Friday, February 18, 2011

Of Simple Country Lawyers, Dumb Blondes, and Asymptomatic Paranoid Schizophrenics

Of Simple Country Lawyers

Canny Senator Sam Ervin of North Carolina, who liked to describe himself as ''just a simple country lawyer'' -- and proved that he was anything but -- served as chairman of the Senate's Watergate Committee.   Senator Ervin was a graduate of Harvard Law School.  He had graduated in 1917 from the University of North Carolina, where he was a member of The Dialectic and Philanthropic Societies.  I have no idea what that even is!

Of Dumb Blondes

Judy Holliday was an Oscar-winning American actress.

In 1950, Holliday was the subject of an FBI investigation looking into allegations that she was a Communist. The investigation "did not reveal positive evidence of membership in the Communist Party" and was concluded after three months. Unlike many others tainted by the Communist scandal, she was not blacklisted from movies, but she was blacklisted from performing on radio and television for almost three years.

In 1952, she was called to testify before the Senate Internal Security Subcommittee to "explain" why her name had been linked to Communist front organizations. In spite of her high IQ, which was measured at 172, she was advised to play dumb (like some of her film characters) and did so. She acknowledged that she "had been taken advantage of".



On Acting Crazy (It's a sane actor pretending to be crazy.)



That's entertainment!

2 comments:

My Daily Struggles said...

We all know I have paranoid schizophrenia. Three psychiatrists have said so.

Two psychiatrists said I had bipolar disorder -- with mood congruent psychotic features (loose associations; flights of ideas; and pressured, rapid speech).

A supervisory police officer of the Metro DC Police was convinced I was insane, though she acknowledged that I had "lucid moments." (October 12, 2004)

Two officers of the U.S. Department of Justice, no less, were convinced I was severely disturbed (January 15, 2010) and potentially violent. When I admitted to committing a felony by defrauding the federal government, they simply ignored me. They knew I was insane. And so I am. If I'm ever charged with fraud, I will call those officers as witnesses in my defense.

I've got it made in the shade of shady people.

My Daily Struggles said...

Judy Holliday. Born Judith G. Tuvim on June 21, 1921, in New York City, the daughter of Abraham Tuvim, a journalist and fund raiser for Jewish and social organizations, and of Helen Gollomb, a piano teacher at the Henry Street Settlement. At the age of six, her parents separated. An unusually brilliant child with a 172 I.Q., Tuvim described herself as "one of those obnoxious children who read War and Peace, Schnitzler and Molière