The housing crisis/implosion is starting to come off the rails. Lots of local banks are holding loans against said houses, and those loans are starting to have all the credit quality of a loan to a third world country.
The three big banks in LA that do this stuff are Washington Mutual, Downey Savings, and First Federal. The stock of all three are plummeting, but First Federal has the least cash and has not yet announced its earnings.
Shalom’s latest book is Foreskin’s Lament.
He responds to some of my email questions:
Q: What’s new between you and God?
A: Nothing yet. But I have a flight tomorrow, so we’ll see. Check Drudge around noon for news of the crash/hijacking/explosion/disappearance.
Q: What do you love and hate about your life now?
A: Love my wife, and love my son. Hate questions about what I love and hate in my life right now.
Q: What did you love and hate about writing your memoir? What were the toughest parts to write? Why?
A: The point of the book (I don’t see it as a memoir, though it unfortunately falls into that genre) was to examine how I came, at 34 years of age, to believe the things I believe and fear the things that I fear. To do that, my family history was at least as important as my religious history (I love the reactionary believers who read the book and exclaim, “Wait! I caught him! He doesn’t hate God! He hates his family!” As if I put those stories about them in there by mistake, Sherlock), and at the same time, I didn’t want to hurt anyone. Fortunately, as it turned out, nobody takes a bigger beating in the book than I do.
Q: Did you receive any advice on your memoir that you found useful and you think might be useful to others?
A: Having come from a world that fetishizes the dead, I have a difficult time looking to past writers for advice. But William Faulkner had a great line about writing, specifically about the women in his books that were clearly based, unflatteringly, on his mother: he said that the purpose of art was to reveal and to be honest, and that the Ode on a Grecian Urn was “worth any number of old ladies.” Go Bill.
Q: You believe in the existence of God? Do you feel grateful to Him for the good things in life?
A: “Believe” is probably too lofty a word. I am terrified that the God I was raised with might actually exist. He is insane, whether the people who believe in him want to admit that or not, and he is abusive; it is somewhat classic of an abusive relationship that after an evening of hits, slaps and drunken rages, the abuser apologizes, cleans up and makes a lovely dinner. But the abused knows that tomorrow will bring more of the same, and will not be surprised when it does.
Q: Which parts of the halachic life, if any, do you miss?
A: I miss the easy comfort of being told what to do and when to do it. I miss the security that absolute (if unfounded) faith offers. I also miss my blankey and pacifier, but I can’t go back to them, either.
Q: How have family and friends from childhood reacted to your memoir?
A: Predictably.
Q: Do you find yourself repeating your father’s fathering habits?
A: No. And you ask another smart-mouthed question like that, you little punk, and you’ll get the back of my hand.
Q: Your all time favorite niggun?
A: Right now I’m really into Tool.
Q: How do you determine what is right and wrong?
A: I consult a poorly written book compiled by terrified, ancient nomads and check to see what their schizophrenic, completely immoral, violent, vengeful God said I should and shouldn’t do. It’s just that easy. (As a side note, I find it a strange admission when religious folks insist that there would be no morality without the Ten Commandments, that without those commandments, there would be only raping and killing. I always find myself thinking, “That’s all that’s keeping you from raping and killing, Padre? A book? Shit, maybe you ought to turn yourself in to the local authorities. Seems you’ve got a pretty tenuous grip on yourself there.”)
Q: How is your soul?
A: My what?
I told Shalom to only answer the questions that interested him.
I gave him the same message on the first interview. He ended up answering all my questions, though not in great depth.
He wouldn’t give me an interview over the phone, saying he hated interviews, and that email interviews were the least bad form of interview.
Joe says:
I heard several audio interviews with Auslander. WNYC This American Life BBC Fresh Air
He didn’t sound like he hated it. Your questions were better.
What I thought was interesting about him was that he was married for 15 years before he had a child.
Shalom drove around with Charles McGrath of the New York Times on Rosh Hashanah but I was in shul then worshipping God and checking out the ladies.
Here are the questions Shalom did not answer this interview:
* Why do you hate interviews?
