November 2, 2001

Another John Edward Farce, Copperfield Revisited, Fake Anthrax Cure, No Fools at Microsoft, Ms. Blair's At It Again, Penta's Back, and Drury University Forges Ahead in Educational Excellence......

We heard last week that the "Crossing Over" show was about to tap into the recent WTC tragedy, when Broadcasting & Cable magazine reported that host John Edward would "feature attempts to communicate with victims of the Sept. 11 attacks" in several episodes airing next month during November sweeps. ("Sweeps" refers to a period during which pollsters take figures on who watches what on TV, as a guide for rates that can be charged sponsors by the networks for exposure to the public.)

Steve Rosenberg, president of Studios USA domestic syndication, told B&C that the shows would "be done tastefully . . . and won't be exploitative." Rosenberg said that the producers had received several phone calls from surviving family members asking to speak to Edward, who claims to communicate with the dead. "It seemed wrong not to do it," Rosenberg said.

What's "wrong" here, Mr. Rosenberg, is that Edward is doing this farcical, cruel, hoax, at all! He's a vulture, an opportunist who callously feeds on grief and uncertainty, on fear and need. From http://zilberhere.blogspot.com — worth a look every now and then — we get this interesting bit. (Barry Diller is the genius behind the "Crossing Over" show.)

Why does Matt Drudge (drudgereport.com) keep posting Barry Diller's mug above these 800-point headlines about the [John] Edward show? Are we to believe that Diller himself came up with the idea [for the special show to contact the dead WTC victims] and personally attempted to foist it on the saintly, sensitive John Edward against his better judgment? I don't have to be a regular devoted viewer — I don't have to ever have seen the show — to know that Edward himself routinely perpetrates a grotesque intellectual dishonesty upon the public, exploiting the most vulnerable in the pursuit of personal profit. He hardly needs help from Diller to work that angle.

Couldn't have said it better, myself....


How insidious are the forces of Darkness, and how vigilant we must be to guard against them! It seems that Uri Geller, described by the UK’s Daily Telegraph as "a former Israeli paratrooper famous for using mysterious mental powers to bend spoons," made a black-and-white drawing on a napkin in Michael Jackson's New York hotel room last year. Jackson has taken an interest in Geller, as evidenced by his showing up at a religious ceremony for him last year — two hours late — so much so that Jackson decided to use the Geller sketch on the cover of his new album! However, the "suits" at Sony Music rather sabotaged the deep religious message that had been worked into the artwork by removing the words "God," "Jerusalem," "USA" and "Angel 2000," and replacing a Star of David with a pentagram. A pentagram? The powerful occult symbol of evil? Say not so!


Every now and then, I get a laugh out of those "on the Dark Side." One would-be "psychic" wrote me that skeptics (my heroes!) were making "vial attempts to harm others with their libel and slander!" Oh? You reef or two, thoughs guise like prints valium? (Work on it....)


An apologist/fan for David Copperfield has scolded the magicians who joined me in regrets over his recent "it's for real" claim about a prediction trick he did in Germany. She wrote:

It's a story. Do you think anyone would have enjoyed the illusion if he would have said... I made this prediction but it's just an illusion, it's not real... so sit back, relax and enjoy. David wanted you to know that "E.T." was a puppet... do you think you would have enjoyed the movie if they would have flashed "E.T." is a puppet every 2 seconds during the movie. I'm not saying that everything David says on stage is made up, because alot of it's true... but he's a performer and this is illusion.

While this lady's punctuation and spelling leaves some confusion about her meaning, there's a big difference between illusion and lies. Watching "E.T.," we were prepared for an illusion before we entered the theater. Entering Copperfield's theater, we're also prepared that way. But this was not a stage-story, nor a script. It was done outside of that special, privileged, atmosphere, and I am absolutely certain that had David told the media that he'd done a super stunt, a trick, there would have been much more respect for him, and none of the deluded innocents accepting that this sort of miracle can be real.

