I agree. I think he’s wrong here. But there’s a line between “wrong” and “I don’t think he should be on TV” isn’t there? 

Yeah, this one kind of seems unfair. I think Macdonald is wrong here, I think “lost everything” is an exaggeration and that we shouldn’t waste too much sympathy on Barr or CK but he’s not defending what they did.

No, but I mean it didn’t make any sense for him to buy a place in lieu of spending money on hotel bills when his show was never in the same place more than once every few years and those hotel bills still had to be paid. His show was paying the hotel bills for him in dozens if not hundreds of cities. A condo in one of…

But that doesn’t make any sense. Over the many years he probably went to Paris the most but, off the top of my head, that was maybe 4 or 5 times over the span of 15 years. 

I don’t think he did travel a much when it wouldn’t have been paid for out of the show’s budget. I’d heard him on some podcasts talking about how he traveled so much for work that one of the things he really didn’t like to do in his free time is travel.

Seriously, understanding the value of his estate boils down to 2 things:

Yeah, I guess my only take is that I don’t look at that 1.2 million figure and think it’s crazy out of the realm of possibility. It just probably meant that he spent his money.

Well, ok, so that’s 8.76 million right? But that’s gross, not net, so knock off 10% to an agent and 50% or so for taxes and all of a sudden you’re down to 4 million or so.

But most of that time was spent as the host of a TV show on the travel network. How much do you really suppose that pays? 

Ok, but again, how much money did he make?

Huh, didn’t know. Thanks for that.

What was his annual income? 

Didn’t he get divorced fairly recently? From what I’ve heard that can be pretty expensive. 

You know most life insurance policies don’t pay out in cases of suicide, right? 

It’s not an either/or thing, I don’t think. The gun laws, or lack thereof, in the States are stupid but I don’t think you can just dismiss out of hand the idea that there’s something about American culture that contributes as well.

Who are the indigenous people of that piece of land depends entirely on you setting a completely arbitrary time when land ownership you decide became legitimate(which, shockingly, seems to be 1948 for some people). All of this in service of a nationality that didn’t really exist pre-Israel.

Maybe it’s just me but I don’t really think of Palestinians as “people of Israel”. They’re Palestinian. A neighbouring state that, depending on your point of view, has some territory being occupied by Israel and who is in effect at war with Israel. By that measure the analogy isn’t to South Africa or an oppressed…

So the oppressed peoples of Israel are supporting BDS?

It’s also not a particularly heroic sacrifice so factual errors abound.

No Sodastream or Manischewitz. The heroic sacrifices of the BDSer.