THANK YOU, MASK MAN

Lenny Bruce riffing on the Lone Ranger and Tonto in one of his nightclub gigs provided the audio track for this animated short by John Magnuson released in 1968.

Depending who you ask, Bruce was a sick comic, a junkie hipster, or a prophet healing a sick society. He was hounded for saying "dirty words" on stage, words you hear every day, and spent his later years fighting in the courts. Call it free speech. Bruce was ahead of his time, and maybe he was punished for it by a hypocritical puritanical society. So it goes.

Oh, and he was funny.

Lenny Bruce gets frisked

EX-DRUG COP CHANGES TUNE

Texas narcotics officer Barry Cooper must have had a change of heart. He changed from being an eager enforcer of current drug laws to actively opposing them, and telling people how to avoid being busted. Cooper sells a DVD on his website called Never Get Busted Again. He says it will teach you "drug enforcement tactics; how to avoid narcotics profiling; how to conceal your stash" and more. He was on Geraldo Rivera's show, and the first clip begins with his introduction, and then the news segment as it aired on FOX.



The second clip is an actual segment from Cooper's DVD, Never Get Busted Again, and is included for informational purposes only, and as such is protected as Free Speech under the United States Constitution.



Barry Cooper's website can be found here:
http://www.nevergetbusted.com/

SACCO AND VANZETTI

Ben Shahn used newspaper photos as a basis for a series of goaches (opaque watercolors) and tempera paintings commemorating the trial of Italian immigrants and anarchists Nicola Sacco and Bartolemeo Vanzetti.

The famous trial of Sacco and Vanzetti -- called "the most politically charged murder case in the history of American jurisprudence" -- celebrated it's 80th anniversary last week. Railroaded for their unpopular views, the two were electrocuted at Charlestown State Prison just after midnight on Aug. 23, 1927. Their executions set off unprecedented mass demonstrations worldwide due to the atmosphere of prejudice that surrounded the proceedings.

From the Yale Bulletin: "The Sacco and Vanzetti case unfolded shortly after the end of the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia and World War I, during the period of intense xenophobia and anti-radical paranoia known as the "Red Scare." On May 5, 1920, police in Brockton, Massachusetts, arrested Sacco, a shoemaker, and Vanzetti, a fish peddler, charging them with being "suspicious characters."' They were later charged with murder.

During the proceedings, Judge Webster Thayer made offhand, anti-Italian remarks, and told the jury: "This man [Vanzetti], although he may not have actually committed the crime attributed to him, is nevertheless culpable, because he is the enemy of our existing institutions."

For more, see Peter Miller's excellent documentary about the case.

http://www.willowpondfilms.com/sacco_and_vanzetti.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sacco_and_Vanzetti