CE N'EST PAS MAURICE

EARLY SEASON'S GREETINGS!

My lovely, talented friend was hired to Deck the Halls of a fancy residential compound across the street from me. Loving me, and willing to cater to my predilections, she invited me over to watch her work when she realized pink champagne was being served. 

She told me to bring my own glass.

I did, and we had a lot of fun, masked, of course, except when sipping. The woman who hired her and her friend were well into the encouragement phase of the bottle when I got there, and we enjoyed a parade of very high class doggies (and owners) parade through the lobby on the way to elevators.

One such irresistible creature was a brindle French Bulldog. Painfully adorable, and so I exclaimed. 

The owner, an attrractive blond, was obviously used to the admiration her pet inspired. "Thank you. Would you like to meet him?" she said.

Eagerly, I fixed my mask, and offered my hand to the cutie. I leaned down, the dog leapt up, knocked against my flute, et voila! Champagne cascaded through the air.  Pooch, remaining aloft as only champagne can inspire one to do, deftly drank from the air, landing back down at the same time as some drops of champagne, which he scarfed up as if in fear I was going after it.

Laughing, all present admired the performance. 

"His name is Maurice," the owner said.

PROUST

HOW CAN I READ PROUST IF I DON'T LIKE MADELEINES?

MAKING SAUSAGES

OKAY OKAY OKAY

Now I've gone back to some exercise, since we are allowed to do classes outdoors with masks on,

I love PURE BARRE, and so do a great many extremely good-looking women.

 

It only stands to reason that many in my class would be in good shape, right? We are a self-selected group who have chosen to sacrifice time, money and effort to 

have good bodies.

These days, especially, it's a sacrifice since we are outside in a parking lot that the city of Santa Monica allows the class to use. It was filthy the first few times. I worked out on a broken-down cardboard carton donated by a classmate because I didn't know I had to bring my own mat. That was cute, and I have some pictures of me looking like a crazed homeless woman gyrating on the crenallated paper that was protecting me from the crumbling asphalt.

 

The next day I brought my mat, but it got so dirty I had to give it a full-on bath when I got home. So I bought a cheap mat at TJ Maxx, and that was better.

 

Then the city kindly started to wash the parking which was really great especially after it was done a few times, cumulatively cleaner.

But my new cheap mat let the water through. It seems they washed the lot minutes before the start of our class--9 am. (I had to throw away one mat already because it got so disgusting one morning when I had to be in the shade, ergo in a puddle, that I kept from evaporating by my presence.

So not only was the mat wet, so were my special socks, pants and top. I should mention that this outdoor workout is particularly impressive because of all the tiny muscles we need to shanghai in order to stay on the mat, and not let any part of our bodies stray onto said crumbling asphalt. So, good for the workout, bad for the outfit.

But my main point here, and I wish I had photos to show, and maybe I do and can add them later, is that we are a good looking bunch, dressed in minimal and skin-tight clothes, cavorting, stretching, lunging, and tucking--how suggestive is that!!!? Moves not unknown in strip clubs, even. Totally out in public.

For all the world to see. And we are in downtown Santa Monica. Loads of socially distant and masked persons, including men of all ages and types, pass by.

Loads.

You would think that all this toned and barely clad pulchritude would garner an appreciative audience. I don't mean anything I'd have to #MeToo about, but some smiles and lingering glances would not be inappropriate. We are out in public, after all. 

But no!

Nary!

Nada!

Women sometimes watch, and maybe come ask about classes. But men, never. Why?

Because while they admire women. They admire good bodies. They do not like to see what we do to get them.

Men do not seem to want to know how the sausages are made!

 
 

THE TRUMPED UP PRESIDENCY

These last few weeks have been so momentous, so fraught, so bursting with implications, that it scared me, stunned me away from my blog. The thing that sustains me is that it could have been so bad. Four years ago, when Trump was elected, no one imagined how bad it could be. Unthinkable, how bad it actually was. This time, we know exactly how it would go. So whatever fears and worries I have about how hard it will be to indo the massive damage to America's spirits, reputation, and power to do good in the world, I only have to think of how bad it could have been.

This thought usually restores my spirits. And we will just have to word hard for incremental victories, as done by our dearly departed RBG. And try to stay united in good will and willingness to compromise when possible. 

BTW there is a very good documentary series called The Reagans, about the family who came up with the MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN slogan, and how explicit its meaning was, then and now.

