in the online edition leads me to believe that I am not the only one who found the imagery troubling.

While  I understand that there was no evil intent in what the author was trying to accomplish,  it could have been done in thousands of other ways. The decision to use Nazi imagery with a glib almost to the point of smart-ass  caption that could not have possibly have come from that child was poor  judgment plain and simple.  I wrote the publisher of  with my concern. Here was her response:

Dear Brian,

The problem with Jolyn’s response  is that she could have used any of those other photos/examples she referenced  to make the point of the story.  The horror’s of Nazi Germany and the Holocaust should be actually learned by children old enough to understand them and not used as a punchline attached to a child clearly not old enough to understand.  If I am mistaken and  Tyler is in fact up on the these subjects then why not include that in the story to give the photo and caption context.  She instead used those horrors  to create shock value.  This imagery had nothing to do with learning.   The story makes one brief mention of World War II planes.

What we are left with is the image itself left to the imagination and a perceived ignorance and insensitivity to history by the adults who conceived this idea.  My advice to Joylyen is to use such an important and sensitive period of history to teach and not to exploit for circulation.   I think our children, gifted or not deserve that.

**Title Disclaimer I don’t really  believe Tyler is part of the Hitler Youth, endorses the Hitler Youth or  Nazi policies.  I was using shock value and sarcasm to make a point.

It makes me nervous that the Supreme Court has decided to hear a challenge to the Stolen Valor Act.  I am worried that they will uphold it’s constitutionality.  The courts should not be in the business of evaluating the nature of lying in non-commercial speech unless it amounts to civil or criminal fraud resulting in direct, quantifiable harm for which  we already have laws on the books.  The Stolen Valor Act provides as follows:

(b) False Claims About Receipt of Military Decorations or Medals.— Whoever falsely represents himself or herself, verbally or in writing, to have been awarded any decoration or medal authorized by Congress for the Armed Forces of the United States, any of the service medals or badges awarded to the members of such forces, the ribbon, button, or rosette of any such badge, decoration, or medal, or any colorable imitation of such item shall be fined under this title, imprisoned not more than six months, or both.  (c) Enhanced Penalty for Offenses Involving Congressional Medal of Honor.—

‘Let’s take a goofy but valid hypothetical:

On any given night in Dallas, Texas there are guys hitting the nightclubs armed with their maxed out credit cards, fake Rolex watches, and persona’s of lies and deceit. Their goal? To get laid.  On this particular night we find our 30k millionaire, Trent  at the hot club in town telling women among his many pieces of bullshit that he won the Medal Of Honor in Afghanistan. Gilda Goldigger, in addition to being attracted to the fake Rolex on Trent’s wrist,  is a sucker for men in uniform.  She is a hottie and could have had any douche in the club this night but the Medal of Honor story put her over the top.  Trent got lucky that night.  The next day, Gilda decides to ask around and do a little research on the new “war-hero” man of her dreams.  It turns out that not only is Trent not a Medal of Honor winner,  he never served in the military.  The worst cut of all is that his Rolex is fake.  Gilda however, is no dummy and and wont be suffered the fool.  She reads the news. She is aware of the Stolen Valor Act.   She gives the local authorities a call. The next day Trent is arrested by the FBI  for lying about his  Medal Of Honor in violation of The Stolen Valor Act.  Trent is now facing a year in federal prison for trying to get laid. Let’s take  out the issue of whether Gilda’s chastity is something of value. Gilda recognizes the fake Rolex and shuts him down.  Same result.  The Stolen Valor Act approaches a strict liability crime on par with threatening the President of the United States. With the normal exceptions for parody, and such,  You utter the words and you’ve broken the law.  No intent for anything to happen is required.

As despicable as lying about military service and honors is,  do we want to penalize this type of nightclub douchery and other pure speech b.s?   Speech uttered for no quantifiable financial gain or other criminal purpose.   What is the goverment interest to criminalize such  speech other than it offends our sensibilities?  It presents no danger to society.  It defrauds no one in the legal sense.  Will we next criminalize false claims of being a 9-11 First Responder?  What about denying the Holocaust? As a Jew  I find that incredibly offensive.  That dreaded slippery slope.

