On the Importance of Hef

Enjoyable ruminations by Roger Ebert on the man behind Playboy. Small bite of a large dish:

He also spent money to free a man who faced a 50-year prison term for…fellatio. And helped overturn laws that made fellatio and cunnilingus a crime in all 50 states (for which many of us must be grateful). He fought against laws punishing homosexuality and interracial marriage. He supported Lenny Bruce's fight against an obscenity arrest in Chicago. He fought obscenity prosecutions brought by such as Charles Keating, founder of the Citizens for Decent Literature. He won. Berman's doc cannot resist juxtaposing shots of Keating lecturing on morality and Keating in handcuffs being led to prison for bank fraud. Hefner's Playboy Foundation fought for civil liberties in general. The cost for these activities came out of his profits, and that didn't give him a moment's pause.

Ebert embeds this fun video of William F. Buckley squaring off against Hefner over Judeo-Christian sexual mores:

And if you haven't wasted an afternoon on YouTube searching on "Playboy After Dark," you've missed out on a lot of fun:

Reason on Playboy here.