FYI--DO YOU KNOW WHAT Crispr MEANS?

Crispr--spelled just like that, is the gene editing technology that allows us, or rather scientists who do that sort of thing, to edit genes. Essentially, a damaged or wrongly-tuned piece of a gene can be removed to change a disease-causing gene into a benign gene. Or a piece of another, presumably better, gene or virus can replace a bad bit. Then the "repaired" gene can function without causing whatever problem it used to, and the host, plant, animal, or person, can carry on happily ever after. Weird and wonderful things can happen, e.g., the AIDS virus may be able to cure Sickle Cell.

Crispr stands for "clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats". 

AMERICAN JIHADIS?

 

MY GOOD FRIEND, born in another country but a naturalized citizen, told me she saw on the news a woman who refused to wear a mask. The maskless crusader, and I say this advisedly as well as ironically, was asked if she wasn't afraid for her health, what with Covid and all. She answered, fervently, 

"I would die for that man."  

What is this about? Is this the same impulse that sends young people strapped to bombs out into crowds?  

If, in fact, this reflects a desire to be part of something bigger, what is the something bigger here that she so stoutly identifies with?

It's not a movement, religion, mission. What is it? I think that for those who identify with the caliphate, say, or the reward of 75 virgins, there is an important (to them) goal. Unity, kingdom of Heaven, sex with inexperienced (probably) minors--dubious fun. 

I look at Trump, and most of his followers, and I see no identity. I only see contrast, opposition. He is rich. They are not. He has a lot of influence, they don't. He spends $70,000 a year on his tangelo mop. They may want to, but they don't. Until recently, he belonged to that disdained minority, Manhattanite. Mostly, they don't. Many, in fact, gloat that cities seem to them to be losing ground.Twice divorced, mostly they are not--they may wish to be but, oh, the expense! Mostly they can't afford it.

Help me with this list here. I'm not coming up with things they can identify with.

I get the anger, but is that enough? It's not his anger. I don't mean he's not angry. He clearly is. But he's angry about his dad, or slights to his ego. His accolytes are angry about real things. Low wages. Dead-end jobs. A feeling that America isn't theirs any more. But this is not his anger. Is it enough just to be angry? DOES ANGER UNITE, NO MATTER THE REASON? Is that an emotion that can dig down into anyone's psyche and say, I'm with you there. Yes, I'm pissed off. Vote for me and let's be pissed off together. 

WE may be pissed off about different things, but isn't it fun to rage in a big bunch?

 

LET'S HEAR IT FOR THUNDER THIGHS

 

Not only is this woman gorgeous,

This is the ideal healthy shape

According to TODAY'S ScienceTimes. 

(From The New York Times:

Where You Carry Body Fat May Affect How Long You Live

Extra weight in some places may lower your risk of dying prematurely.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/01/well/live/where-you-carry-body-fat-may-affect-how-long-you-live.html?smid=em-share)

It seems that, as with so many things, with body fat, it's location location location. As we've heard before, fat around the middle is bad. That's because it indicates that there's fat inside, around your vital organs. That internal fat is very bad, and stifles important stuff. 

But what is new and interesting is there is good fat--not chloesterol, not olive oil, but plain old body fat.

It's good to have it around your thighs. It's good to have it on hips. Good news, right?

But only if your waist is trim.  Waist fat is an indicator of visceral fat, that is itself an indicator of increased risk for heart disease, diabetes, and Alzheimer's, among many others.

FYI, I started back at my Pure Barre classes last week. That's how to keep waist small, tummy tight and butt firm with a smiley-face between butt and thigh.

I know it's

Pandemic time. 

I know that several naps a day seems de rigueur.

I know that 2 glasses of Cabernet are also de rigueur.

But, or should I say BUTT we gotta keep that girlish waistline.

MOON OVER PARADOR

"THIS IS YOUR DICTATOR SPEAKING." It's a great line spoken by a great actor in a great role. From a movie starring several great actors. 

For those of you who missed the 1988 film starring Richard Dreyfuss, Sonia Braga and Raoul Julia, I highly reccommend it. It's free on the web and it may have something to say for our times. 

