Yeah, I'm a cynic. Yeah, I question everything. Sure, I wonder how long that rabbit has been crammed in that hat, and secretly laugh to myself every time that nobody ever makes the magician put that hat full of poop on their head once the rabbit is pulled out.

     That's why when one of the world's greatest purveyors of all things magical, J.K. Rowlings was outed this week as the absolute Muggle that she really is, it just warmed the cockles of me heart.

 
     You know J.K., she's the author of all of the Harry Potter books. He's a wizard, you know. Its all about magic. Yeah, I'll admit that I've never actually read any of the Harry Potter books, but I have been dragged to all of the movies. Look, I'm not going to beat up a book that makes kids read - I mean that's a good thing. Hopefully, someday they'll move on to other great science fiction like J.C. Hutchins or Bradbury, or Orson Scott Card's Enders Game. Oh, Enders Game, published years before Harry Potter, its a story about A young kid growing up in an oppressive family situation suddenly learns that he is one of a special class of children with special abilities, who are to be educated in a remote training facility where student life is dominated by an intense game played by teams flying in midair, at which this kid turns out to be exceptionally talented and a natural leader. He trains other kids in unauthorized extra sessions, which enrages his enemies, who attack him with the intention of killing him; but he is protected by his loyal, brilliant friends and gains strength from the love of some of his family members. He is given special guidance by an older man of legendary accomplishments who previously kept the enemy at bay. He goes on to become the crucial figure in a struggle against an unseen enemy who threatens the whole world. Oh, yeah, the kids are really going to love it when they grow up and read that one....Actually, I have to give credit to Uncle Orson who pointed out the similarity on that one, of course. Of course, you could throw the whole Star Wars mythos into that mix or Sabrina the Teenage Witch for that matter too. Ah Melissa Joan Hart in Maxim magazine. It always does come back to that for me, doesn't it.

    What ticks me off about J.K. is the hypocrisy of her. The official story is that she was suffering from clinical depression and was suicidal while she was writing the initial Harry Potter stories. Sad. She was a single unemployed mother living in a fantasy world and hoping to get her book published. Notwithstanding the fact, that she, as opposed to millions of other potential authors got lucky and got hit by a lightening bolt between her eyes and had fate smile upon her and got her book published, I gotta tell you - I think you can take the nut out of the nutty situation, but you still have an absolute wack job.

    Good ol' Jo is still living in a fantasy world, but now she has something worse than Dementors working for her. She's got something worse than Voldermort working for her. She's got an evil pack of lawyers working for her.

    First, she's suing a little publishing house in Michigan for attempting to publish a 400-page Lexicon which catelogs the Potter universe. Its an extension of a fan website that she herself gave an award to. You know, it goes through the characters and the spells and is as interesting to read to most adults as the backstory on Pokemon. Now that the authors want to publish some pseudo-scholarly material about it, she sends out a Freeze spell to try to stop it. In fact, they took some testimony on this. On the stand, her main complaint is that she believes that she would do a better job doing it herself. Oh please, Jo-Jo. You have got to be kidding me. Go ahead and do it yourself. Once you publish fiction, pretty much anyone is able to do anything they want to do with it as long as they attribute it back to you, which these fine folks have tried to do. Jesus, how many 4th grade book reports does she now have to go after. I dunno what the statute of limiations is on those kind of things, but if I were a 4-th grade teacher its time to start ratting out the students to the publishing company every time one of those Potter book reports come in - why not, teachers don't make enough money and neither you nor I want our taxes raised, so come on teachers - get creative.

    This week, she got a Court ruling allowing her to sue journalists in London because they took a picture of her kid with a telephoto lens and published it. The original court tossed that puppy quicker than you can say Shazam, but now an Appeals Court has said that the children of famous parents have the same right to expect privacy as the children of parents who are not well known. The case stems from a picture that was published in a newspaper of David Rowling being pushed on a buggy on a street when he was a baby, and sets the stage for a trial over damages.
 