The issue is not whether lying about Military honors is bad. It is. It’s despicable.  Shame on anyone who does it.  The issue is whether we want to goverment intruding on our ability to open our mouths and speak in the most inane of circumstances with nothing more at stake than our self respect.

I for one, don’t.

The biggest and most horrific insurance scam of all time began about 70 years  ago and is still being perpetrated present day to rip off families of those murdered in the Holocaust.  In the one of the biggest examples of historical hutzpah, insurance companies who wrote policies to holocaust victims  are refusing to honor any claim in which documents they knew would probably never be produced in selling the policy, can not be produced.

Foreign Insurance companies such as Allianz, AXA and Generali are refusing to pay insurance claims on policies because death certificates can not be produced and in many cases the policies are long lost or destroyed by the Nazis.  As we all know from either study, movies or television, the Nazis did not provide death certificates to those they murdered in the Holocaust.  These insurance companies had no issue taking the money and now wish to be unjustly enriched on the graves of the murdered with no opportunity for families of victims to respond.  There is no opportunity for two reasons.  The official claims process while unjust and arbitrary in it’s own right, was officially closed in 2004.  The bigger and most time pressing reason is that survivors are prohibited by law from suing the insurance companies directly in Federal court.  One of the reasons behind the legislation was to force survivors to go through the International Commission for Holocaust Era Insurance Claims.  To date only 306.24 million paid to survivors out of an estimated valued owed in 2003 of 19 billion.  The fund stopped accepting claims and appeals in 2004.  This is a travesty.

Two bills are pending that would remove this prohibition.  HR 890 entitled the Holocaust Insurance Accountability Act of 2011 and SB 466 entitled the “Restoration of Legal Rights for Claimants under Holocaust-Era Insurance Policies Act of 2011″  Both of these bills would remove the bar and allow survivors to sue the foreign  insurance companies directly in Federal Court if certain criteria are met.  Time is running out to prevent Holocaust victims from being victimized yet again by Insurance Companies  such as Allianz who not only profited off of  their deaths but actually insured the death camps.  Please contact your representatives and voice support for these bills before it is too late.  This would not force insurance companies to pay but simply allow survivors to sue them in federal court and make their cases.

Never forget.

Anyone who remotely  follows the NBA is probably aware of the controversy surrounding the bonehead “Chink In The Armor” title used by ESPN mobile for a story about New York Knicks Chinese-American phenom point guard Jeremy Lin.

One thing I have learned in writing and speaking on the nature of hate speech in social media is that context is king.  While certain words and phrases need no context to be considered hate speech, there are many that in a vacuum, have legitimate meaning but when context is added become racially charged.  There is a point we intend to convey with that context.  This is why I roll my eyes  at those who wish to focus on the vacuum.  “Chink In The Armour” was not written in a vacuum.  There was a real person behind it who had something on his/her mind and went through some nature of thought process before it appeared live.  To trivialize it as being ok because in a vacuum it has a legitimate meaning is to ignore the impact that the unintended meaning carries.  There is no doubt in my mind that somewhere in this country, someone is using the ESPN title to justify to themselves, to others and maybe their children that such slurs are acceptable in society.  This is why it is important for ESPN to come down hard on whoever was responsible.

It also brings to mind an incident last year in which I was accused of being racially insensitive in my context. It involved a friend who is Chinese.

This friend is an avid runner as I am.  I would often comment on photos she posted on Facebook from various races she had run.  One particular photo showed her crossing the finish line of a race looking down and to me her eyes appeared to be closed.  This was something I could identify with. When I am struggling in a race or run in general I tend to look down and squint at the ground because my face muscles tighten up. With this in mind I placed the following comment on her photo:

“Why are your eyes closed.. lol”

All hell broke loose.  She was not offended but others were with “what the hell do you mean by that” comments.   It never occurred to me that there was a stereotype embedded in my comment until it was angrily pointed out to me.  I was mortified.   I explained myself and she shrugged it off with no harm done.  I never forgot it.  Was I racist and just didn’t see it?   Why did I focus on that?   In my mind it was harmless in the context I had created.  It never occurred to me in leaving that comment that while context is king, it’s not the same for everyone.  I am infinitely more aware of that sitting here today a year later. Words can be powerful intentional or unintentional weapons of racial hatred or simple ignorant stupidity.  They are rarely spoken in a vacuum.