* If you were to write a script for a reality show, how would it go?
* Did this memoir reconnect you with anyone from childhood and was this
primarily good or bad?
* How would your closest friends describe you?
After the introduction by festival organizer Govindi Murty (video), Dennis Prager takes the stage (video) at the Harmony Gold Preview House at 7655 Sunset Blvd.
(The sound quality on my videos is good but the picture quality sucks because I have horizontal roll so bad on my viewfinder that I don’t use it, and thus much of the time, the people I’m pointing my camera at don’t even show up on my video. To fix my camera would mean losing it to repairs for a month and I have too much work I have to do with it on a regular basis. Normally my camera work is not this bad.)
"It’s very intimidating to speak to people who like you," says Prager. "You feel like you can only disappoint them.
"The last time I spoke in Hollywood, it was for a film festival. They invited me on a lark to be on a panel with three liberal-left critics and it was to analyze the film, ‘The Making of Deep Throat.’"
Actually, the film analyzed that night was Inside Deep Throat.
The panel discussion was moderated by Peter Bart and the panelists, in addition to Prager, were Arianna Huffington, Lawrence O’Donnell, and Richard Schickel (pictures).
Richard Schickel is no liberal.
"When I was introduced, everybody booed. I felt great. I figured I can’t get any lower."
"An audience of men and women watching fellatio, does that strike anybody as a decline in our culture? I said that and the audience, it was as if I started speaking sanskrit. The concept of elevating culture…"
At the time, I remember Prager saying on the radio that the 30 seconds of fellatio in that documentary were necessary and that Inside Deep Throat was a good and important film.
"To not have one film celebrating what is happening [in Iraq]…"
"Dialogue is very difficult in America and it is not because of us [conservatives]… We do not have something comparable to this — the utter dismissal of the human who makes the other argument. When I read a critique of David Horowitz from the left, it is of David, and not of what he wrote or said.
"I get the same thing. Periodically, [Prager Googles himself]. Just Google ‘Dennis Prager asshole’ and you get between 12,000 to 39,000 hits."
I just Googled: ""Dennis Prager" asshole" and got 4,330 returns. Googling "Dennis Prager asshole" gets 4,500 results.
According to Prager, this type of character assassination is the province of the left.
I Googled ""John Kerry" asshole" and got 136,000 results. Googling ""Bill Clinton" asshole" brings 196,000 results. Googling ""Al Franken" asshole" brings 70,900 results.
By this measure that Prager recommends, there is more personal invective slung against the left than the right.
I am sure Dennis Prager would get the same number of asshole results wherever he was on the political spectrum.
"There is no dialogue of ideas. Only defamation of character."
"There is one blog by a Jewish guy who particularly hates me. He’s a member of some thinktank on the Jewish left. He wrote, ‘Dennis Prager is a fraud. He claims to keep kosher but I have seen him on multiple occasions eating pork.’
"I haven’t seen me eating pork on multiple occasions. I’ve never seen this guy. It’s a pure lie."
I don’t know who Prager is referring to and I can’t find the blog post in question.
"I am not a believe that in the end the truth wins. I don’t know."
The first film screened is "The Road to Jenin." The second one is The Making of a Martyr.
Near the beginning is close tight lingering shot of blue jean clad bottom of filmmaker and human rights attorney Brooke Goldstein, a 24-year old fine looking blonde.
She walks into this Israeli prison for terrorists wearing tight jeans and a sleeveless top. The terrorists must’ve thought they’d died and gone to heaven.
I know I did.
On October 16, Prager had Brooke on his radio show.
After the screenings, Prager had a dialogue with her.
Check out the video.
When she sits down, Brooke’s short tight skirt hitches a foot above her knee.
Good times.
I never knew fighting terrorism could be so erotic.
I know it is generally bad form to comment on a woman’s looks when she’s engaged in serious endeavors, but Brooke dresses provocatively and thus asks for this sort of feedback.