    Now, I can't claim to be an expert in British law, and I certainly don't want to get into the poor, horrible state of privacy of our great and public celebrities, but I have no idea what these Judges were thinking. In fact, based on same, I don't give any credence to any British Judge who's last name isn't Cowell. I agree that the children of celebrities have a certain right to privacy. I agree that there is an inherent security concern here, but come on. The kid was probably surrounded by a phalanax of security guards, and was on a public street. You, I, and the rest of the muggles out there have absolutely no right to privacy on a public street. That's actually what its called - public, and if Rowlings didn't want to be in the public eye then I don't know, maybe she needs to travel by broom or something. Hell, the Court's ruling doesn't seem to make any sense, because I have no expectation that if I take my kids to a frickin sheep sheering event at our local dairy farm and some Jimmy Olsen wants to take a picture, then frankly I should be entitled to a free copy of the paper and that's it.

    At the end of the day, where is she really going with this - she's a billionaire already. Damages? What in the world is little David Rowling's measure of damages. Uhm, dude, you looked like a baby in the picture. We all have baby pictures. You're mom is a billionaire. What exactly is J.K. Rowling's 5-year old kid going to do with damages? I'm not saying that celebrity kids aren't entitled to go to Court, but the purpose of the Civil justice system in both the US and Englandia is to make an aggreived party whole. As such, I think you have to award damages in this matter, if its found to be compensable which I've said I already disagree with, in the the terms that would make a reasonable 5-year old feel as if he received justice - that's right - the horrible, evil newspaper, should provide him with a DVD of Dora the Explorer and a Juice Box.
    

    Jeez, do you think that the newspapers are really going to learn a lesson about this. Hell, by suing little book manufacturers or little newspapers Rowling's actually giving them more free advertising than she ever intended to do. Frankly, here's my two cents on it. We have, by her own admission, a bit of a nut job who somehow gets lucky in writing these books and all of a sudden her life has meaning and credibility beyond her wildest fantasies. You remember all of the talk about whether Harry Potter would get killed in the last book. I don't want to ruin it for anyone, but uhm, there was no way in the universe that he was gonna die because there would be absolutely no possibility of another book, which is 100% going to happen as soon as J.K. Rowlings realizes that she can't write her way out of a paper bag on any other subject. Oh yeah, Soylent Green is people. Kaizer Souze is Kevin Spacy, Bruce Willis is actually dead, and the Cloverfield monster looks like Dick Cheney's wife. Any other endings you want me to hit. jerseytoddshow@gmail.com

     In the end, J.K. Rowling was once accused of making the Harry Potter books to support witchcraft. I think that's ridiculous, of course. Its always a great thing when kids read. But now that she's shot her literary load, and is floundering around looking for some sort of purpose in life, perhaps its best she send the lawyers back to the hell from wence they came.

    Being accused of witchcraft is one thing, but bitchcraft...that's another story.

I'm still standing. Taken a few blows to the head, but they can't knock me down. Moving the family is nearly finished, and we are almost done living out of boxes. Now we have begun the process of moving you - the JTS Family.

This weekend, I purchased an Imac. Wow. Wow. Wow. I have had computers since I was a child, the first being a TRS-80 Color Computer that was 16k. I have resisted the Apple temptation until now, and I now realize what a dope I've been. From the purchasing experience, to service tech. calls., to the rocking machine itself - I am an absolute convert. At 36-years old, I finally realized that I don't need a computer that does a billion things - I just need one that works consistently. So far, so good.

That being said, I am still in the process of hooking the podcast rig up, and of course there have been some complications. I am also strongly considering producing the show in Garageband, and am concerned that the show might lose the "live" feel that we've come to know and love. We shall see - but its certainly exciting.

Watch this space for additional updates as they become available, and if you have the time and want to use it charitably, I'm always available on Gmail and Twitter, and have loads of questions to pick your brain with.

A quicky bfore I take the studio apart and move four miles down the road. See ya on the other side.

Featuring Geoff Smith

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Playing hooky? Not me...I'm podcasting. Featuring

1. The Ike Reilly Assasination
2. The Bangkok Five
3. The Animate Objects
4. The Dan Sheehan Conspiracy
5. Mark Rudd
6. Mobile

Featuring Howitzer

Go visit: Digital Flotsam and the Electrical Language Podcast

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       Want a little gossip? Want a little rumor, some innuendo? I'm gonna tell you a little secret. On June 29, 2007, the straightest governor in New Jersey history, Jon Corzine appointed. Anne Milgram as the Attorney General. Oh she is such a babe, shes a good lawyer, and well, for purposes of her tapping my phone lines and otherwise investigating this podcast - she's got a tremendous sense of humor.