Also, I've received the usual "why-won't-you-reveal-the-trick" complaints. First, telling you how Copperfield did the trick, wouldn't help one bit. And, this is a trick that legitimate magicians use, to good effect, in their performances. I'm not about to ruin that aspect for them. As for those who choose to decide that I don't know how it was done, well, that's tough. I don't care a bit what you think, and you're welcome to your delusions. Arguments about, "Uri Geller's a magician, too," don't count, because he insists that he's not a magician, and doesn't even know how to do any tricks. When I tell folks how to bend a spoon or read a message sealed in an envelope, I specify that it's the way I do it, and that Mr. Geller says he does it by divine means.

Bottom line: No, I won't reveal Copperfield's method, though for the magicians out there, I'll comment that had Dr. Jaks not lived, maybe David would have used another method for the trick.....


Reuters News Service reports that in India, homeopathy — quite incorrectly defined by them as "a traditional alternative system of medicine" in that continent — has a magic pill that can prevent anthrax from infecting humans. As we know, fears of germ warfare have spread worldwide, and an outbreak of anthrax has spread in the United States through tainted mail. Four of those infected, have died here. One Dr. B. Gangapadhyay, a former head of the Orissa Medical College of Homeopathy and Research in Calcutta, states that

Anthracinum, which is prepared by triturating [pulverizing] the [dried] puss from anthrax, is a very effective prophylactic against anthrax. [It] works like magic. If a person just takes a dose . . . for two days in succession, he would be immune from anthrax for at least three months.

Another ridiculous claim — if this is actually a homeopathic preparation. But the Reuters news item really showed where the problem is here, when they printed:

Orthodox medical practitioners declined to comment on the effectiveness of the homeopathic remedy.

Medical people know that homeopathy is a useless notion, a deadly recourse if it takes the patient away from legitimate care. But they "declined to comment"? No, I'm not surprised, just discouraged, once more. When are the professionals going to stand up and be counted?


I've just been informed that folks who use Microsoft Word 2000 have been politically corrected — willy-nilly — by the designers of that program. Now, if they look for a synonym for the noun "fool," they get "not found," as if there are no other words that express that word. The official explanation from the company? They tell us that:

Microsoft's approach regarding the spell checker dictionary and thesaurus is to not suggest words that may have offensive uses or provide offensive definitions for any words. The dictionary and spell checker is updated with each release of Office to ensure that the tools reflect current social and cultural environments.

Well, I use the WordPerfect word-processing program, which appears to have a firmer grasp on reality altogether. Looking up the word "fool," I was presented with these 26 other possibilities:

Ass, blockhead, booby, buffoon, chump, clown, cretin, dimwit, dolt, dope, dunce, dupe, idiot, ignoramus, imbecile, jackass, jerk, laughingstock, lunatic, maniac, moron, nincompoop, ninny, nut, oaf, and simpleton.

Mind you, "ass" and "jackass" show up redlined, which indicates that they are not really proper words to use, but at least they're there.....

Shades of "Brave New World"! Yes, Big Brother is with us, and his name is Gates. Bill, that is.


Cherie Blair, the wife of the British PM Tony Blair, is a well-known devotee of New Age therapies. Recently she cut the ribbon at the opening of health guru Bharti Vyas's "holistic therapy" center in Central London. Vyas is a "specialist" in medieval Indian ayurvedic treatments, and supervises Ms. Blair's use of "flowtron trousers," thigh-high inflatable leggings that are said to banish cellulite. Another therapy offered by Vyas is "compression therapy," in which victims are bound up in Saran Wrap, and subjected to "aromatherapy." Sort of a human salad, with flowers. We reported here that three years ago Cherie went to a film premiere wearing a $360 "bio-electric shield," a gold-and-silver pendant filled with "magic crystals" that is supposed to protect the wearer from those harmful rays that we all know come from computers and mobile phones. At another conference earlier this month, she wore an acupuncture needle in the top of her ear. Charming.

