Hypocrisy makes Fine Whine

A columnist for the supermarket rag, The Park Slope Courier who, as I mentioned in passing previously, manages to write for a Brooklyn publication while living in Florida. Could be that his brand of Goebbels-style pro-Republican propaganda doesn't have enough adherents in Brooklyn so that the powers that be who publish the paper could find someone local to write it, but he (or the paper) more than make up for it since he signs off his article every time by identifying himself by what appears to be an e-mail address but which is obviously bogus. I tried responding to one or more of his columns but the e-mail bounced each time.

Anyway, in his latest missive (typically dominated by his stalker-like obsession with Hillary Clinton, who he has savaged for such pressing global issues of the day as to what baseball team she supports), he writes as follows: "I don’t drink at all nor do I talk about alcoholic beverages. At the least I must be average."

That got me thinking. Yes, holding out a phony e-mail address to delude those not inclined to speak out that one welcomes open dialogue doesn't stop the rest of us from thinking.



Here's the same columnist on 12.28.06:


"I’ve been looking back at my notes for 2006 and I found that, besides words, we did a lot of talking with our hands. For example, were still shaking our fist at France and telling them where they can stick their fancy wines and expensive perfumes."

OK, so you talk about booze. Now, never having been out for a pop with this man (which would be hard, since I've never been in Florida and have no idea whether this man's ever been to Brooklyn, though he obviously knows a right-wing newspaper publisher here), I couldn't possibly question his veracity as to his being teetotal.

Er...could I?

Same columnist in November 2006:

I’ve been attending these wine tasting gatherings for many years and I can recall the days, not that long ago, when the vino inventory aboard cruise ships consisted mostly of French wines. Sure there were a few wines from Italy, some of the many wines from California, and a bit of various brands from a handful of scattered countries here and there. But mostly, the liquid grapes aboard the vessels were from France. Times have changed. The Star Princess, a British cruise ship, boasts an inventory of exactly one hundred different white, red, blush, sparkling and dessert wines. The Wine waiters distributed a printout and I took the time to count how many and where they are from. How many do you think were French? Half? A quarter? Nope. Of the one hundred different brands and varieties only fifteen were French. The great majority of the people aboard the Star were Americans and I think this is a statement on the subject of how our countrymen feel about supporting the French.

To paraphrase his signature line:

I am Brooklyn Brahmin and I drink. I talk about drinking. I don't lie about it. I really live in Brooklyn. And while I don't care to leave an email address out there in the public domain, if I chose to do so it would be a legit one.