Too Much Media Is Addicted To Trump Tweets

Trump's tweets are just irresistible to way too many political reporters.  They just can't stay away, they just can't resist commenting.

There is a certain obligation to challenge his falsehoods and to give context to what he writes.  He is the president after all.  But I had a student once in a 6th grade class who really had no friends.  He wanted attention.  He didn't know how to get good attention;  bad attention was better than being ignored.  So he hit people, and worse.  I had a year to show him that he could get good attention.  It worked.

I challenge all political writers to ignore Trump's tweets for a week.  At least don't write about them, at all.  Turn off Twitter and only check your phone if it's a call from someone on a real, serious story.

Spend more time listening to the birds tweeting.    Make your own music.  Play with your kids.  The world won't collapse if you goof off a bit for a week.  Even if all of you do.  Enjoy visitors to your home, like I did with this hairy woodpecker the other day.  Look at how exquisite he is.  Even if he was tapping on my house.

Let your mind think about how the world works.  Like why don't woodpeckers get brain damage?  One of my favorite old posts.

It's So Much Easier To Destroy Than To Build

This is so obvious.  Something we all know.  Yet we need to be reminded regularly.

I was reminded this morning as I took apart the jigsaw puzzle we'd worked on intermittently since June and only finished this week.  Here's what the finished puzzle looked like after two months of 'construction':

And here's what it looks like now - after about a minute of work:

We drop a porcelain bowl that shatters in seconds.

We see this when a wrecking ball or a fire takes down a building.  All the time to acquire the money and materials and designs.  All the time to gather the people who put those materials into place and then maintain them.  The time to gather the furniture, the pictures on the wall, the photographs, the shared events, and other memories of a place.  Years of work and play can become rubble in minutes.

We see this in a violent death.  Years of becoming a human being - the learning, developing, building relationships destroyed in an instant.

And, less obviously, Trump has been trying to dismantle the government.  Pulling out of the Paris Agreement.  Banning transgender folks from the military.  Cracking down on immigrants and threatening to end DACA.

And Trump's also finding out how difficult it is to create things - like a healthcare program where “Everybody’s going to be taken care of much better than they’re taken care of now.”

We've been watching the speed of destruction in Houston this week.

Yet, destroying individual items, buildings, people is much easier and faster than destroying larger systems - a city like Houston, the US government,  the ecosystem of the earth.  With slow-building disasters, you have time to avert them.  But the gradual nature also lulls people into not seeing what is happening and where it leads.

I worked for NOAA during the year that Reagan was elected and came into office vowing to cut back on government.  I'd been there long enough to see that the agencies were made up of people with years of experience all over the country.  They understood weather, oceanography, atmosphere, marine mammals.  They also understood the vast network of people who monitored these things to make weather forecasts, to map the coastlines, to protect seals and whales.

As Reagan planned (unsuccessfully) to dismantle agencies like NOAA, I saw not just interchangeable parts that could be easily rebuilt by ordering so many meteorologists and atmospheric scientists off the shelf.  Rather I saw complex networks of human beings that over the years, working together on various projects in different locations, had built an understanding of how to make the organization work and had built an understanding of who to call on for this expertise and that.  They'd built, through years of interaction, a trust amongst each other.  Something that takes a long time to build.  A commodity we aren't seeing among the people Trump has gathered to help him in the White House.

So, the thought that some NOAA agencies might be axed, was horrifying.  So much that had been built up over so long would be lost and could not be replaced except over another very long period.

I think about this as I hear that Trump wants to cut the State Department by a third.  Wants to get rid of the special envoys for the Arctic and for Climate Change.

Fortunately, human systems, human communities are not as vulnerable to instant destruction (unless all the humans are destroyed).  In fact, bureaucracies are designed to resist quick, impetuous changes.  But that doesn't mean a lot of damage can't be done.

