Ig Nobel Prize Ceremony This Year Borders on Inviting Antisemitism to the Fore Again. Why put Bernie Madoff on their agenda? It is counter-productive and a bad PR mistake … ouch!

New Ig Nobel Prize Winners Flocking to Harvard for October 1 Ceremony FEATURING A VERY TASTELESS COMIC SKIT ABOUT BERNIE MADOFF.

On Thursday night, October 1, the 2009 Ig Nobel Prize winners will be announced – and showered with applause and paper airplanes — at Harvard University. They will be honored for achievements that first make people LAUGH, and then make them THINK.

This will be the 19th First Annual Ig Nobel Prize Ceremony. Organized by the science humor magazine “Annals of Improbable Research” (AIR), in cooperation with several Harvard student groups, it celebrates the unusual, honors the imaginative, and spurs interest in science.

Why it wants to get involved now with possibly antisemitic content, it beyond comprehension, according to some observers.

Yes, this usually funny and tasteful science and humor fest is always good. THIS YEAR? They plan to feature a BERNIE MADOFF TRIBUTE: — A 15-minute Risk Cabaret Concert – by the Penny-Wise Guys – which will precede the ceremony. They will sing classic songs, circa 1910, of risk – and pay special tribute to pyramid schemer Bernie Madoff. Who is Jewish. Why not pay tribute to Mr Sanford or Danny Pang of Taiwan, and other world ponzi schemers? Why focus just on the Jewish guy? Of course, there is no antisemitic intention on the part of the Ig Nobel people, they are Jewish people themselves. But by putting on this “SHOW” about Bernie Madoff, who is a known Jewish man among hundreds of antisemitic bloggers around the world — just google “antisemitism + Bernie Madoff” and you will see — the organizers of this show risk– RISK – creating MORE antisemitism online and in newspaper comment sections when the news of this SHOW comes out in the media, worldwide. Oi.

One word: oi.

I told the organizers about my RESERVATIONS re the MADOFF skit and they told me nobody agrees with me. So there. I am on my own again. Let’s see. Let me be wrong. Maybe the Hollywood guy Mel Brooks who did THE PRODUCERS can make a funny movie about a funny man, BERNIE MADOFF, as a follow up to the IG NOBEL show? I can’t wait.

Marc, this is a big mistake. I beg you to reconsider. But it’s your show! Break a leg, if you wish! But for me, OUCH!

Perhaps next year!