    But she is the head of Jersey Todd's favorite former employer, the New Jersey Division of Law and Public Safety and they have found an issue that affects the lives of all New Jerseyians, so much, so much, that even if it means involving precious State resources and legal brain power, even if it means making a New Jersey a national laughing stock, we're gonna go for it. Because its not about flawed voting machines, or tax reform, or education reform, or even, crime. No, the first Attorney General of the State of New Jersey that is actually younger than yours truly has sent her minions to attack the one thing that no lawyer has ever done really all that well dealing with....gossip.

     Did this one hit you at rumour city, did you catch this on the grapevine, did you catch the scuttlebutt? The nation's most smokin' Attorney General Anne Milgram, has sent some subpoenas out to the folks at Juicycampus.com, and some of their advertisers. And let me just say, in my best Colbert impersonation, that extra "E" on the end of Anne's name - that stands for "Excellent". Juicy Campus is a website that allows for visitors to post anonymous comments about people at colleges. You can post who's the biggest campus slut, and who's the dumbest professor, and you can do it all anonymously. I know these kids in college today all have it so easy. When I was at Syracuse in the nineties, we all knew that the campus slut was some girl named "Bullet-head" which was really odd because I never even knew her real name, I just heard some wacked out story about her at some fraternity party which involved some football players and small animals. Of course, I didn't hear the story until like May of my Senior year, and I have no idea why her nickname was "Bullethead", and even in my over-exposed to bad pornography brain, I still don't get the joke. However, you college kids with your fancy technology got us old men beat in the important information department. I dunno, when I was in school, all you had to do was ask someone. Its all a bit juvenille.

     Except when its not so juvenile. My secret crush, Anne, got involved with juicy-campus.com when a Princeton's University student's private information got posted on their website. This is not good. When the kid tried to get it off their site, their was no mechanism for them to do so. Now Juicy-campus tell their advertisers that they ban offensive material, but, uhm not really. It's kind of like putting out a suggestion box without actually having that little slot in the box to actually put the suggestions in. The problem is that many of the postings on juicy-campus are so malicious that students are afraid they will affect their real lives as Google continues to serve up search results to future employers and family members. Many students have complained that Juicy-Campus refuses to remove false statements about them, and the site isn't exactly gaining points among student organizations, school administrations, and lawmakers in general.  

     The AG's office sent out a flurry of subpoena to juicy-campus and their advertisers under the New Jersey Consumer Fraud Act asking questions about the site, asking about how they get their ad revenue and how the jammy-jam is thrown together. The NJ Consumer Fraud Act deals with information in terms of a commercial transaction. If you had a highlighter, I'd ask you to take it and put a big yellow line through your screen and highlight that sentence - its going to be important later.

     Juicy-campus, through their public relations folks, raised holy hell in a press release this week stating that they've broken no laws, and that they are immune from civil liability due to the actions of their users. They've called the investigation "absurd" Yeah yeah, we're impressed tough guys. Maybe Juicy-campus shouldn't retain the public relations firm that is located in the mall somewhere next to Orange Julius and H.R. Block. These guys are doing more harm than good. 
 

"'Juicy-Campus has not violated any laws. Juicy-Campus is immune under federal law for liability arising from statements made by others. The Attorney General of New Jersey , who apparently is not a fan of the Site, know this and are instead taking the position that by asking our users not to post content that is unlawful, abusive or defamatory, among other things, we are somehow required to remove posts that may fall into those categories. They contend that by failing to do so, we have defrauded our users.' (emphasis added)'"

     They are like, so, not getting it. This is absolutely 100% not a First Amendment issue. Apparently, Juicy-campus was so hopped up on diet coke and chocolate bars just waiting for someone to go after them on a First Amendment issue - like whether they can be held liable in a civil court if someone actually got hurt as a result of something posted on their site, not that they actually should care about that, that like Jo-bu from "Major League" they couldn't hit the curve ball that was thrown at them.