One last thought:  how do we come to understand why some people either don't see or don't care about such destruction of things and people?  Don't understand or don't care about what will be lost?  What can we do, as a society, in the way parents rear their kids and schools educate them, and societal structures encourage or discourage them, that minimizes the number of folks vulnerable to such destructive impulses?

"Every time Trump has broken a window, GOP leaders have obediently swept up the glass."

Some articles I found worth reading.


1.  From the LA Times:

"Every time Trump has broken a window, GOP leaders have obediently swept up the glass, if sometimes after some initial grumbling. Their deference could explain why Trump might imagine Republicans would ultimately defend him even if he fired special counsel Robert S. Mueller III, as he’s reportedly considered this week."

As I've said before, this is like watching a car racing toward the cliff in slow motion.  Slowly Republicans in Congress - at least in the Senate - are going to figure out that the short term benefits of having a so-called Republican in the White House do not outweigh the long term harm of having Trump in the White House.

2.  From the New York Times, a long article about Kris Kobach, a smart guy whose moral reasoning seems particularly warped.   His mission is to pass the most restrictive voter registration laws possible to keep non-whites from voting.  He did that as Kansas Secretary of State and now he's the "vice chairman of a new Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity to be led by Vice President Mike Pence."  This guy uses up a lot of the ACLU's resources.

Raspail's The Camp of the Saints is also mentioned in the article.  Fits in well with the Bannon crowd.

"At the A.C.L.U. hearing, Kobach argued that his restrictive measures were justified by the high stakes. 'We are preventing noncitizens from voting in elections,' he said. “And when a few noncitizens vote, those can swing a close election.'”

And when a lot of citizens are prevented from voting, those can swing less close elections.

When I read about people like this my mind screams, "WHY????"   Why does his brain work this way?  Is there something about his brain chemistry that's different from most people?  Was he picked on as a kid?  Maybe that difference caused him to be picked on.  There are lots and lots of other possible explanations.  Figuring out these things - rather than just dismissing him as evil or whatever else - is what will move us along as a species.

3.  Mapping Police Violence

I'm not sure what you'll get since the link goes to the main page, which I assume changes.  But the website tracks blacks and whites killed by police.  The statistics are shocking and surprising.  It's all about graphics and data.  A number of different displays.  And there's a link to download their database.

There are lots of possible explanations for these seeming disparities, but the data aren't as easy to get. Is it simply more racist cops in some places?  Better police training in some places?  Different policing styles, like beat cops?  Age of the population or other factors that matter?  Stability of the population?  Lots to think about here.

What Will The Sessions Testimony Offer?

In an hour or so, Attorney General and former US Senator Jeff Sessions will testify before the Senate Intelligence Committee.   Publicly.  What could happen?

I've only heard a few reports on this and they really didn't say much except that he'll be asked questions about

• the meetings he had with the Russian ambassador but didn't mention at his confirmation hearings as AG
• his role in the firing of FBI director Comey.
• Comey's testimony last week that mentioned Sessions - whether he agrees or disagree with what Comey said
• the nature of his recusal on the Russia investigations whether he has violated it

So if I don't have any inside information, what's the point of this post.  I'm just using this as a way to think this through for myself.  

Possibile Outcomes:

Who will benefit?

1.  He will support the president's position

2.  He will support Comey's testimony

Can he do both at the same time?  Maybe.  On some things.  Both Trump and Comey said that he was fired because Comey didn't drop the Flynn investigation.  But he surely will support the president's version that his comment about hoping he would drop the investigation was NOT an order.  

Impact on Sessions himself

1. How will he defend not disclosing meetings with Russians when asked at his confirmation hearings?  And what about the allegations of yet another meeting or meetings that haven't been disclosed?  
1. I guess he'll repeat that he didn't think they were relevant because they were pro forma meetings that had nothing to do with his role in the campaign.  
2.  Some have suggested that he could perjure himself at this hearing. 
1. He's an attorney.  He's the attorney general.  I suspect he's been carefully coached on how to avoid perjuring himself.  Some options here are:
2. Claiming, as did Comey last week, that he can't talk about some things in public hearings.
3. Invoking the 5th Amendment
3. Will he be able to continue as attorney general after this?
1. He can either 
1. be loyal to the president and if that requires bending the truth, bring legal and political problems on himself  OR  
2. he can piss off the president who expects complete loyalty.   

