James Randi, Journalists, Justice, And Me

I like this blog called "The Macho Response."

Here are excerpts from his latest post:

The strikingly handsome young gentleman pictured above is James Randi. He is a great man. He runs the James Randi Educational Foundation which has been in hot pursuit of the purveyors of nonsense for many, many, years. He once said doing his job is like attempting to drain a swamp with a paper cup. And he was right:

People are (for lack of a better term) stupid, and dealing with stupid people makes it very hard for an intelligent person to do this work, that much I’ve learned since I’ve joined in his effort.

The gentleman pictured above is also James Randi. This is how he looks, today, after all his years of ghost busting and crank calling: Like Popeye with a problem.

What’s his problem? He knows there are killer homeopaths, bogus reporters, politicians who indulge in magical thinking, and worthless psychics on T.V. and elsewhere. But Randi gets very little support from the mainstream media for doing away with any of them. Because I’ve been personally hurt by the influence of this nonsense, that fact tends to make me very angry, thus (for better or worse) The Macho Response.

The asshole pictured above is Uri Gellar. I call him an asshole because he’s made his living (if you can call it that) fooling people into believing he’s had the power to bend metal and read minds. He used to be famous in the United States but Johnny Carson, with the aid of James Randi, put an end to that:

…Donnell, in his new role as an editor, recently sent a reporter to interview me for a story but, unfortunately, he won’t tell me what aspect of my character the article is going to be about. Granted, he doesn’t have to (and I’ve never told anyone what to write about me) but I don’t think it’s going to be about my alarm over my life being derailed by killer quacks, pseudo-science passing as "alternative medicine", the negative influence of Self-Help regimes, or living with someone involved in cults and cultish-thinking. I think it’s going to be about the totally unimportant news of his alarm that he’s, now, friends with a newly-minted black Republican who once made a pretty good anti-war album. Yawn.

Donnell grew up in a family of Jehovah’s Witnesses – but I’ve always been an atheist – so, I guess, it’s understandable that he doesn’t comprehend the trauma I’ve suffered from what some are calling cult affected personality disorder. What hurts is to discover that he and so many others, who’ve been raised to accept cultish-thinking as a normal part of life, may not really even care. Some friends.

About Luke Ford

I've written five books (see Amazon.com). My work has been covered in the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, and on 60 Minutes. I teach Alexander Technique in Beverly Hills (Alexander90210.com).
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