     This is a really developing and interesting area of the law and frankly juicy-campus shouldn't be so smug. Under Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, "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." Ok, that's fine, and a case that came out of Texas, in 2007, called Doe v. My-space actually held My-space immune from liability for failing to institute safety measures to prevent sexual assaults of minors and failure to institute policies relating to age verification. It didn't mean that My-space didn't get off their ass and make some major changes to their site in terms of age verification and monitoring their comments, and maybe that was done for the legal end, but it was also done to satisfy those funky market forces, like their advertisers that don't want to besmirch their otherwise pristine reputations.  In fact, companies like Google and Adbrite have refused to take Juicycampus' money.

    Doe v. My-space is only a decision from a District Court in Texas, and I wouldn't doubt for one second that the victim in that case, a 14-year old girl who was sexually assaulted after meeting someone on my-space isn't moving that case forward through the Court system, and I'm sure that some grandstanding legislator won't be using this story at some point to revise the rules of the CDA. Stay tuned kids, the law is going to change on this one right before our eyes, and its going to affect everyone on the net, and in the spirit of the March Madness season let me do my best Dick Vitale and make a prediction. The Supreme Court baybee, they're gonna be cleaning the Boards on this one. John Roberts, he's a diaper dandy. They're gonna take the CDA downtown. That Ruth Bader Ginsburg, RBG, is gonna throw the alley oop, and the Supreme Court is someday going to say that places like myspace or facebook or juicy campus is going to have to at the very least monitor their own sites for bad behavior.

     In the end, let me whisper something in the ear of those kids at Juicy-campus. This is not a First Amendment issue. As of today, the CDA says that Anne M. can't go after them over content. Even though these Juicy-campus.com permits and, in my humble opinion, encourages its users to post some awfully racist and sexist stuff and provides them absolute anonymity to do so. No, the AG can't send a few flying monkeys from her lair to check into that. So, she's investigating the relationships between Juicy-campus and their advertisers, and whether JC accurately told their advertisers how the site worked when they gave in some money to advertise on the site. Already, one advertiser has pulled their ads from the site, and if there is any other material misrepresentation going on here where money is exchanged Juicy-campus may have a lot of explaining to do, and perhaps Juicy-campus should lose its flippant attitude. Trust me, its Ms. Milgram if your nasty, and this is nasty. This is the Web 2.0 equivalent of going after Al Capone over tax evasion rather than his substantive crimes, and as we say in Joisey - you mess with the bull, you get the horns.  

oh....and how 'bout this:

Never one to brag, but take a look at Time Magazine's Joe Klein's article regarding Al Gore versus my essay in Show 111.

Frankly, with all due respect to Mr. Klein, did you make a "Memoirs of an Invisible Man" reference?

I think not.

Coming off of a cold, its some of the best music that I've played on the show yet. Featuring:

1. Justin Hopkins and the Guilt
2. Ray Tarantino
3. Kongos
4. Glen Philips
5. Jerzy Jung

Featuring Colie Brice

Go over to Accuquote and save on your life insurance.

Listen to the show or download it here

       Back when I was in law school, I played in a Law School Street hockey league. 5 on 5, on a tennis Court, knocking an orange ball around while miserably trying to stay upright on inline skates. I gotta admit, like many of my athletic adventures, I was miserable. Don't get me wrong, I had great eye hand coordination, played great defense, and actually scored a ton of goals. The problem was that I didn't have great eye, hand, feet coordination, and most of my stopping came courtesy of the tennis court fence. But hey, in a league filled with future lawyers, this was a skill level a tad beyond embarassing. By the way, and I know someone is going to ask, yes, having any kind of sports league with future tort lawyers is a pain in the ass. Some hockey leagues hold a draft - we had a three hour conference call going over the rules, and drafting the league's charter. Even geeks have to have their fun.

      I even have a pretty scar over my eye from the time that one of the other players tried to help me stop rolling by treating my face like a shish kabob with his stick. I'm sure he didn't mean to wack me - hell - he was trying to stay on his feet, too. But I ended up with a nice 8-stitch gash over my eye, and I think he's senior counsel at an insurance defense firm now. Funny how things turn out.