To refresh: a not-that-well-known American actor goes to Parador, a Banana Republic, and while there, the dictator dies. For various reasons the powers that be want to maintain the status quo, such as them being the powers that be. A wildly sinister Minister of Defense (Julia) decides to force Dreyfuss play the dead dictator. Hilarity ensues, and the phenomenally fabulous Sonia Braga, mistress (or is it wife?) catches on and together they try to improve the country, opposed by the demonical Julia who has a spine-chilling laugh that alone makes the movie worth seeing. The movie was not well-reviewed, but I don't understand why. It was truly funny and imaginative, but oh well. Not my point.

The parallels should be obvious, and if Trump dies of Covid-19 I look forward to seeing whom they choose to play him.

In today's real-life version, our tall president would have to be played by two actors, like a horse in a kids' play. Fortunately both ends could be the horse's ass. 

THE THREE CLUELESSTEERS

 

 AM I BECOMING REPUBLICAN?

I'll admit, I am not a fan of these televised debates. Rarely do we see anything to change our already-made-up minds, nor is there much help or enlightenment. 

But a least last night's was hilarious. 

I would say it was a draw. Biden didn't falter the way his opponents hoped. Trump acted like the spoiled bully his supporters love. So, a draw.

But it was hilarious. Wallace could not control Trump, and even laughed at some of his antics. He even ended up doing Biden's job holding Trumps feet to the fire on a few issues such as taxes.

Biden got in a few punches, but in my opinion did not interrupt enough, tho' he did some.

It was funny and fun.

Why does this make me RepuIblican? Because it seems to me Republicans don't expect morality or even consistency. It's just about power and keeping their seats. And this did not start with Trump. May I remind you of states' rights? Admittedly, code for white supremacy, they were not defended when it would have cost Bush II (or Shrub, as Molly Ivins called him) the presidency. As Florida started a recount and it was taken out of the state's hands (State's Right) and given to the Supreme Court (Federal). Off with their heads, states' rights. 

That's to name an issue that may come up again.

The Republicans I allude to--and forgive me if you are a Republican of conscience, we haven't met--don't expect good behavior, respect for law and other institutions of governing, individual or minority rights (ecxcept their own, and then it's not a right by law but by power to make law). 

Consequently, they can enjoy the spectacle that is our trumped-up presidency, while they stay working hard to keep what they have and get more. Or merely aspire. 

And I, too, am beginning to enjoy the show.

COSPIRACY THEORY

In today's ScienceTimes (NYT) there's an article about the psychology of conspiracy theorists by Benedict Carey titled “A Theory About Conspiracy Theories.” Among many intersting things it says that about a third of us think the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention exxaggerated the threat of Covid-19 to undermine Trump. 

Guess who they'll be voting for?

Apparently we like conspiracy theories more now that we are in pandemic. Not that beliefs such as therse are new. In early times, in smaller communities, looking for these theories was a life-saver. But what is new is the widespread belief in THE BIG LIE, ie, that the "official story" is just made up to promote the interests of shadowy powerful groups. This can apply to anything. In THE RABBIT HOLE, the NYT limited-episode podcast about how the Internet, especially YouTube, sucks people deeper into whatever they already seem intersted in. The result is that rather than aerating your thinking with a wide rancge of opinion, it funnels you more and more narrowly into the areas you already selected. It is not neccessary. There could be healthier algorithms, but this is good business for YouTube.A former alforithm-creator who left youTube for this very reason, offers her experience and a good analysis of how it happens and why.

If the promotion of conspiracy theories is good business for YouTube, and we can extrapolate to the rest of social media.

According the the Times article, estimates are that over half of us believe in at least one discredited theory, and that may be understating it. 

There are a few personality types that really go for these theories. The Injustice Collector is, "Impulsive and overconfident, eager to expose naivete in everyone but him or herself."

Another may be an anxious, lonesome, perhaps older and isolated person, likely with a touch of real pathology.

Sudden illness may make us want to blame drug companies, for example, and now with the virus, we have a perfect storm making us want to discredit the purveyors of bad news, scientists and doctors. The fear itself is a distraction, reducing our likelihood of examining the accuracy of what we read online.

All this is very interesting, and I reccommend the article, and the study, "Looking under the Tinfoil Hat." Its posted online in THE JOURNAL OF PERSONALITY. 

A tidbit I found interesting was one question designed to identify a narcissist: "I often have to deal with people who are less important than me."

All that being said, I think these scholarly researchers have overlooked a very big reason that folks like conspiracy theories.  IT'S FUN!