Hooman Karamian  a/k/a Nik Richie  who runs the “Trash Your Former Best Friend“  website, TheDirty.com  has long been the “Teflon Don” against accusations of defamation and other nastiness posted on his web site.  His bullet proof armor has been Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act which provides passive web site operators liability immunity for content posted by others.  A Cincinnati Bengals cheerleader has now, at least temporarily, put a chink in that armor.

For those unfamiliar with the The Dirty,  it is a monument to the dark side of free expression in social media.  Users of the site who have “grudges” against other people,  generally steal their  sometimes revealing and inappropriate photos primarily off Facebook.  They then, often violating the copyright of the owner,  anonymously post them on TheDirty site with  crude and often defamatory narrative.  Other users known as “The Dirty Army” as well as allies of whoever posted the material will then add more anonymous, vulgar commentary becoming basically a high school cafeteria style food fight of back and forth insults and defamatory accusations.  It is common to see posts claiming an individual has a sexually transmitted disease,  AIDS etc.  There is also racial and ethnic hate speech targeting blacks, Jews. Asians and gays to name a few.   Nik and other employees of the site then add “one liners” regarding the original post.  It is this added commentary that may end up costing the site it’s CDA 230 immunity and money unless an appeals court decides otherwise.

In a 2009 , TheDirty ran a post  about Cincinnati Bengals Cheerleader Sarah Jones with an anonymous narrative that her ex-boyfriend had cheated on her with more than 50 women and tested positive several times for chlamydia and gonorrhea. The exact text reads as follows:

“Nik, here we have Sarah J, captain cheerleader of the playoff bound cinci bengals.. Most ppl see Sarah has [sic] a gorgeous cheerleader AND highschool teacher. . yes she’s also a teacher . . but what most of you don’t know is . . Her ex Nate . . cheated on her with over 50 girls in 4 yrs. . innthat time he tested positive for Chlamydia Infection and Gonorrhea . . so im sure Sarah also has both . . what’s worse is he brags about doing sarah in the gym . . football field . . her class room at the school where she teaches at  DIXIE Heights”

Nik, added his customary one-liner which started with  Why are all high school teachersfreaks in the sack? – nik.” Nik then added further commentary directed at  Jones.

The post was never removed despite two requests.  Jones filed suit against Nik, and the Web site alleging the usual assortment of defamation and privacy related torts you would expect in such a filing.

Nik and the site,  filed a Motion For Summary Judgment premised on  immunity under Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act as a passive content provider.  The motion was denied.  The primary thrust of the the ruling, relying primarily  on Fair Housing Council of San Fernando Valley v. Roommates.com, was that the one liner commentary and  further engagement by Nik was not passive, and “responsible, in  whole or in part, for the creation or development of” the offending content”.   In essence, Nik’s one liners and barbs encouraged others to post offensive/defamatory  content” about Jones and therefore was no CDA 230 immunity.  There is a  June 4 trial date.  Nik has filed a motion to stay the trial while he appeals the denial of the 230 Summary Judgment ruling to the 6th Circuit.

I have long argued that theDirty.com in adding it’s own commentary to posts created an issue of fact as to whether the site is passive or actively involved in the “creation or development of the offending content” and this would one day come back to bite Nik.  I even debated the issue with Nik’s attorney a few years back.  In this case it seems Nik’s engagement in the post may be extensive enough that the 6th Circuit will uphold the denial of summary judgment. This is espcially true if they actually focus on the nature of the site as compared to Congressional intent of the statute.

Niks problems are not only in the United States with regards to exposure for content. The site has  a strong “Dirty Army” presence in Canada  whose speech and privacy laws are more restrictive than in the United States.  To get the scoop on the sites potential liability under Canadian law, I contacted Canadian trial attorney Antonin Pribetic.  Here is what he had to say:

“Under Canadian law, there are a number of potential legal remedies available from the lifting and posting on the Dirty website of an individual’s photo or likeness and adding defamatory commentary. Unlike U.S. law which affords strong First Amendment protection for most online speech and also protects website owners from intermediary liability under s.230 of the Communications Decency Act, Canadian law conducts a balancing act between free speech and dissemination of public interest information, on the one hand, and increased privacy concerns, on the other. “

In the end, the content on The Dirty is such that it is only a matter of time before a creative attorney is able to circumvent CDA 230 and get one of these to a jury.   This may be a case limited to its facts but it should be watched.