      So that being said, I am always fascinated when the law, the internet, and the wide, wide world of sports collide like a cross check from Jeff Beukeboom. This past week, the Rangers, who have one the Stanley Cup only 4 times out of 83 years (which comes out to a success rate of 4.18 for you math geeks out there), once again got the ol' slap shot through the five hole. Uhm I'm sorry, pushed too hard on the hyperbole button.  

     But,  back in the fall, MSG, the company that owns the Rangers filed a lawsuit in Federal Court because the National Hockey League promised to fine it a grand a day if it didn't give the league complete control of its website. Apparently, the league wanted to convert it into one of those cookie cutter websites that makes every team in the league look exactly the same. You've seen it pretty much accross the board from major league baseball to the NBA to the NFL. All of these websites look like they were pooped out by the exact same programmer.

     The Rangers attorneys, wearing their home whites, claim that the NHL was seeking to control the competitive activities of independent businesses in ways that are not necessary to the functioning of that legitimate joint venture. In fact, they claimn that the NHL has become an "illegal cartel,” Yeah, comparing your league to Columbian drug lords is probably not going to go over well at the next Christmas party, but considering that the Rangers hired the law firm of Hansen and Hansen, better known as the Hansen brothers, you should expect that their first move would speak of legal goonistry.

     Jeez, I love the image of the Rangers' lawyers. From the University of Saskatoon School of Law, leading the league in depositions, he's your lead counsel, Number 66! Hell, most lawyers track their time in billable hours, the Rangers' lawyers bills say .5 periods for trial preparation. Hell, do you think anybody wants to go to a binding arbitration with a lawyer from the Rangers? You'd end up with your dress shirt pulled up over your head while some dude tries to grab your tie and box your ears in. Geez, I wonder if we can get Tie Domi to take some night classes.

     The lawsuit went onto say, that the poor downtrodden Rangers use the web site for a competitive advantage against other teams to generate and maintain fan interest. However, in November, the District Court ruled against their attempt to get a preliminary injunction, and this week the Second Circuit Court of Appeals again denied their attempt to stop the NHL from taking over their website, or fining them $100,000 a day, which in fact, is the cost of a skybox at Madison Square Garden.

     The Court said that MSG and the Rangers “did not show that the NHL’s website ban has had an actual adverse effect on competition in the relevant market. Nor did MSG demonstrate that the many procompetitive benefits of the NHL’s restrictions could be achieved through an alternative means that is less restrictive of competition.”

     Like I do, time and time again, let me turn the circular legalese back into English, however, in this particular case, let me turn what the Court said into language that an average Ranger fan could understand. "Yo, you fn moron, getouttahere with that lame bs. Fuggetaboutit."

     In all seriousness, I see the Rangers point. They are a business, and they are in a competitive market with two other hockey teams, two baseball teams, two football teams, a Basketball team, and a team with about as much talent than your average 8th grade basketball team, the New York Knicks. Actually, I think the way that the Knicks have played this year, an average 8th grade basketball team could possibly beat them if you hyped them up with the promise of pizza and ice cream after the game, but I digress.

     The Rangers have to be concerned that their fans are being pulled in so many directions for their entertainment dollar. But come on, they're being a bunch of silly nillies. I know you don't like when I use that language. But do you think for one second that a fan of the Devils or the Islanders is going to say, hmph, I've been a fan of my team for twenty-years but I'm going to switch allegiences because the Blueshirts have a flash player on their site. Come on. 2-minutes in the penalty box for stupidity.

     The product in this case is the sport of hockey - not the individual team. The NHL has the ability, as an agreed upon joint venture of all the teams, to do things on behalf of the whole league - like negotiate TV deals, or to decide what the uniforms are going to look like. When one individual team argues that they should have the ability to go their own way, then the whole thing might as well go back to a Canadian barnstorming league. The Rangers are acting like spoiled little kids who just want to take their sticks and go home when they don't get what they want, and frankly, what they want isn't going to amount to a hill of beans in the long run.

     Its hockey; which over the course of my lifetime has lost more juice than the Buffalo Bills Hall of Fame. Ok, that was a convuluted sports reference that only about two of you are going to find remotely amusing. Let me clarify. Its hockey; which over the course of my lifetime has pretty much held the same orbit as Michael Jackson's singing career. I'm sorry, when I was a kid, professional hockey held a certain grip over me for the few months inbetween football and baseball season. But now, when an individual ticket costs about as much as a Broadway play, when there are more teams south of the mason-dixon line than there are above the snow line, I'm sorry, the Rangers competition isn't from the Devils or the Yankees or the Knicks, their competition has degraded to UFC, Professional Lacrosse, and Tractor Pulls.

