Daniels, McDougal and Trump: The Hype That Wasn't

Stephanie Clifford, an adult film star and stripper with the stage name of Stormy Daniels, alleged that she had at least one sexual encounter with President Donald Trump twelve years ago. Karen McDougal, a former Playboy Playmate and Trump voter, said that she had a longer running affair with Trump roughly around the same time. To great hype Daniels told her story on the CBS show 60 Minutes this past weekend. Other than noticing that Daniels had apparently taken some sort of substance which dilated her pupils and learning that in certain circumstances Trump doesn't mind being spanked with rolled up magazines and thinks comparing his younger paramours to his daughter Ivanka is a high compliment, I didn't think there was much surprising, interesting or newsworthy in Daniels' revelations.

And the same is true of any information revealed with McDougal's CNN interview. Trump allegedly tried to give McDougal money after they had done the do. She refused it but apparently took some money as part of a non-disclosure agreement. Daniels also took money, at least $130,000, as part of a non-disclosure agreement set up and executed by one of Trump's lawyers, Michael Cohen. Some people claim that the payment of such money may have violated campaign finance laws but who knows?

Twelve Stalking Songs

Someone I know on Facebook recently posted something along the lines of how she wanted a man who was rough enough to put her in her place and yet kind enough to treat her like a queen. This statement led to some robust offline conversations among some of my friends and relatives about how both men and women often want impossible and truly contradictory things from each other. The difference between romantic persistence and creepy criminal stalking can often be if someone likes the attention or not. Colin Firth's wife Livia Giuggoli accused the journalist Marco Brancaccia of stalking her. Well maybe he did, maybe he didn't. 

But what Mrs. Firth apparently left out of her original accusation was that she had had an 11 month adulterous relationship with Mr. Brancaccia, who was eager to point out the consensual and evidently voluntary nature of their relationship, if somewhat embarrassed at some of his post-behavior actions. All of this reminded me of how much of the culture, in this instance music, seems to glorify behaviors that we all say we don't like and which all of us know are neither healthy nor moral. Some of the songs I really like or at least am very familiar with are pretty much stalker anthems. And this isn't just an indictment of my musical tastes, many of these songs were quite popular in their day. I don't listen to a lot of current popular music but I would bet that the emotions and needs discussed, referenced or parodied in these songs are still expressed in many current day popular songs. Humans don't change that much or that quickly over the years.

Some of these songs are clearly not meant to be taken seriously. Others though definitely seem to be asking for a little sympathy for the stalker. Interesting stuff. I wonder sometimes why anyone would be idiotic or immoral enough to become a stalker. Some of the motivation is baked into the culture. 

Book Reviews: Host

Host
written by Robin Cook, M.D.

Dr. Cook is a Navy veteran, surgeon, opthamologist, real estate guru, teacher and of course a writer. Most of his books are thrillers based around a medical ethics issue of one kind or another. Dr. Cook has stated that it's of more use to write a mystery to get people interested in the challenges of morality in medicine in a rapidly changing world than to write a long dry paper explaining the same issues. I picked up the hardcover for a bargain price, but I believe that the paperback is available now. Host is about 400 pages in hardcover.  I liked the story but thought that the characters weren't engaging enough. 

I happened to read a lot of this while I was visiting a loved one in hospitals so the theme was either a weird bit of serendipity or foreshadowing depending on how you look at it. As we age it is almost certain that we will spend more time and money in hospitals, whether it's on our own behalf or for those we love. Although we can try to put this off via healthy eating and living, as we are not jellyfish, sooner or later we will break down and die. It's just part of being human. When this happens in our eighties, nineties or beyond, those we love can be philosophical and accepting about everything. Even the person who knows that death is approaching more quickly can surrender life with a smile on his face. 

But we also feel, rightly or wrongly, that there is a time for sickness and death. And that time is old age. We often get really upset when someone kills a child not just for the harm to innocence but because the child presumably had so many more decades of life ahead. When someone dies in the hospital at ninety we can feel differently than if they did so at thirteen.

Barney Helps Women Get Their Groove Back

Remember Barney, the beatific purple dinosaur from the PBS kids show? Well for a little piece of change he'll do something strange with you, if you happen to be a woman that is. Barney does have standards you know. Like Marvin Gaye, Barney is providing some sexual healing to women in need, but for a fee.

The actor who starred as the cuddly T-Rex host of Nineties children's TV show Barney and Friends is now working as a Los Angeles tantric therapist, it has been revealed. American actor David Joyner, 52, told Vice that his decade-long stint playing a dancing purple dinosaur was helpful for his current career.

“The energy I brought up [while] in the costume is based on the foundation of tantra, which is love,” Joyner said. “Everything stems, grows, and evolves from love." Joyner only accepts female clients for his services, and charges $350 for a four-hour session. On his website, Joyner, a former software analyst offers clients the chance to reach "a higher and more blissful state of awareness [of their] sexuality."