Dennis: "The woman…who blew herself up in the pizza parlor in Israel [the first female Palestinian suicide bomber] was a strikingly beautiful woman. She could’ve been a model or actress in Western society… The fascinating thing was…the throwaway line was that she was miserable and divorced because she couldn’t have children, as though that makes perfect sense in Palestinian society.
"If you were to ask me why I was pessimistic about Palestinian society and much of the Muslim Middle East, I’d probably point to that as much as any factor, that in the 21st Century a woman could be divorced for not having children and it being understood by the society."
Brooke (who is a dual Canadian and American citizen): "When we were talking to her mom off-camera, and what came through was a more accurate version of the story. Not only was she divorced, she was also an adulteress. She was threatened with an honor killing…and had to choose between a rock and a hard spot. Am I going to go down in shame or am I going to do something that would raise my family’s head high? She chose the latter."
Dennis: "Why didn’t you include that in the film?"
Brooke: "We weren’t 100% sure and did not want to propagate any myths."
Dennis: "You were surprised at how bad things were?"
Brooke: "Absolutely."
"I risked my own life to speak to these people because I couldn’t comprehend how a mother could send her own child to die. I had to see for myself. I didn’t go in to the West Bank to make a film. I intended to get a series of depositions. I was a law student and wanted to collect evidence of a crime against children, inciting them to become suicide bombers.
"I came out with 82 hours of interviews. I showed it to a filmmaker friend. They said, ‘You have a great film here.’"
Dennis: "There is a naivete in the West about evil generally and the love of death that permeates parts of the Arab world. It’s hard not to believe that underneath it all, we’re all the same. But we’re not all the same. You’ve been sobered by this?"
Brooke: "Absolutely. I’m a bit more of a pessimist now."
Dennis: "For the females [suicide bombers], it’s more to escape life and for the males, it is more to get the rewards of death."
Brooke: "There’s a trend of marginalization. The cool kids are never the ones to die. They’re used to recruit the loser kids. …It’s their way of fitting in. It’s their way of becoming a hero."
Dennis: "What’s despairing is not just the celebration of death but the lying."
Brooke: "The only way we are going to find a consensus between Muslims and non-Muslims, between left and right, is when we focus on the children. Everyone should agree that a child, a Muslim child, is an innocent party. If we can’t come to that conclusion, I have no hope for the future. Even when I spoke to Palestinian adults who were otherwise OK with suicide terror against the Israeli civilian population, were not OK with the use of young children as suicide bombers. If we put a plebiscite, if we empowered Palestinian mothers so they would feel free to speak out, they’d say they do not support these tactics."
A big Australian lady yells: "Their mentality is so different, we have to admit it’s different."
Brooke: "A base consensus can be found when you focus on children."
Woman: "No! Look at your film."
Brooke: "Of course Palestinian children are innocent. That’s their cause… When you confront the United Nations which claims to be the protector of Palestinian children, surely you are outraged by the premeditated murder of these children by their own community, there is no way they are going to publicly…"
Woman: "You are projecting yourself onto them… You are still a naive Westener."
Brooke: "I’ve spoken to the parents. Them telling me they have a problem with the use of their own children. It may be a fringe minority that agrees children are innocent…"
Dennis: "I agree with their passion and I thank you for your film."
"Those [Palestinian] mothers who lament the death of their 13 year old also lament the death of their 30 year old son or daughter. The age does not make them lament less. As the parent of children running from 30 to 13, no parent thinks that way."
"If you don’t care about the murder of Jewish 12 year olds, it is unlikely that the age of innocents will bother you."
The audience shouts questions. Video
Question: "During the filmmaking process, did you ever state you were American?"
Brooke: "No."
"They love Canadians."
Question: "Was there any time you feared for your life?"
Brooke: "Yeah. The entire time. I was hanging out with people who have no scruples. They kill young children. They kidnapp journalists. I was terrified."
Later, Dennis: "I would ask you and everyone else to never say, ‘Every Muslim.’ We need to choose our words carefully to be effective. Once you say, ‘Every,’ the good guys are doomed."
"Here is my problem with the contemporary Islamic world — the silence that has greeted the slaughters. It is more depressing than the slaughters."