     I don't even like the Rangers. I've always been partial to a certain team from Broad Street in Philadelphia, but over the past two years they've slipped from my consciousness like the name of Appollo Creed's trainer that ended up training Rocky Balboa in Rocky IV. Jeez, what was his name....the bald guy...Duke....played by the great Tony Burton...thought you'd stump me there, didn't ya? The only guy other than Sly and Burt Young to be in all 6 Rocky movies. There's your trivia of the day, no need to thank me.

     Hockey has always been the fourth most watched sport in the US, but standing at that spot has more zombies clawing at hockey's ankles than a George Romero Night of the Living Dead film. And rather than biting the waffle glove that feeds it, the Rangers should be spending more time actually putting a team on the ice that wins games and gets me excited. Here's a quote to anyone trying to get their feet wet in new media, whether you're a podcasting company or a hockey team, "Here we are now, entertain us." Hey that would make a great song lyric. But my point is, I don't care whether your website has more bells and whistles than Dr. Emmett Brown's train in Back to the Future III, if your product sucks, I'm taking my eyeballs and earbuds elsewhere.

    In fact, if I were the Judge in this matter, I would just have reviewed the Rangers' lawyers' filings and told them, to "shut the puck up."     

  ....yup, and with an ending like that, I can only assume that you'll be taking your eyeballs and earbuds elsewhere, too.

Every once in awhile a news item comes along and doesn't have the reach of a proper Jersey Toddshow essay, but nonetheless deserves comment. Check out this story from the wonderful folks at Blue Jersey.

"Dozens of Easter Bunny surrogates were rescued just in time:

Dozens of rabbits were removed from a house in Atlantic County after they were found living in conditions officials called deplorable.

The rabbits were being bred and sold by an elderly Egg Harbor Township man who apparently became overwhelmed with the responsibilities of caring for so many animals, officials said.

The Atlantic County Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals removed 57 rabbits from the home today, but the man did not receive any summonses."

 

What are conditions deplorable to a rabbit? Day-old carrots? Soggy wood chips? Despite their incredible cuddly facade, these are animals that live in dark underground holes filled who-knows-what.  I know Bugs Bunny. Bugs Bunny is a friend of mine. Let me be 100% honest, I've never seen Bugs Bunny with a vaccum cleaner. Frankly, I very rarely see Bugs Bunny wear pants, and that's a different problem altogether.

How did this get reported to officials? Is there a hotline for this kind of thing, or did Thumper just stamp out a message with his big foot? Frankly, I think the rabbits could have just gotten out of there by telling the man that it's not rabbit season, but duck season.

How did this gentleman lose control over his inventory? He bought two rabbits yesterday, and overnight there were fifty-seven. It didn't help that he was accidentally mixing his Viagra into the rabbit food.

Finally, shame on the newspaper for not following up on the story, and not interviewing the poor defenseless rabbits. When reached for comment, Fluffy could only tearfully state, "Hey man, I was just happy to get out of there with my left foot."

I played Yael on the last JTS and I can't get the song out of my head. The video is one of the most creative that I've seen in years, and really adds a new dimension to the song.

Here we go again kiddies. Some old favorites and some new hotness. Featuring:

1. Ike Reilly and the Assassination
2. Jackopierce
3. Guitar Jack
4. Sudden Death
5. Beth Hirsch

Featuring: the Spark Effect and Jack Wakes Up,  and the UC Radio Podshow.

Go to Accuquote.com

Listen to the show, or download it here

       We here at the Jersey Toddshow love to take requests. Today, on Twitter I received the following instant message from the absolutely wonderful Shakespearecast.com. If you haven't checked them out yet, I highly recommend that you do. However, the message shocked, shocked me. 

       I'll read it to you, "If you do a rant for the show on Spitzer and don't include the term "Swallowzer" I'll be very disappointed."