I know several very smart people who believe in conspiracy theories from fluoride to vaccines to Roswell. They are having fun. It’s fun being in the know. Even more when they are among the few who are clued in.

It’s fun plotting out graphs and tables and arguments for things only a few are privy to.

It’s fun to bethe center of attention at a party with a simple conspiracy explanation of various phenomena, especially when most of us are caught flat-footed trying to explain the same things rationally.

It’s fun to blame specific groups with simple ideas, especially when compared to real work—the real work of maintaining our democracy.

Conspiracy theories are fun.

TWO LOBSTERS

 

AS I'M SURE YOU RECALL

I love seafood. Being from New England. lobster is a true fave. Whenever I go back I'll have it every night. When my mother and I rented a little place on the Cape one summer, Falmouth Harbor, I think, we'd go to Sam's Clams and have a lobster roll every day.

Recently, my wonderful friend from college, who still lives in Manhattan, told me one of her pandemic coping mechanisms. She would plan some really nice thing to do each day, a kind of reward to look forward to, and that day it would be lobster. In fact, she was on her way to buy it right then. She was going to cook it and melt the butter and have a private little feast.

Oddly, I had been thinking of lobster myself. Another friend who now lives in Maine told me of a place near her where they boiled the lobsters to order, out on the pier, right where they came off the boat, and then boiled the corn on the cob right in the lobster water. Yum!

My father owned his own business but mainly he was a salesman. He traveled all over the country selling mops until it was the second biggest mop company in the states. Part of his success was based on telling jokes. I am sure many of the jokes he told were not suitable for his five little kids at home, but he did have at least one for us. About a lobster.

"A man was walking out of the fish market with a lobster under his arm. He bumped into his buddy who said, "Hey, what are you doing with that lobster under your arm?" 

"I'm taking it home for dinner," said the first man.

The lobster popped up and said, "I've already had dinner. Take me to a movie."

See? suitable for children.

A few years ago, my two sisters, two husbands and one brother rented a house right on the sand for a week. It rained every day we were there, and only one bedroom was suitable for a couple, so we had to switch off. We still managed to have fun. Brother went to market and bought lobsters, which we prepared to cook by taking two huge pots, and boiling water. When I, oldest, designated lobster killer, put the live lobsters into one roiling pot, one of them leapt right out and landed in the boiling pot right next to it. AS I said, we still had a good time, tho' the lobster scared the shit out of us jumping like that however futilely.

So when my son asked me to host a birthday dinner for his fiance outside on the pool deck of our condo building, where it is easy to social distance for small groups, I thought of lobster. It's festive, rare enough, and by golly, the supermarket was having a sale. Small cooked lobsters for $12 each. Cooked! Perfect and red and festive.

It was amazing. Son and I split the cost. I had fun getting the accoutrements--huge lobster bibs, butter warmers, sharp little pokey things to get the meat of of the claws, and of course the shell crackers. We had corn on the cob and salad and bread.

It turned out that the birthday girl and another friend had never taken a lobster apart (thermidor only?) before, so I gave a demo. I stood, took my lobster in my hands (after donning my bib) and twisted off the tail and the big claws. We had a discussion about the tamale (green, liver, delicious but not for everyone) and I showed how to crack the claws and slice the softer underside of the tail. When I sat down, my lobster was ready, and everyone else was happily attacking their meal. Really yummy to be all having such a luxurious yet kind of DIY meal together.

You are not going to believe this, but there was one lobster left over.

I looked forward to it all the next day. And here is where I finally make sense of the title, TWO LOBSTERS. Because sitting alone, with butter up to my elbows and dripping down my chin, I enjoyed that one even more. Or at least differently.

AS WE MOURN

I JUST RETRIEVED THIS BOOK FROM MY SHELF. A few years ago we did a remodel of our small condo, and did away with a wall of books. The thinking was we had Internet, E-books, Audio books, Library books. Who needs actual books? Especially ones we had already read. So the very few books we have are important to us.

This particular volume was given to me for my birthday by one of my dearest friends. I actually hate getting books as a gift except in certain circumstances, for example, I adore dictionaries of all sorts and in every language. So my brother knows to get them for me when he comes across something in a used book store, like a dictionary of slang, or French curses. I even have the single volume complete OED that comes with its own little, but powerful, magnifier. Still almost impossible to read the tiny type.

