The most horrendous car bombing in Beirut in 1985, a huge explosion killing 80 people and wounding 200 mostly women and girls, leaving the mosque exit where the bomb was placed, the attack aimed at a Muslim cleric was traced to the CIA. ibid.
Intifada: in its first month Israel killed 75 Palestinians … in response mostly to stone throwing using US helicopters to attack apartment complexes and other civilian targets. Clinton responded by making the biggest deal in a decade to send new military helicopters to Israel. The US population was protected from that information by the press. ibid.
It was not the villain Arafat who was the prime obstacle to the realization of a Palestinian state but rather the United States and Israel. ibid.
The perils of democracy: Madison asked them to consider what would happen in England if elections were open to all classes of people – the population would then use its voting rights to distribute land more equitably. To ward off such injustice, he recommended arrangements to protect the minority of the opulent against the majority … Aristotle and Madison posed essentially the same problem but drew opposite conclusions: Madison’s solution was to restrict democracy while Aristotle’s was to reduce inequality. ibid.
80% regard universal health care as more important than holding down taxes. ibid.
The US prison population is the highest in the world … Over half of those in federal prisons are there for drug-related crimes. ibid.
Render the US [health] system the most inefficient in the industrial world with costs far higher than the average for industrial OECD societies and some of the worst health outcomes. ibid.
On December 1st 1935 Mrs William Starkwell, the wife of a New Jersey handyman, gives birth to her first and only child. It is a boy and they name it Virgil. He is an exceptionally cute baby with a sweet disposition. Before he is 25 years old he will be wanted by police in six states for assault armed robbery and illegal possession of a wart. Take the Money and Run 1969 starring Woody Allen & Janet Margolin & Marcel Hillaire & Jacquelyn Hyde & Lonny Chapman & Jan Merlin & James Anderson & Howard Sotm & Mark Gordon & Micil Murphy et al, director Woody Allen
Spending most of his time on the streets, Virgil takes to crime at an early age. He is an immediate failure. ibid.
Virgil steals to pay for Cello lessons. ibid.
Virgil submits to the vaccine test. It is a success. Except for one temporary side effect. For several hours he is turned into a rabbi. ibid.
How did it happen? ibid. him to her
Virgil complains and he is severely tortured: for several days he is locked in a sweat-box with an insurance salesman. ibid.
In 1996 some of the greatest comedy talents of all time came together to create a new sketch comedy show. What resulted was arguably one of the most spectacular failures in television history. Too Funny to Fail: The Life and Death of the Dana Carvey Show, caption, 2017
At some point you’ve got to shoot something. ibid. Dana
[Steve] Carell’s commitment was beyond 1000%. ibid.
Something like six million people deserted the show I dunno within the first five minutes. ibid.
The show was really critically savaged. ibid. writer
The only letter that singled me out was from my mother. ibid. Carell
I first went into a boxing gym as a child … I didn’t like to get punched in the head, man. My father didn’t give a fuck. My dad wanted me to be a boxer because he was trying vicariously to live life through me. (Lose & Boxing & Life’s Like That & Talent & Failure) Losers I:The Miscast Champion ***** Michael Bentt, Netflix 2019
Someone did not give Jerry Jones the fucking script [Lost KO1]. The most singular humiliating thing to a boxer is getting knocked out in public, man. My father was present. He went ballistic … I had never encountered like that kind of darkness before, that self-hatred, self-loathing. ibid.
Tommy Morrison v Michael Bentt: ‘And a good right by Bentt and Tommy Morrison is down in the first round!’ … Morrison down again … ibid. US fight commentary
You can have all the talent in the world but if you’re not brought along the right way, if you don’t have someone who’s looking out for your best interests, you’re fucked. ibid. Mickey Rourke
96 hours I was out for. And I see a light … I was always in conflict in like why I fought in the first place. ibid. Bentt
Most of us don’t prepare ourselves for failure. ibid. Freddy Roach
And I wrote a piece, Anatomy of a Knockout. ibid. Bentt
Take some responsibility for your own failings for once in your fucking life! Hatton Garden I, ITV 2019, Terry to Brian
Reviewers, with some rare exceptions, are a most stupid and malignant race. As a bankrupt thief turns thief-taker in despair, so an unsuccessful author turns critic. Percy Bysshe Shelley, Fragments of Adonais
Reviewers are usually people who would have been poets, historians, biographers etc. If they could, they have tried their talents at one or the other, and have failed, therefore they turn critics. Samuel Taylor Coleridge, 1772-1834, Seven Lectures on Shakespeare and Milton
An essential aspect of creativity is not being afraid to fail. Edwin Land
You know who the critics are? The men who have failed in literature and art. Benjamin Disraeli, Lothain, 1870
I’m a failure as a woman. My men expect so much of me, because of the image they’ve made of me – and that I’ve made of myself – as a sex symbol. They expect bells to ring and whistles to whistle, but my anatomy is the same as any other woman’s and I can’t live up to it. Marilyn Monroe