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"Israel" Backfires
Description
In 2006 I was for all intents and purposes expelled from the American academy as a 9/11 heretic. The ADL was already calling me an antisemite, though at that point I was downplaying Israel’s role in the attacks on New York and Washington.
During the six-month media firestorm, ignited by Rep. Steve Nass and the Wisconsin Republican Party’s demand that the University fire me outright, U.W.-Madison Provost Patrick Farrell repeatedly advised me to decline interviews and lay low. I refused, instead opting to accept most interview requests and court controversy. I hoped that intelligent people in general, and academicians in particular, would hear about my academic freedom fight, support it, and take a second look at the self-evidently ridiculous official story of 9/11.
Though plenty of intelligent people did wake up to the 9/11 problem after seeing me debate Sean Hannity, I was disappointed by the tepid reaction of the professoriat. Most offered halfhearted support for my academic freedom, but few were willing to openly challenge the official story of 9/11. I suppose they didn’t want to find themselves in my position, raked over the coals of mostly-negative mainstream media attention. The few who did speak out, like William Woodward, also endured media attacks, albeit on a smaller scale than mine.
By the time Rep. Steve Nass and Fox News ambushed me in early July, 2006, over 100 professors had already signed on to Scholars for 9/11 Truth. I hoped and expected that the controversy over my case would quickly bring hundreds more onboard. Based on my experience with academic colleagues, I believed that more than a few of them were smart, cantankerous, and (hopefully) unlikely to put up with rank 9/11 b******t, once the issue had been called to their attention.
Herbert Feinstein: Recovering Mob Lawyer, Black Humorist
One of the smartest and most cantankerous academics I ever met was the late Herbert Feinstein, a scholar-fan of Mark Twain and Buster Keaton who taught comedy-related classes at San Francisco State University while I was collecting MAs and teaching there circa 1986-1993. Herb was fond of Racine’s line about how life is a comedy to those who think and a tragedy to those who feel. I shared his appreciation of humour noir, gallows humor, absurdist humor, and combinations thereof, and he gets some of the credit (or blame) for my penchant for satire.
Herb Feinstein was famously crotchety, not known for suffering fools gladly, and far from the most popular member of the SFSU faculty. He exuded inner torment and barely-veiled self-loathing, which seemed somehow inseparable from his charmingly dark sense of humor. I enjoyed his wit and gradually got to know him over the course of a couple of comedy classes.
Feinstein told me that he had worked in Hollywood and had firsthand knowledge of the sexual blackmail that goes on there. He said many A-list actors got their start in the porn industry, assured me that a g