The point is I love this book. I read it aloud with Husband, and loaned it out a few times. It is an unusual biography in that it follows her life, with lots of pictures, then her career, with detailed annotation of quotes from her decisions and dissents. In chapter 9, titled I JUST LOVE YOUR FLASHY WAYS, for example, the authors detail aspects of her physical workouts. Her personal trainer for decades was Bryant Johnson, an army reserve sergeant, who took her on after Marty told her she looked like an Auschwitz survivor after her colorectal cancer surgery. When she gave a tour of the court to some Olympians, it included "the highest court in the land," the basketball court upstairs at the Supreme Court. 

RBG went whitewater rafting on the Colorado River with some friends, one of whom told her to sit in the back of the boat because she was so light. "...if they hit a rock, [she] would go flying over."

"I don't sit in the back," she answered.

There is an appendix titled HOW TO BE LIKE RBG which offers 7 pieces of advice: 

-WORK FOR WHAT YOU BELIEVE IN

-BUT PICK YOUR BATTLES

-AND DON'T BURN YOUR BRIDGES

-DON'T BE AFRAID TO TAKE CHARGE

-THINK ABOUT WHAT YOU WANT, THEN DO THE WORK

-BUT THEN ENJOY WHAT MAKES YOU HAPPY

-BRING ALONG YOUR CREW

-HAVE A SENSE OF HUMOR

I think these are helpful ideas for today. 

But back to my point: it's a really good book that's why I have it now, when I only have a few. 

WE all knew RBG's death was imminent. WE all knew it would seem catastrophic. Here it is. Let's follow her good advice.

I also recommend this book for an understanding of the jurist as well as the woman. 

A brief reminder: WHAT ISN'T TRUMP'S FAULT

 JUST A BRIEF REMINDER...

THAT PLENTY OF THINGS WERE GOING WRONG BEFORE HE BECAME PRESIDENT.

I thank Ross Douthat for his great op-ed piece in today's NYTimes for the title and idea.

A short list includes

The insane thinking about science. It began way before--I want to say Reagan era? The idea that science, that is to say, fact is just another opinion.

I'm sure someone knows who started this. Gingrich?  

This insanity includes creationism, pandemic denial, climate-change-by-humans denial, anti-vaccine-ism, and spare-the-rod-spoil-the-child childrearing.

We as a nation have underfunded science education and research, with dollars declining under Clinton and Obama. 

Our fault, not Trump's.

Infrastructure was collapsing and underfunded before him.

Public health funding was nearly non-existent before, with, just as an example, in our schools: used to be one nurse for each school, now each school nurse has to take care of the health of children in, on average, 4 schools.

One of the problems with blaming Trump for everything is that we fail to see, take responsibility for and correct, many of the things that he has become the poster boy for. Unreason was no stranger to American politics before Trump. Partisanship was already insane under Obama--remember his last Supreme Court nominee and that fiasco? 

Lots of the problems related to income inequality, inadequate safety nets for the less-than-affluent, banking perfidy, social security deductions stopping at a crazy low point (causing underfunding of that safety net. Then that underfunding used as proof that social security doesn't work, and calls for eliminating it). 

Our fault, not Trump's.

I could go on, but you can fill in as many as I can, now you're thinking about it. And keeping this in mind, I hope. It is so easy when the avatar of all our woes is so perfect for the job.

While he may do a good job of exemplifying lots of the bad stuff happening now, in a way, that is his job. Why he is supported. He is a side-show who became a star precisely because he is so useful to the anti-democratic agenda. He stands there pontificating unintelligibly in his flying yellow hair, and how can we resist castigating and blaming him.

But that is his job.  

Our job is not to be distracted by his posturing. 

For example, in Sacramento not one single bill that would have reformed the police even came to the floor of the legislature in its last session. This in spite of the fact that, in Los Angeles alone, 6 more black men were killed by police, since George Floyd's death at the end of May.

Was that Trump's fault?

No. it is the fault of our ELECTED representatives, beholden to the police unions who donate so much to their campaigns. 

Not Trump's fault. 

Not Trump's fault. Our fault. As is the Trump presidency itself. 

SHERE HITE

SHERE HITE DIED WEDNESDAY

She was only 77. 

I realize this puts me smack in geezerdom to say that's young, but really!

For you youngsters, she authored the THE HITE REPORT: A NATIONWIDE STUDY OF FEMALE SEXUALITY, published in 1976.