Brooke: "What I found troubling was that the kids [Palestinian terrorists in Israeli jails] were allowed to watch PA TV (Palestinian Authority television) while in jail. They each have TVs in their cells."
Dennis: "It’s because liberal thought is dominant in Israel too."
Brooke: "You feel Hassam [the 15yo terrorist and focus of her documentary] deserves to be detained for the rest of his life. He’s a victim. These kids are not criminals. They don’t deserve to spend their formative years in jail."
Audience member yells: "They’re murderers!"
Brooke: "They’re victims."
Audience member: "They’re murderers!"
Brooke: "They’re children."
Dennis hushes the crowd. "We’ve got the point. They are murderers but she’s saying they’re brain-washed murderers."
"In the final analysis, the imprisonment of this boy is the fault of Palestinian authority just like the Japanese who died at Hiroshima and Nagasaki died because of the Hirohito regime."
"A Jew who cannnot hear a Christian say, ‘We’d like you to convert’ is a wimp."
"Ann Coulter said the world would be better if the Muslim world woke up tomorrow Christian. I can’t understand why that is even debatable."
"I don’t have a porcupine in this sanitarium. Morally speaking, at this time, the Christian world is on a higher moral plane than the Islamic world. Nobody nurtures this hatred in the Christian world."
There are no Palestinian Christian suicide bombers.
"On Sunday night in San Antonio, Texas, I spoke to 5,000 Christians at the Cornerstone church of Pastor John Hagee and they raised $8 million dollars for Israeli [charities]. The Reform rabbi in San Antonio would not show up because he differs with them on same-sex marriage."
Brooke: "When I said that not every Palestinian mother wanted her children to become suicide bombers, I was called naive."
Dennis: "No, no. You were called naive for another reason, that because they care about 10 year olds is a glimmer of hope for the future."
Brooke: "We as Westeners have to empower these Muslims. Look what we’ve done with Irshad Manji."
Vicki Polin writes:
A few weeks ago a rabbi sent the following link out to his mailing list promoting an online video, "Date From Hell", which is produced by Aish HaTorah. I have to admit that I was appalled at the message that was being promoted by Rebbetzin Lori Palatnik.
The short film revolved around the fact that everyone has an opinion and how important it is to keep your opinion to yourself or that you need to be extremely careful before offering it.
Palatnik went on to say that: "You need to know the difference between fact and opinion". She goes on telling the story about a young male Baal Teshuva, who was learning with her husband, Rabbi Yaakov Palatnik.
As time progressed Rabbi Palatnik felt the man had "put his playboy lifestyle behind him." He wanted to know if Lori’s knew any "girls" that she could fix him up with. Rabbi Palatnik said "the man wanted to get married."
Lori came up with a "great girl." After the date the woman called Lori and said "that was the date from hell." Later, Rabbi Palatnik asks Lori to fix the man up with another "girl." Once again after the second date the woman calls Lori saying "that was the date from hell." The same exact words as the first woman. Rabbi Palatnik once again requested that his wife fix the man up with a third woman — this time Lori refused.
What is missing from the film is the reason why both women stated that "this was the date from hell." Was it because the man dressed funny or had a strange odor? Did the two women dating they think he was boring, rude, impolite, not gentlemanly enough, self-centered? Or could it be he was sexually inappropriate or had to do with some other issue regarding their safety? Without knowing this key information we cannot determine if dating this man was dangerous.
"Six months later the man got engaged to another great girl," stated Rebbetzin Palatnik. The woman was someone known to Lori. She continued by saying, "if this new woman was very lucky she never called her to find out about the man, because if she did — she would have warned her to stay away."
Lori continued, "To this day the couple is happily married." She saw this as a life lesson and said "You can destroy things before they are started by giving your opinion…One woman’s date from hell is somebody else’s prince charming…You can stop things before they start by giving your opinion. You can destroy things once they are started by giving your opinion. Think before you speak. Keep your opinions to yourself"
There is some vital information missing from the Lori Palatnik film. She never let her viewers know why the two women called their experience with the man "the date from hell."
