Ah, the Jews hate grass. They always have, they always will.

Poor Mel Gibson. It's unfortunate, but I guess in this day and age you can't make a movie that's widely derided as being anti-Semitic and then blurt drunken anti-Semitic slurs at a cop without people jumping to the conclusion that you're maybe a little bit anti-Semitic. People are just judgmental that way.

Personally, though, I think people are being way off base when they say that Gibson is nothing more than a Jew-hating neanderthal. For instance, he also hates homosexuals.

I do wonder what he was getting at, though, when he said to the arresting officer, "Astroturf? You know who's responsible for that, don't you?! The Jews!"

This week's column:To owe is human, to forgive divine

Did you know that the average Harvard Law School student graduates with $70,000 in debt? Most of that results from buying coffee in Harvard Square, but still, it’s excessive.

Fortunately, for the majority of those students this is not a problem, because they move immediately into cushy 90-hour-a-week jobs at Boston law firms with lots of oak in them. Their salaries at these firms cover their law school debts, with enough left over to purchase the finest meals the Kraft corporation has to offer.

But the rare few that decide they don’t want to be lawyers after all -- yes, you’re right, they must be deranged -- wind up having to take these jobs anyway, just to cover their loan payments. It’s a cruel fate for people who went to law school just to get their mothers off their backs about working at Kinkos.

For the rest of this week's AT LARGE by Peter Chianca, click here.

Celebrities are just like us, Vol. I

Random thoughts for the day:

• Kid Rock and Pamela Anderson have announced that they're getting married four times, in France, California, Michigan and Tennessee. No word on how many divorces are in the works, but I'm thinking ... 12.
• Metallica has finally caved in and offered up four of its albums on iTunes. Thank God! I'm sure this came as great news to all the Metallica fans who already downloaded those albums off of Napster in 2003.
• Yes, David Hasselhoff was drunk when he was refused admittance to a British Airwaves flight on Wednesday. Drunk ... on his own freakish worldwide popularity! You'd have trouble walking too.

Or maybe they're 'Bi Bi Bi'

Have you heard the news about 'N Sync? No, I can't believe it either. Who would have ever guessed that Joey Fatone, Chris Kirkpatrick, JC Chasez and Justin Timberlake were straight?!

It just goes to show you that jumping around in unison like a bunch of male cheerleaders does not make you gay, even if it does make you kind of queer.

Everyday I write the book ... of my own freakishness!

Well, I couldn't resist the temptation to upload my photo to myheritage.com to see which celebrity I look most like. Who was it, you ask? Cary Grant? Sal Mineo? I would have settled for Dustin Hoffman, but no, it was ... Elvis Costello. Who is a brilliantly talented musician and probably a hell of a guy, but not the most attractive man you've ever seen in your life. (And it wasn't even young, "Alison"-era angry-young-man Costello ... it was old, scraggly, collaborate-with-Burt-Bacharach Costello.)

Other choices were a little easier to take, including Aidan Quinn and Roy Scheider. And Adam Sandler, who's no beauty contest winner but is a zillionaire. Then there was Turkish Prime Minister Bulent Ecevit, who, for those of you not up on your Turkish prime ministers, looks like a cross between Groucho Marx and Hitler.

Frankly, the whole experience has been quite humbling. But I admit it could have been worse.

This week's column:How to make money without really trying

It's a fact of life in this high-tech, dot.com world that you really need computer knowledge in order to make money. Otherwise you have to use green crayons, and most convenience store cashiers are trained to spot that.

I'm sure this is why a couple of teens in Plantation, Fla. last week used their home computers to create $2,000 in counterfeit bills, which they then passed to an undercover Secret Service agent. The agent was tipped off immediately by the fact that the ersatz fifties were slightly off in color from real bills, and also they had a picture of Britney Spears where Ulysses S. Grant should have been.

This was only the latest in a series of cases nationwide involving teen counterfeiters, including ones that led to arrests locally last year in Hamilton and Gloucester. In the Gloucester case, a 17-year-old tried to pass a $5 bill that was printed on only one side. This speaks to the main obstacle teens have encountered in trying to launch successful counterfeiting operations: They're morons.

For the rest of this week's AT LARGE by Peter Chianca, click here.

And on their way to the hospital, the ambulance was sideswiped by Billy Joel

This just in! Daniel Baldwin, apparently jealous of his tour-de-force performance in "Pay it Forward," has crashed his car into Haley Joel-Osment. Osment reportedly looked up just before the crash and blurted out, "I See D... aniel Freakin' Baldwin!"