      Far be it for me to disappoint even one of the thousands and thousands of listeners of the JTS. But I am concerned, the saga of former Governor Eliot Spitzer has been picked over more times than the garbage outside of Britney's casa. No, Jay, Conan, and Dave, and whatever his name is on ABC have done a fine job of throwing dirt on America's favorite john. No, I come here tonight not to bury Eliot Spitzer, I come here tonight to take another swing at my favorite lost uncle, Alan Dershowitz.

     Like Eminem in 8-Mile, I will concede that Alan Dershowitz is a far superior lawyer than I am. I will concede that he is far smarter than I am. I will grant that as a Harvard Law Professor, that 99.9% of his students have been more academic than I is, I mean am. I wouldn't even gtaduate from the Harvard Law bus tour. Trust me kids, though I seem pretty bright here, trust me, Alan Dershowitz would treat me like Ali treated that heavy bag in the D-Con Roach Proof, though I doubt that he would say "I don' want you livin' wit' no roaches!"   

     But Professor Dershowitz, I do have one thing that you don't have - its not good looks, nor a keen sense of style, though I certainly have you beat on those accounts, I have a big, hard microphone, and well, for at least the time being I have the attention of one or two people.

     My problem right now is an article that Professor Dershowitz wrote in the Wall Street Journal entitled, the "Entrapment of Elliot". If you didn't know, Elliot Spitzer was a student at Harvard Law and actually worked with Professor Dershowitz and was a student in his class, so I don't doubt his affection for his former student or his motives in trying to defend him. No what I have a problem with is his hypocrisy. In the article, Professor Dershowitz argues that

 “The federal criminal investigation that has led to Eliot Spitzer’s resignation as governor of New York illustrates the great dangers all Americans face from vague and open-ended sex and money-transaction statutes; Congress enacted these laws to give federal prosecutors wide discretion in deciding which ‘bad guys’ to go after.”

    Generally, says Dershowitz, “wise and intelligent prosecutors” use proper discretion in pursuing the real bad guys, such as mobsters, terrorists and exploiters of children. But, he claims, “selectively enforced statutes . . . lie around like loaded guns waiting to be used against the enemies of politically motivated investigators, prosecutors and politicians.”

    Dershowitz’s proposal is that over-broad criminal statutes should be narrowed so that they can be used only to prosecute predatory crimes with real victims, not to facilitate politically-motivated prosecutions like Spitzer’s. In Dershowitz’s words: “Money laundering, structuring and related financial crimes are designed to ferret out organized crime, drug dealing, terrorism and large-scale financial manipulation. They were not enacted to give the federal government the power to inquire into the sexual or financial activities of men who move money in order to hide payments to prostitutes.”

     Woah, woah, woah, wait a cotton-pickin' second here, Professor. Let's not mince words. Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit. Eliot Spitzer made his career, following your teaching and guidance frankly, by the selective prosecution of criminals, and that prosecution led to a political career. Most prosecutions are political. Most prosecutors are indeed political appointments, and most decisions of who to prosecute and why start off as a political decision.

     At the end of the day, the bad-guys didn't get to yell "no fair" and ask for a do-over. Do you think the Gambino crime family had a problem when, in 1992, Spitzer while working for DA Robert Morgenthau set up his own sweat-shop and hired 30-laborers just so he could plant a bug to get evidence about crimes in the garment industry? Was that not a political prosecution? Do you thing that Dick Grasso, former chairman of the New York Stock Exchange, had a beef when he was prosecuted for the crime of Excessive Compensation as head of a non-profit Board? Did Dick Grasso support Spitzer poltically, no? Did you know that a Newsweek reporter was physically threatened by one of Spitzer's staff when reported on the investigation? Doesn't look good for the guvnor run.  Did you know Spitzer told the State Police to file reports on political rival Joe Bruno's whereabouts in orer to dig something up on him? If that ain't a political use of the law, then I don't know what is.

    Now I will concede to Professor Dershowitz that since the advent of 9/11, Federal criminal statutes have become more and more vague. I don't necessarily think this is a horrible thing if I've done nothing wrong. But here we have an elected official of one of the biggest States in the country conspiring with criminals. Its not about the sex, though that sells papers.