When I sent the video “Date From Hell” out to a few observant mental health professionals and survivors they made the following comments:
It appears that the fear is really about ‘lashon hara.’
When two people had a terrible experience on a date with the same person the shadchan should be responsible enough to find out WHAT WAS WRONG before deciding to set up the man or woman again. The reality is that sometimes there is a serious problem. The person could be abusive towards women, for example. The clip gives the message that marriage is the priority above all else….Who cares what the issues are as long as they get married.
Getting people married seems to be the ONLY goal in life….what happens after… Who cares?
This is THE VIDEO FROM HELL. Another move toward the Taliban.
There are two very important books that everyone should read concerning dating in the orthodox world. They are “The Shidduch Crisis: Causes and Cures.” Urim Publishshing Co., and also another one that will come out next year: “Every Pot Has A Cover: A Proven Method for Finding and Enhancing Relationships. University Press of America.
Won’t you please join?
We’re going to rally around the flag and support our God-given right to rule the Jews and the darkies.
I’ve secured funding from a shadowy South American chap.
I’ve siphoned off some of this money to order lithium and levitra.
I like to grind the two together and snort them before prayer.
Keep hope alive!
PS. I took public transport today with my parrot.
Not wanting to pay an extra fare, I stuffed the parrot down my knickers.
When the conductor came by, he said, "Lovely day, young master!"
My parrot piped up: "It’s raining cats and dogs down here."
Though the great British novelist died six weeks before I was born, I know his spiritual brother — Robert J. Avrech.
I don’t know if Avrech is ever as boorish as Waugh who was wont to say to his hostess about a guest: "Why do you expect me to talk to this boring pig? He’s common, he’s ignorant and he’s stupid. He thinks Picasso is an important artist."
I don’t know if Avrech ever says such things… I can only hope that he does…
I’m feeling quite lost without my mommy (Evelyn’s spiritual sister) — Cathy Seipp.
"Oh, you flatterer!" she’d say if she could read this post.
Pardon?
There, now, would you be so kind as to pass the serviette so I can wipe my eyes. There’s one in the spare room.
Dear Id,
It was great to meet you last week at shul..
Very rarely does one meet such a bright, funny fellow.
I have not read critically, but there’s obviously a theme here around self-promotion of the bad-boy you. This is a dead-end, my friend. My unsolicited advice is that you start taking the high-road, Jerry Seinfeld route. Dumber people have done harder things than to put negativity out of bounds. And if that means no more notoriety, so be it.
You’ve reinvented yourself a few times I see… now do it properly. If you have something clever to write about, that is constructive and positive and does not promote lashon hora, do it. Otherwise, get into real-estate or ice-cream scooping or latte making, or whatever. Swallow your pride, and move one. Negativity is a dead-end and you’ll be the loser.
You’re not alone, my friend. Life is a struggle and we’re all battling through, making compromises every day. Yashir koach.
Dear Ego,
Great to meet you.
I don’t think this is a fair evaluation of my work. It’s too easy to dismiss critical but accurate reporting as lashon hara and too easy to dismiss a joke or satire as lashon hara. There’s no inherent virtue in being positive or pious. In the end, you have to evaluate a body of work on its merit and there’s no shortcut to assessing that. Just because a Jewish Journal cover story labels me as a lashon hara trafficker doesn’t make it true.
"Lashon hara!" is usually the first refuge of rascals.
Dear Id,
This stuff is very black and white. When you talk about someone else negatively (especially truthfully) to more than 10 people, you are effectively killing them. When you choose to be religious, you agree to respect a fence around the torah. You agree to stay "on the plantation" for your own preservation (and for "god"). You agree to do the things that "god" wants or if you take a secular, pragmatic view — which simply don’t improve your lot, over the course of time. What goes
around, comes around. Did you read this week’s parsha on good and evil? Us humans need structure and rules, especially those of us inclined to relativistic thinking.
>"Lashon hara!" is usually the first refuge of rascals.