'Sustain my veto or this kid gets it!'

President Bush has cast his first veto ever, apparently because he's under the impression that stem cell research involves scientists, clad in battle fatigues and body armor, hunting down small children and clubbing them as one might a baby seal, or as Dick Cheney might do to a hunting buddy. "This bill would support the taking of innocent human life in the hope of finding medical benefits for others," he said, which is apparently not a good enough reason, unlike, say, spreading democracy. Meanwhile, Bush says he would have vetoed something sooner, but he couldn't figure out how to get the little "Veto" stamp to work. "Turns out you need a ... what's it called, Karl? Right, an ink pad."

And at the end of the press conference, they made out

OK, this settles it once and for all: Oprah has announced that she and her best friend Gayle King are not a gay couple. And what is it about our society that two women can't spend all their time together, call each other four times a day, sleep at each other's houses and shower together without being labeled as homosexual?

And as for the rumors that they're obscenely rich ... those are true.

This week's column:The leap from cell phone to smell phone

I often wonder, why do cell phones tend to bother people? Is it the annoying novelty rings sounding out in restaurants and movie theaters? The hundreds of talkers yakking at full volume as they barrel obliviously down the sidewalk? No, in the end I think it's that nagging perception that they're not much good as long as they can't transmit smells.

Well, not for long. Apparently a company called Electronic Aromas is developing a way to deliver smells over your cell phone. This is a huge breakthrough, because if there's one thing the current commuter train experience lacks, it's the guy next to you taking huge, expressive snorts off his Nokia.

Personally, I'm not sure what the market is for such a function, although I'm the wrong guy to ask - I spend most of my time trying to avoid errant smells. I got this way after picking up one too many waiting-room magazines that left me writhing watery-eyed like a mace victim.

For the rest of this week's AT LARGE by Peter Chianca, click here.

Please leave a message and I'll get back to you when I return

Sorry about my lack of blogging, but I'm on vacation this week. But that doesn't mean you have to go blogless -- just check out the postings for July of last year, and pretend they're new. See you next week!

This week's column:The baseball never falls far from the tree

Lately I've been trying to teach my 4-year-old son Tim how to play baseball, which frankly is a process fraught with pitfalls. For one thing, it forces me to recall my own days learning the game, which were spent primarily swinging a bat in such a way that, to even the casual observer, it must have seemed to have no connection to the actions of pitcher or ball; we probably looked like we were on completely different planes of reality, like in an M.C. Escher painting. I also spent a lot of time ducking.

I actually think Tim has far more in the way of natural ability than I did; for one, he can connect with the ball while batting both righty and lefty, which is enough to conjure up in even the most cautious of fathers visions of a major-league contract large enough to fund a retirement home. The problem comes more when I try to explain theconcept of the game; nothing brings to light baseball's shortcomings like describing it to people who haven't been indoctrinated to the idea that it's supposed to make sense.

For the rest of this week's AT LARGE by Peter Chianca, click here.

And to think, in just 18 short years those two will be doing meth with models together

Never one to rest on their laurels, Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt got together with Gavin Rossdale and Gwen Stefani over the holiday weekend for a "baby playdate" for Kingston Rossdale and Shiloh Nouvel Jolie-Pitt. Sure, at this age all babies can do on a playdate is spit up on each other. But they got together for the reason all parents do playdates: to give kids a headstart on important social interaction skills, and to sell the North American photo rights.

Anyway, it was a quiet affair, with just the two couples, their children and 1,000 armed Namibian National Guard members ordered to shoot reporters on sight.

That, and illegal fireworks

I hope you had a great Fourth of July, and that you had time to contemplate what the holiday is really about: living-dead Founding Father zombies. Thank you and good night.

This week's column:So what's the deal with July Fourth?

It's time once again for "Mr. Holiday" to answer your holiday queries. This week: Independence Day.

***

Dear Mr. Holiday:
Is it true that fireworks can be dangerous?

Cautious in Connecticut

Dear Cautious:

The idea that fireworks are dangerous is what we call an "urban myth," like those rumors that everyone should be wearing seat belts and avoiding heroin. By taking a few simple precautions, we can all safely enjoy these powerful illegal explosives.

For one, you must use common sense. For instance, make sure to drink all the beer from your bottles before starting to light off bottle rockets. Or sparklers: They burn at 1,800 degrees, so before you give one to little junior, make sure to have that video camera charged up and ready to go!

It would also be helpful for you to read all the warnings on the label, presuming you read Chinese and can do so before the fuse burns down.

For the rest of this week's AT LARGE by Peter Chianca, click here.