And this comes along just when Tony is making such an impression with his well-reasoned and beautifully-delivered declarations about the current world situation....


The "Penta Water" matter has returned. A very unhappy customer informed me of an exchange that was taking place between her and a Mr. David T. Cheatham, "Chief Operating Officer" of the company. I immediately wrote this man and reminded him of his agreement to submit his product to testing for the JREF million-dollar prize. He responded:

Bio-hydration is a small company. We have limited resources at this point and we are focused on providing a quality product to our customers. To participate in your study would use resources that we do not have available at this time. But, when we are ready, we will contact you. Mr. Randi, we operate our business with integrity. We want to help people. Our business has grown 500% in the past year through mostly word of mouth. If people didn't feel the difference Penta makes, they wouldn't buy it. We look forward to working with you in the future.

Not one to shirk answering, I did:

To participate in your study would use resources that we do not have available at this time.<

Let's get real here. The reward for you is one million dollars, no strings attached. NONE of your "resources" would be called upon. You give nothing, you pay nothing. All you have to do is appoint an individual — or individuals — of your own choosing, to act as your witness(es) to a simple, direct, procedure. You have already designated how the product should be tested, in an unequivocal manner, and have agreed to be tested by that means. We have clearly declared our availability, but you have withdrawn from the discussion. I cannot believe that you do not want one million dollars, a reward for showing that your product performs as advertised. That is an incredible scenario that no reasonable person can accept.

Your comments?

Immediately came Mr. Cheatham's answer:

You say that none of our resources would be required. Then in the next sentence you say that we need to appoint someone to witness the procedure. To appoint someone to witness the procedure is a use [of] our resources. These things always take longer than anyone expects. Yes, 1 million dollars would be great. However, our business is at a critical stage where the distraction of your offer is not acceptable. "Patience is a virtue."

Surely, appointing or approving someone (a lawyer, trusted friend, a scientist, an academic) to act as a witness for tests, is not too great a burden for Penta, considering the prize? And we've already decided that a test such as the Penta folks themselves outlined, would be brief, a day at most, so the complaint that "These things always take longer than anyone expects" is not valid. I assure Mr. Cheatham that I'm quite as busy as he is, and would undertake to supervise a test efficiently and competently.

In any case, this gentleman has provided us with a vapid motto that smacks — to me — of further obfuscation and delay tactics. Yes, perhaps patience is a virtue, but one can run out of both. Be assured that I will be in this, all the way. Start the Penta Clock....?


In what was advertised as "his first lecture in the United States in more than two decades," Swiss author Erich von Däniken ("Chariots of the Gods?") brought his nutty theories of extraterrestrials visiting Earth in ancient times, to Drury University, Springfield, Missouri, last week. Assistant professor of biology Roger Young proudly announced that he was "presenting the speaker to a whole new generation,"as if that was a step forward in education.

"We've got new people less than 30 years old who haven't heard of this guy," said educator Young. Hold on. What's wrong with that? The local paper told readers that though Von Däniken believes in stories that depict "gods" who came in fiery flying ships with promises to return sometime in the future, these were actually ET's, and the author firmly believes in one God. How reassuring — and scientific.

Apparently the rather thorough exposure of Von Däniken as a blatant liar and fabricator of evidence, chiefly through a NOVA (PBS) show a few years back, has done little to squelch public clamor for more nonsense from him. Some of the students at Drury said that they found his beliefs intriguing even if they didn't buy into them. One student, Kevin Yordy, a junior, said he has read some of Von Däniken's books. He said he likes how von Däniken "presents pieces of information and allows members of the audience to draw their own conclusions." How generous, presenting invented data about places that the author finally admitted he'd never even visited. Conclusions drawn from that sort of data might be doubtful. Another Drury student told a reporter that "[Von Däniken] can't really explain why he feels this way." Is there a course in Naivety I at Drury.....?