I belonged to the NOW Chapter in Manhattan where the project was hatched, and was among the several thousand women who filled out the questionnaires that were the basis of the report. In fact it may even have been at one of my meetings that she got the idea in the first place. Remember, this was a time of Consciousness Raising Groups, and other forays into an independent sexual understanding for women. Do I need to make a glossary for this post?

THE HITE REPORT was an immediate bestseller, over 48 million sold worldwide. After all, it was the first book that told women that they were all right, and that they ought to have at least a 50% say in how lovemaking was accomplished. This was at a time when scholarly psychological works questioned if women could really consider themselves real women if they didn't have the much-revered vaginal orgasm.

It also exposed the author to hatred, vitriol, death threats, and worse. She fled the US, giving up her citizenship, to live in Europe, where her scholarship was taken more seriously. 

The REPORT was more than revolutionary. It revealed that "Over 70% percent of women responding," as Erica Jong (FEAR OF FLYING, 1973) said in a review of it, "didn't have an orgasm by male penetration alone."  The upended expectations, which liberated women to ask for and get, even outside a heterosexual relationship--shocking!--the clitoral stimulation most find necessary, enraged men.

Think of all the faking. How could that be tolerated? Admitted to? The frail male ego was simply not sturdy enough for the truth.

 She concluded, in part,  "Most of of the respondents to the questionnaires thought that the sexual revolution was a myth. It had left them free to say yes but not to say no." In other words, women of the sixties and beyond could have many partners as men, but the so-called sexual revolution did little to change the male-centric dynamic in bed. 

Her next book, also extensively researched and based on questionaires filled out by over 7000 men between the ages of 19 and 97, was another screaming outrage. THE HITE REPORT ON MALE SEXUALITY, 1981, revealed that repressed anger and infidelity were common in US marriages. That men had fears of their sexual adequacy.

In the #METOO age, that about men is not so surprising, but then the hypocrisy was accepted as truth. By and large, the men who demanded fidelity were thought to owe it too.

Years later, I interviewed Ms. Hite on my radio show, and her husband, (I'm not sure if it was Friedrich Horicke, the German pianist) came along. When the conversation turned to the horrors of the attacks against her, he added, "You can't imagine anything like it. She is getting death threats and accosted in the street just for telling the truth." 

MY NEW ENTERTAINMENT

Do you realize how many shoes Nordstrom has on its website? From every price range and style. So my new pandemic entertainment is:

I go to Nordstom.com

Select Women

Shoes

Sandals Sale

And spend happy hours looking at shoes (I never get to the end)

I pick out one or two...

And it brought me these!!!!!

 

CIRCULAR ARGUMENT

 IS ECONOMIC GROWTH THE WRONG GOAL?

FREAKONOMICS Radio Podcast #429 

is about a subject dear to my heart: the insanity of the endless pursuit of GDP.

Can constant growth possibly be a good thing? It just doesn't make sense. 

I do understand it. It's cheaper to make new stuff than to refurbish the old. But that is kind of misleading, too. We set it up that way. But there are many ways we could have set it up that would have led is to a whole 'nuther reality. Several years ago I did a Commentary on Marketplace about becoming a vegetarian. The gist of it was, that if we had a fair system of land and water pricing and distribution, a McDonald's burger would cost over $30. I realize that in a fancy restaurant, notably the restaurant on the ground floor of the new Whitney Museum, a burger does cost about that. I was writing, however, closer to 1999 when the price was seventy-nine cents. My point was I was not ideologically a vegetarian, but if the true cost of each burger, divested of special dispensations for cattle grazing on public lands, drinking public water, other subsidies, surplus grain used for feed and so on, the price alone would drive me into the arms of Veganism.

Each item mentioned above, plus tax breaks and so on is worth serious study on its own for ancillary damage. For example, the bad health consequences for us eating meat that is fed grain rather than grass. But that is for another day.

TERRIFIED 3--THEY ARE WHO THEY ARE. WHO ARE WE?

Today (08/08) is our wedding anniversary. We are still happy. I caught myself up short when I realized that we could have 32 more years together. The over-100 age group is the fastest-growing demographic in the US, someone told me. And while I don't feel old, I am definitely so-considered, especially for purposes of taking care not to get Covid-19. 

But today's real topic, tho' appropriate if we are going to live such very long lives:

The Republicans are just who they are, and have never hidden it.

