"let's kill all the lawyers"

No other markings

It looks like someone took Shakespear's line, "[t]he first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers," a little too seriously. Apparently lawyers have turned this quote on its head by arguing it is actually a compliment to lawyers, as noted in this awkwardly written article:

As long as there are lawyer [sic], there will be "lawyer jokes". And lawyers will show how those jokes ring true by trying to explain how such lampooning really constitutes praise for their profession, thus by example justifying the jokes more than ever.

I was never a big Shakespear fan (besides, I guess, Julius Caesar and MacBeth), so MHO on this quote doesn't mean much. But, a quick review indicates that lawyers can rightfully claim this quote as praise for their profession. If lawyers are so bad, why would a treacherous gang want to kill them all? As the logic goes: The enemy of my enemy is my friend.

Modern blackface?

A friend's friend got me on to The Week -- a reader's digest-type publication, whose motto is "everything you need to know about everything that matters." It has a good article about Lincoln and his attitude about the slaves.

The article notes Lincoln held some of the racial prejudices of the time; e.g., he attended minstrel shows, which are racist comic skits performed by people in "blackface." Here's an example of blackface:

I'm sure blackface and "darky" stereotypes are the subject of entire college courses. Me, I celebrated my freshly minted The Week & Wikipedia University degree by watching a rerun of "There's Something About Mary." God, this movie is hilarious. Classic. Even the horribly edited TBS version. Anyway, it has a blackface character:

If you don't consider MHO "authority" on this matter, check out this googled gem of an article: "Lin Shaye as the dog-loving next-door neighbor Magda, who is always working on her tan. The character verges on blackface as this comedy stretches the limits of what it can get away with." If you're one who's more likely to believe something when a lot of people say it, there you go. This guy is a professional critic for a respectible publication; he's not some asshole anonymous blogger. But he does equivocate: the character "verges" on blackface? C'mon, take a position, man.

I haven't analyzed the meaning, if any, of this. I would need to sit through the whole movie again to do that.