Geriatric Chutzpah

In a week of so much bad news involving negative-connotation chutzpah by all the usual suspects for all the usual reasons, I felt it would be psychologically beneficial to seek out an nice health positive-connotation example. I am therefore announcing that this week's Chutzpah of the Week award winner is the 91-year-old actor Ernest Borgnine. For those not yet aware of my reason, Borgnine was flogging his memoirs on Fox and Friends and had to deal with the usual question about his personal secret for a long and healthy life. Demonstrating that, as an actor, he is still master of the stage-whisper technique, he delivered the answer, "I masturbate a lot," thus providing a wonderful object lesson in having fun at the expense of a "news" network that assigns such a high value to faith and morality. For those wishing to see this "performance," the video is now on YouTube. In the spirit of this chutzpah, the Truthdig account reinforced (so to speak) Borgnine's advice with supporting evidence reported by the BBC.