Name-calling is a defensive posture, characteristic of someone who is unwilling to take the second of the two options we discussed at shul. 99% of humanity would give their left testicle for your brain – and your looks. Why are you the last to realize just how many wonderful options you have that are well within the plantation and which will make you rich in so many ways. More importantly, you owe it to yourself, to your potential as a human being, to break your apparent addiction to notoriety.
You get 4,000 page views a day. Why don’t you have advertisers on your site? Is it because you’ve created a toxic envelope around yourself? Do I need to critical read your entire body of work to find out why?
Dude, I like you very much but I will not expose myself to hurt. With your proclivity for defensiveness, secret tape-recording, and public blogging platform, why would I want us to be closer friends? Would I want you to do to me what you did to Dennis? Are you going to blog about me now? Our short relationship is already playing out like the story of the frog and the scorpion trying to cross the river. The scorpion poisons the frog mid-way and when asked why (because he will drown too), says "because I’m a scorpion." I’m a new friend, and that’s
where we’re headed.
This blogging, secrecy, shaming judaism, etc. is bad for friendships, bad for finances, and it just cannot be good for you.
The last time I tried to intervene in somebody’s life, they hurt me badly. He apologized, but the damage is done.
Levi, I wish you luck. You’ve chosen a great play-book (judaism), now use it to your advantage.
NAJAF, Iraq — At what’s believed to be the world’s largest cemetery, where Shiite Muslims aspire to be buried and millions already have been, business isn’t good.
p>A drop in violence around Iraq has cut burials in the huge Wadi al Salam cemetery here by at least one-third in the past six months, and that’s cut the pay of thousands of workers who make their living digging graves, washing corpses or selling burial shrouds.
Few people have a better sense of the death rate in Iraq .
"I always think of the increasing and decreasing of the dead," said Sameer Shaaban, 23, one of more than 100 workers who specialize in ceremonially washing the corpses. "People want more and more money, and I am one of them, but most of the workers in this field don’t talk frankly, because they wish for more coffins, to earn more and more."
Dhurgham Majed al Malik, 48, whose family has arranged burial services for generations, said that this spring, private cars and taxis with caskets lashed to their roofs arrived at a rate of 6,500 a month. Now it’s 4,000 or less, he said.
Malik said that the daily tide of cars bearing coffins has been a barometer of Iraq’s violence for years. The number of burials rose and fell several times during Saddam Hussein’s persecution of Shiites, and it soared again during the eight years of the Iran – Iraq war in the 1980s.
On February 3, 2005, I published this quote from my friend Rob Spallone about his first-hand 2004 experience with Ellen and his ex-friend Mike Davis (when Rob was living with Mike after Rob’s divorce): "Ellen DeGeneres lives next door. Big deal. She came over once to borrow the dog. I said, are you a retard, lady? You want to take the guy’s dog?"
Mike Davis lived next to Ellen on Mulholland Drive.
Here’s the latest DeGeneres dog story.
I call Rob Spallone Oct. 17.
Rob: "So Mike leaves the house. His dog never left the property. Ever. He’d never been out of the compound. Mike goes to get his hair cut. Two hours later, he calls. ‘Rob, did you leave the house?’ ‘No. Why?’ ‘The dog got out.’ ‘How did the dog get out? I didn’t go nowhere. He must’ve got out when you left.’
"Ellen DeGeneres was our neighbor. We didn’t know.
"Ellen called the number on the dog’s necklace and asked Mike to pick up the dog. I go to her house. She’d bought the dog a bag, all toys, everything. She goes, ‘Can I keep the dog?’ ‘What are you talking about? Are you crazy?’
"She gets the dog.
"Ten o’clock at night, I answer the phone. ‘Hi Mike, this is Ellen from across the street.’ ‘Ellen across the street? What do you want? To take the dog?’
"She goes, ‘Do you think the dog can come over tomorrow for a playdate?’
"I said, ‘Ellen, do you have a dog?’ She said no.
"At eight o’clock the next morning, the front gate rings. It’s her. ‘Hi, it’s Ellen. Can you bring the dog down?’ I said, ‘No. You come up here.’