Twitter has announced they will begin deleting tweets at the request of certain countries.  This has caused an uproar from free speech advocates.  In reality, it simply brings Twitter in line with other major social media sites whose content interacts with the borders and laws of other countries who may not view free expression the same way we do here in the United States.

Note that in my title I used the phrase, “Free Expression” instead of “free speech” or “freedom of speech.”  I did this because there is a major difference in application.  Whether Twitter does or does not censor content in this country is  not a First Amendment  issue.  The First Amendment only applies to goverment restrictions on speech. Twitter is a private company and can restrict speech in any way it sees fit.   It is frankly surprising that Twitter has taken so long to recognize that speech does not occur in social media in a “free expression vacuum”

Prior to this announcement and after, Twitter will continue to be the most liberal platform in terms of free expression. It has virtually no restrictions on speech in it’s Terms of Service. Users are  allowed to be as racist, hateful and to a degree threatening as they like as long as the tweet does not constitute a “true threat” as defined by Twitter.

Conspicuously missing are the rules against certain types of “hate speech” that you see on Facebook, YouTube and other major sites even under the most vague definition of such content.  This has lead to a wild west atmosphere of ethnic, racial and pretty much any type of vile speech that can be imagined allowable as long as no U.S. laws are being broken and no true threat is made.  The problem Twitter  faces is that what is legal and allowable here may not be allowable if the tweet originated from another country that has hate speech laws in effect.  The must now strike a balance between growth in these countries and free expression. This is not a new dilemma.

eBay and Yahoo banned the buying and selling of Nazi memorabilia world wide even though it is not illegal in the United States but illegal in several countries in Europe.   For the last few years Facebook has blocked Holocaust Denial and other content in countries which such expression is illegal even though it is not illegal in this country under First Amendment principles

This was not a morality move nor a judgment on the nature of hate speech or other expression that may be illegal in other countries.  Twitter did not care about that before the decision and does not care now.  Twitter  simply wants worldwide growth and for it’s executives to stay out of foreign courts.   In order to accomplish that they have to take world wide morality and legal standards into account.  This move was inevitable and necessary to achieve that.  Welcome to the “Free Expression Establishment.”

Until the other day, I had no idea who Demi Lovato was.  Being 51 years old with no children, she is simply not on my generational radar.  We do however, both have something substantial in common.  We both suffer from the eating disorder Bulimia.  Most people have a sense of what Bulima is about.  You stuff your face and then puke it up minutes after.  Some people also use Laxatives. Most however, have no concept of the destructive nature of the disease.  The reason is that very few people come out publicly with their struggles.

It is terrible for Demi or any person to go through such as daily destructive self-image battle but if there is an upside, when someone  in the media eye, like Demi, has the courage to go public with her struggles, it puts the spotlight on a disease that is often suffered in shame and silence, much like I dealt with it when I was her age.   In reading an interview she gave on the subject,  she said something that resonated with me.

“ don’t think there’s going to be a day when I don’t think about food or my body,

That is the truest, most revealing and concise statement of the disease that anyone could make.  Bulimia  is a daily war with food and body self image.

I went through a three year brutal battle with active bulimia while a student at Penn State University.   If you think that it is a disease under-reported by men in the 21st century  try being a 18 year old male bulimia sufferer on a college campus of Forty-Thousand in 1981.

Treatment for an eating disorder is for the most part not going to be anything a male 18 year old freshman college student contemplates. I was not about to ask for medical or other help.  I did not even tell my family.  I would not have even known what to tell them. I had no idea what Bulimia was. The binge-purge cycle was simply a “normal” part of my life like getting up and going to bed  I went through daily emotional battles within myself.  There is the overwhelming feeling of shame.  I would have rather told my family I wanted a sex change than I was throwing up after every meal.  You have no context for understanding what you are going through.  You believe that once  you are thin enough to have reached your goal all your social problems will be solved.  Unfortunately the mirror tells you that you are never thin enough.