    I mean even here in the great Garden State, our sex crazed wacky Governor - McSteamy, I mean McHottie, I mean, McGreevey. It was never about the sex. It had nothing to do whether he was gay or straight. It had everything to do with appointing people into positions just because they were willing to uhm assume the position, even though they had no qualifications to do so, and that put the health and safety of New Jerseians at risk. The sex....nah, that was just something to sell papers.

    In fact Spitzer and McGreevey are quite the pair. In fact, I think it would make a great tv show.

On November thirteenth Felix McGreevey was asked to remove himself from his place of residence. That request came from his wife. Deep down he knew she was right. But he also knew that someday he would return to her. With nowhere else to go, he appeared at the home of his childhood friend, Oscar Spitzer. Sometime earlier, Spitzer's wife had thrown him out, requesting that he never return. Can two former Governors share an apartment without driving each other crazy? 

    Its about a guy, with an obvious problem either personally or in his marriage, that led him to deal with a major criminal operation. Sure, utilizing the services of a professional sex worker is only a 4th degree offense in the State of New York, and Elliot Spitzer really didn't commit a major crime. Hey, he hasn't even been charged with anything. But lets look at the degree here, this isn't Spitzer buying a dime bag from some dude at the Knickerbocker Arena in Albany - he spent a couple of grand on this. This is like a high-end coke habit. And what would have happened if he refused to pay his bill? You think the pimps at the escort service would have just let him fly because he's got a "I control the jails" so it should be free card? Of course not. More importantly, what would have happened if some of those nefarious elements started acting like the lobbyists, who of course are other forms of whores, and started pushing Spitzer to promote some of their causes or they'd spill his secrets.

     No, Spitzer was compromised, and the Federal prosecutors in this matter did nothing but hasten the inevitable. Did Dershowitz even read the legal documents? I did. Spitzer was only Client-9. For the life of me, I'm dying to know who Client-8 and Client-10 were, or how high up this list goes. Now, I'd love to make the joke the people of the State of New York should at least be proud that Spitzer was in the top ten. I mean I saw that video on the net of Gene Simmons and his prostitute, and I gotta think that Spitzer has to be somewhat more coordinated than that fossil. So Number-9 isn't so bad, right? I mean you're in the top ten. Sure better than the Knicks. As an aside here, between Gene Simmons and Eliot Spitzer, whaaat's the deal with these nearing the end of middle age Jewish guys being complete sex freaks lately. Jesus, is that what I have to look forward to? Just shoot me now.

      In the article, Professor Dershowitz closes with the story of Lavrenti Beria, the head of Joseph Stalin's KGB, who once quipped to his boss, "show me the man and I will find the crime." The Soviet Union was notorious for having accordion-like criminal laws that could be adjusted to fit almost any dissident target. The U.S. is a far cry from the Soviet Union, and claims that our laws are dangerously overbroad.

     Well, we here at the Jersey Toddshow never heard of Beria prior to your article, and will only respond with a quote from another New York City resident, noted goldfish keeper, Mr. Arnold Drummond, and I paraphrase, "Whatchu talking about, Dershowitz?" Spitzer didn't resign because he committed a crime. He resigned because he was a fraud, and even a truckload of Viagra wouldn't have gotten his political schwantz back up, and to compare the incidental discovery of Spitzer to Mother Russia in the good old days is a hasty generalization, and alarmist.

     Ask Joe Bruno, Dick Grasso, and Joe Bruno, or a thousand guys in jail, Professor Dershowitz, but nobody who ever gets caught by the police doing something that they know is not right think the law is fair.

     And to my friends at the Shakespeare cast, I say this:

There once was a Governor of New York/who liked to find hookers to pork.

He thought he'd never get caught/Or have to atone for any of the ahem he uhm bought.

A prosecutor with dubious tactics, hell how many times did he tie the noose? / But Dershowitz screams and says whats good for the gander isn't good for the goose?

Sorry, Professor, but Spitzer's a bad dog, a real Schnauzer / and cheap, he was once overheard saying for five bucks, I don't care if she spits or swallowser

   Wow, Spitzer or Swallows-her. I'm sorry Shakespeare-cast, but that was really, really rough. I haven't been challenged like that since 5th grade when we were making fun of Martha Lipschitz. How did that go again? If her lipschitz, my butt talks....