According to Vice, Joyner believes this "blissful state" is best achieved through unprotected penetrative sex, and claims that condoms "block the energy".
Still, the power dynamic at play here between practitioner and client, healer and student, is hard to square for some. Laura Palumbo is the communications director with the National Sexual Violence Resource Center. She says a tantra session like Joyner’s that includes intercourse can muddy the waters of consent. “I think when we are looking at a scenario like this the goal is to not be sex negative," Palumbo tells VICE by phone. "But, taking a deeper look, it does seem like there are dynamics here that make it a little more complicated and less straightforward than two consenting adults."

Amy Wax and Racism

It is darkly ironic that University of Pennsylvania law professor Amy Wax, whose heritage is such that were she unfortunate enough to have been in Eastern Europe during WW2, would have found herself deemed as Untermensch, or subhuman, and thus promptly slotted for efficient extermination, has spent a great deal of her professional life arguing that Black and Brown people (though most of her disdain seems reserved for Blacks) are inferior to whites mentally, culturally, and morally. I don't expect that slavery or racial extermination will be on the American agenda anytime soon but if those things did make their return and you happen to be Black or Brown, don't try to hide at Professor Wax's house. Because she would certainly turn you in. We do have free speech in this country. You can be as racist and as hateful as you want to be. And Wax has been. The limit apparently is when you step beyond your opinions and make a statement of fact that isn't true. Wax may have done that with her latest comments, which is what allowed her employer to rein her in a bit. 

University of Pennsylvania professor has been stripped of all of the first year law classes she has been teaching after it was revealed that she feels black students are inferior to other students, the HuffPost is reporting. According to the report, professor Amy Wax, who teaches at the prestigious university, was engaging in an interview with Brown University professor Glenn Loury, when she made her controversial comments.

CIA, Torture, Trump, Obama and Hypocrisy: Gina Haspel

Jeb Bush called Donald Trump a chaos candidate. Trump has been a chaos President with his public attacks on his hires and resulting constant personnel turnover. People like Trump thrive within organizational disorder.

Trump's recent firing of Secretary of Stae Rex Tillerson (did Tillerson think he'd get away with calling his boss a f***** moron) and possible reassignment of CIA Director Mike Pompeo to Secretary of State made some people point out Trump's crappy managerial style. Trump may nominate CIA deputy director Gina Haspel to replace Pompeo as CIA head. Haspel evidently oversaw and directed some torture. She destroyed the records of torture at CIA "black sites" during the George W. Bush administration. 

Gina Haspel is set to become the first female director in the 70-year history of the CIA. But smashing that glass ceiling will depend on offering the US Senate a convincing explanation about her dark past. More than a decade ago Haspel reportedly oversaw an infamous secret CIA prison in Thailand where a terrorism suspect, Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, was waterboarded, a process that simulates drowning. She is also said to have drafted orders to destroy video evidence of such torture, which prompted a lengthy justice department investigation that ended without charges

Some Trump opponents believe that Trump's endorsement of Haspel is horrible, wicked, evil and very bad. They claim that Trump's selection means that America now endorses torture. Bad Trump. There's at least one problem with this argument. When President Obama took office he could have turned Federal government machinery against the torturers. That move would have been moral if politically and perhaps even personally dangerous. President Obama and Attorney General Holder decided against that. As Adam Serwer points out:

Movie Reviews: Murder on the Orient Express (2017)

Murder on the Orient Express (2017)
directed by Kenneth Branagh

This is another interpretation of the mystery novel of the same name by author Agatha Christie. I don't think I ever finished reading the book but I think I remember seeing the 1974 movie version on the local ABC 4:30 movie show sometime during the seventies. Or maybe it was on a Sunday night. It was a long time ago. In any event the 1974 movie featured a number of movie stars including but not limited to Lauren Bacall, John Gielgud, Sean Connery, Ingrid Bergman, Albert Finney and Anthony Perkins. Because movie stars weren't as over exposed in the media then as they are today I seem to remember being a little more able to disappear into the 1974 film, to go back in time to a day when travel by train could be a serious luxury. The 2017 film can also be considered to have an all star cast but for me it wasn't quite the same. Of course that just may be silly nostalgia on my part. As mentioned I can barely remember most of the the 1974 film. I certainly didn't recall any important plot points or spoilers which is why I was interested in seeing the 2017 version. 

After watching it I felt even more nolstagic for the 1974 version. The new version was good. It was crisp. I enjoyed the sets, the cinematography, the lighting and occasionally the accents. But all in all I wasn't that interested in finding out who committed the titular crime or why they had done it. I thought that Branagh, who plays the obsessive compulsive world's greatest detective Hercule Poirot, put too much emphasis on Poirot. It would have helped the storyline and paranoia if we got to see things from other passengers' point of view.