There is no doubt that in the hot-bod, infinite image explosion,  G-Q generation we live in, men have become more  aggressive in trying to emulate the male model types they see in various types of media.  I never saw it that way.  In the pre-MTV and Directv world of my college days, you were simply not exposed to those types of images to any significant degree.  I equated being thinner with being more accepted and popular.  I was not comparing myself to television and other media images.  I was comparing myself to the people I saw around me on a daily basis.  My perception going through high school was that there were no fat popular kids.  I  was not a model.  I was just your average fat kid trying to fit in and wanting to be popular like the thin kids seemed to be.  I wanted that life.  I wanted any life but mine.  In order to help my weight along I decided to get into long distance running.  I eventually worked my way up to running  10 -20 miles a day, 7 days a week.  I would run 10 in the morning and the same in the evening. I was always training for one marathon or another. When the day was over I scarf down a 2lb bag of peanut M&Ms.  I would then head straight to my next best friend, the toilet, to puke it all up.  This behavior was repeated with pizza, fast food etc. There were days that between not eating, puking after I ate and running long distances I was too dehydrated and weak to even get out of bed.  No matter how much weight I lost or how thin I became I always saw the same person in the mirror.  It was some beastly kid who still needed to drop a few lbs that had no friends.

In the span of one year I went from 230 lbs to 165 lbs at 6’2.  As appealing as that may seem to some, it was a brutal, almost deadly ride that I would not wish on my worst enemy. In my mind being thinner  was the only possible route to social acceptance.  I was not trying to reach some unattainable model goal, I was simply trying to fit in.  The problem is that regardless of why you think you need to either starve yourself or binge and purge the reflection in the mirror never ever changes until you are dead.  About 10 percent of those suffering from Bulimia will ultimately die from the disease.

While the manifestation of the disease is many years behind me, as Demi stated, the issues of self image are a daily battle that never goes away.  You simply learn constructive ways to channel them. Sometimes they are not so constructive.  My self-image battle has also involved exercise anorexia, drug and steroid addiction.  It is a daily, life-long struggle for balance.  A perfect example is that even today,  I have difficulty looking at myself naked in the mirror and accurately evaluating what I see. Good for Demi for raising awareness of the struggle.

CBS Chicgo sports columnist and sports radio host Dan Bernstein took  hatred  to an extreme when stated in an opinion piece  that he hoped cancer stricken former Penn State football coach Joe Paterno would die soon.

This commentary came within the context of his criticism of a public letter put together by over 340 former Penn State football players showing support for Paterno in the wake of brutal criticism for his actions or lack of them in the Jerry Sandusky scandal.  With regards to  specifics of his criticism, I actually agree with Bernstein on several points.  Making the letter public  was ill conceived, inappropriate and was not for the benefit of Paterno but for the ego of  players who signed.  A self centered, arrogant move.

Bernstein should have left it at that.  In addition to criticizing the letter, he  went on to state specifically in his column that he hoped Paterno, who is battling lung cancer  would die soon.   He did not stop there.  He then  had a “Celebration Of Paterno’s Cancer” segment on the Boers And Bernstein radio show.  In the same breath, he also plugged  the One Step At A Time Camp organization which  provides programs for children with cancer.  Dan Bernstein is on the Board Of Directors.  Seem disturbingly ironic?

What’s the bottom line in all this?   Dan Bernstein used a public forum to spew hatred and mock cancer victims. He owes some public forum apologies.  He does NOT owe apologies to  Joe Paterno or offended Penn Staters.   He owes public apologies to the millions of  sick and dying people he mocked.  Those who are battling cancer. Those who are on the front lines looking for a cure.  Those who spend their lives  trying to make life easier for those afflicted.

You may not like or even despise Joe Paterno.  You may believe, in a detached context that what Bernstein said was justified. This is not about Joe Paterno or Penn State.   Listen to Bernsteins actual words and the hatred he worked so hard to take viral. Then consider the bigger picture of  the 11,958,000 million currently afflicted with cancer. Maybe it’s someone you know or love.  Maybe it’s your child like the children helped by the One Step At A Time or similar organization. See how you feel then.  Maybe you will agree that a public apology is in order.  Here are the links to his show.  I urge you to listen.

Boers And Bernstein Hour 3 Minutes  6-8

Boers And Bernstein Hour 3  Minutes 29-31

* A special thanks to certain fellow Penn Staters who provided me the digital clips of the show.