"She comes up. She walks in. I said, ‘You’re sick. How do you tell someone you want their dog? A dog is a man’s best friend.’
"She asks, ‘Can I take the dog?’ I go, ‘Yes.’
"She takes the dog. As she gets to the door, she turns around and goes, ‘Does he get along with cats?’
"I said, ‘Lady, he’s never left the property. How would I know?’
"An hour later she calls. ‘He doesn’t like my cats. I’m bringing him back.’"
Celebrated scientist attacked for race comments: "All our social policies are based on the fact that their intelligence is the same as ours – whereas all the testing says not really"
One of the world’s most eminent scientists was embroiled in an extraordinary row last night after he claimed that black people were less intelligent than white people and the idea that "equal powers of reason" were shared across racial groups was a delusion.
James Watson, a Nobel Prize winner for his part in the unravelling of DNA who now runs one of America’s leading scientific research institutions, drew widespread condemnation for comments he made ahead of his arrival in Britain today for a speaking tour at venues including the Science Museum in London.
The 79-year-old geneticist reopened the explosive debate about race and science in a newspaper interview in which he said Western policies towards African countries were wrongly based on an assumption that black people were as clever as their white counterparts when "testing" suggested the contrary. He claimed genes responsible for creating differences in human intelligence could be found within a decade.
The newly formed Equality and Human Rights Commission, successor to the Commission for Racial Equality, said it was studying Dr Watson’s remarks " in full". Dr Watson told The Sunday Times that he was "inherently gloomy about the prospect of Africa" because "all our social policies are based on the fact that their intelligence is the same as ours – whereas all the testing says not really". He said there was a natural desire that all human beings should be equal but "people who have to deal with black employees find this not true".
His views are also reflected in a book published next week, in which he writes: "There is no firm reason to anticipate that the intellectual capacities of peoples geographically separated in their evolution should prove to have evolved identically. Our wanting to reserve equal powers of reason as some universal heritage of humanity will not be enough to make it so."
The furore echoes the controversy created in the 1990s by The Bell Curve, a book co-authored by the American political scientist Charles Murray, which suggested differences in IQ were genetic and discussed the implications of a racial divide in intelligence. The work was heavily criticised across the world, in particular by leading scientists who described it as a work of " scientific racism".
Dr Watson arrives in Britain today for a speaking tour to publicise his latest book, Avoid Boring People: Lessons from a Life in Science. Among his first engagements is a speech to an audience at the Science Museum organised by the Dana Centre, which held a discussion last night on the history of scientific racism.
Critics of Dr Watson said there should be a robust response to his views across the spheres of politics and science. Keith Vaz, the Labour chairman of the Home Affairs Select Committee, said: "It is sad to see a scientist of such achievement making such baseless, unscientific and extremely offensive comments. I am sure the scientific community will roundly reject what appear to be Dr Watson’s personal prejudices.
"These comments serve as a reminder of the attitudes which can still exists at the highest professional levels."
The American scientist earned a place in the history of great scientific breakthroughs of the 20th century when he worked at the University of Cambridge in the 1950s and 1960s and formed part of the team which discovered the structure of DNA. He shared the 1962 Nobel Prize for medicine with his British colleague Francis Crick and New Zealand-born Maurice Wilkins.
But despite serving for 50 years as a director of the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory on Long Island, considered a world leader in research into cancer and genetics, Dr Watson has frequently courted controversy with some of his views on politics, sexuality and race. The respected journal Science wrote in 1990: "To many in the scientific community, Watson has long been something of a wild man, and his colleagues tend to hold their collective breath whenever he veers from the script."
In 1997, he told a British newspaper that a woman should have the right to abort her unborn child if tests could determine it would be homosexual. He later insisted he was talking about a "hypothetical" choice which could never be applied. He has also suggested a link between skin colour and sex drive, positing the theory that black people have higher libidos, and argued in favour of genetic screening and engineering on the basis that " stupidity" could one day be cured. He has claimed that beauty could be genetically manufactured, saying: "People say it would be terrible if we made all girls pretty. I think it would great."
