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Arianna Huffington and Harry Shearer

the breakfast table:
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Mergers and Godzilla

By Harry Shearer
Posted Tuesday, May 19, 1998, at 11:52 AM ET

Good morning, Ms H. Off to the Museum of Modern Art to look at Chuck Close looking closely at others, so another brief one. I see the Chamber of Commerce has joined the fight against the tobacco bill, using as its primary argument the desire to keep those nasty ol' trial lawyers from making "billions of dollars" in fees. They are, of course, correct. We all should do as the corporations do, and keep our lawyers on retainer, so that any judgments we win go straight to our bottom lines.

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And speaking of corporations, I'd feel better about the Justice Department suit against Microsoft if we weren't watching at the same time the merging of all the Baby Bells that Justice spent so much of our money breaking apart a decade ago. Of course, a decade or so is a long time for Americans to remember. If we did, we might ask Chrysler, about to submerge into Daimler, to pay us taxpayers back the money we paid to bail out a fine American company at the dawn of the eighties. I guess the bailout worked.

My favorite moment at the Godzilla premiere last night: the movie premiered in Madison Square Garden, and when the monster is wounded, one heard the sound of 6000 female voices saying, in unison, "Awwww." As long as an ugly big lizard can get that reaction, the environmental movement will remain strong.

Harry Shearer