As a nation we, led by them, have blown serious opportunities to marshal world opinion and resources in support of understanding and peace. One example, at and after the collapse of the Soviet Union: we did virtually nothing to see that Russia did not become a thugocracy, and guess what? It did. We feel it now as they gear up to give the election to our thug. Again.

After 9/11, we had a moment when all our bad decisions and questionable alliances with dictators and our contortions to keep Saudi Arabia as an ally could have been overlooked, forgiven, even, with world sympathy pouring in. What did we do? Iraq war. How is that working out for us?

The question is, what are we going to do about it?

While I admire the talent of people like Colbert, I am annoyed by the listing of gaffs, personal quirks and disabilities of our political class. AS ripe as they are for comedy, I do not think the jokes help. 

All the bad stuff, the foreign policy shockers, and the unbelievably diminished stature of the US in the world, with its concomitant abrogation of our ability to be effective, needs actual work, not jokes. The way that our health professionals are being vilified and undermined simply to add confusion to the public discourse is surprisingly effective. 

Why?

Why are we so vulnerable to certain types of lies and distractions?

Any answers out there?

CONTINUED TERRIFIED

Today a few of the bigwigs that own our lives are testifying, virtually (interesting double meaning for this word, here), before Congress. 

We know they will dance rings around our representatives. This is partly because most Congress members are hapless. Certainly there are good ones, but really? How can they know and argue about all the issues that they need to watch out for on our behalf? The bigshots themselves are well-versed in defenses, with billions to hire apologists, and their main concern is to keep what they have. Far different from Congress, which should try to protect us, and help us thrive. Conflict? Good for fiction, less so for this unfair battle.

I have a little hope. Maybe the public, hearing what they have to say will become more alert.  

As it turned out, Congress was better prepared and made a good showing. The CEOs tried the AW SHUCKS defense, and no one took it seriously. Still, what was accomplished? Not sure, maybe only to warn CEOs to better defend themselves.

BACK TO THE GUARDIAN

The article, titled IF YOU'RE NOT terrified about Facebook you haven't been paying attention, by Carole Cadwalladr on Sunday's Opinion page (July 26), said many interesting and terrifying things. 

About BREXIT, however, it stopped me cold. She wrote that if it weren't for Facebook we wouldn't have Brexit at all. As she put it, "The future of our country [GB]--our island nation with its 1,000 years of continuous history of which we're so proud--has been set on its course by a foreign company [American] that proved itself beyond the rule of Parliament." And no attempt has been made in Britain to investigate, to the supposed astonishment of the intelligence and security committee to whom these findings were reported in great and powerful detail. 

Details are provided and proof available, yet it seems we/they don't care, and Brexit is happening at the behest of?

AND HERE COMES OUR ELECTION.

SO MANY THINGS TO BE TERRIFIED OF...

 AMERICAN CATASTROPHE THROUGH GERMAN EYES

 SATURDAY'S OPINION BY ROGER COHEN https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/24/opinion/trump-germany.html

I sent a link to a Guardian piece to a few friends about FaceBook and how it manipulated past elections and is poised to do so again. It's somehow scarier because of perceived British reticence (yes I know about their tabloids). www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/jul/26/with-facebook-we-are-already-through-the-looking-glass

One friend, with whom I have been close since we met in Logic at Hunter College (Mihi cura futuri), each of us occasionally toting our toddler sons to class because we never knew if classes would be held, answered my text saying, "I have too many things to be terrified about." Back to that in a minute.

The reason we never knew if classes were on is that it was height of "revolution" and administration buildings were being "occupied" on colleges across our land. Being in a midtown skyscraper--
 
well, a short one, 19 stories--made those kinds of seizures impossible. Not to be daunted, opponents of the war in Vietnam and the bland accepting of the middle class lifestyle decided to shut down academic life in a Manhattan way: they occupied the elevators. At nearby Columbia, we went and heard famous agitators agitate. It was an exciting time, a time when many of us felt that things could be different, fairer, better, and we were the ones who could do it. Meanwhile, we studied philosophy and literature in the interstices of life as a mother, good time gal and hippy--though I did no drugs.

All the time I heard those supposedly more connected that I talk revolution, intimating violence, and sometimes more than intimating, I thought, 'Do they know that means blood?' I was never anywhere that violence actually occurred, but I worried, and was grateful to the Beatles for their song stating my misgivings. That was 1968.

(to be continued)