I can't really predict the actual answers to all theses questions, but my guess is that at this point,  Sessions' first priority is Jeff Sessions and the Trump is a distant second priority.   

I think it will also be interesting to see how this committee seeks 'the truth' and how Sessions and the committee members determine the facts and interpret them.

Or is this all a distraction so no one pays attention to what the Senate does with the Trump health care bill?

There are a number of ways to listen or watch the hearings today.  NPR will air it live over the radio or online.  And the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence website has a video window which looks like it will use.

Notes: Psychopath Childhoods; Flying; Flying TVs; Refugee Day

New York Post article about a Norwegian study:

"Two “extreme” parenting styles have been linked to children becoming criminal psychopaths in later life, a study has revealed.
The Norwegian University of Science and Technology interviewed high-security prisoners and found many have a history of either total parental neglect, or rigidly controlling, authoritarian parents."

OK, so this is a study looking back from someone who ended up in prison.  I've always assumed that prisoners have figured out they'll get more sympathy if they tell people they were abused as kids.  I would imagine the researchers have figured this out too and have methods to avoid being told what they expect to hear.

But how about a study that follows kids to see how they turn out?  What percent of neglected and kids with authoritarian parents end up messed up?  How do you defined messed up?  I was thinking susceptible to Trump like tactics.  But George Layoff already argued that authoritarian parents have kids who want an authoritarian leader.(Scroll down to the Family heading under Conservativism and to the nurturing family under Liberalism.)


New York Times piece, Paying a Price For Eight Days of Flying in America:

"The trip had its share of surreal moments — interrogated by a security agent at one point, I forgot what city I was flying to — and I felt increasingly removed from myself, dehumanized and disaffected. Through a grim twist of fate, every flight seemed to leave from a gate in a distant corner of the terminal. Sitting again and again at the back of the plane, I wondered, am I getting enough oxygen?"

I'm not recommending this one, but it's (another?) example of finding what you're looking for.  She was looking for bad experiences and found them.  I mean, the route she took in a week guaranteed she wouldn't have enough sleep and would be grouchy as hell the whole time.
I think about eight hour bus rides I used to take in Thailand to go 200 miles.  Dusty.  Hot.  Chickens.  No toilet. Unpaved roads.  Dare-devil drivers.   Going 2000 miles in five hours in air conditioned seats with arm and head rests?   Luxury.

OK, There's a lot about flying to complain about - the proliferating fees, the shrinking seats, the carbon footprints,  and all the time it takes just to get on the plane.  And we should rightly work to change these things.  Through lobbying for more competition and as consumers who can refuse to fly and let the airlines know why.  And if you do have to fly, minimize the things that cost extra.  I know we can't always do that, but I see a lot of people forking over $8 for a digiplayer every time I fly.

She complains about people who pay more getting treated better.  Hey, that's the American way of life.  It's just on planes the coach passengers have to walk through first class.  The really rich fly on private jets.  And the wealthy get better everything in the United States, it's just done where you can't see it.  The more we see the class system, the more people might start to figure out our system isn't fair.  But I also have to say that a lot of the first class seats on Alaska anyway, are frequent flyers who get bumped up even though they are paying coach fares.

But still, it's pretty remarkable how quickly we can get to distant places in relative comfort.  Since I tend to fly on Alaska Airlines, I may be spoiled compared to other airline passengers, but I also plan for the trip, have something good to read, or to work on the computer, and my own food,  and the time passes quickly.

So, yes, let's do something to fix the ever increasing ways airlines gouge us (outrageous change fees would be on the top of my list), but in the meantime, prep for the flight, be respectful to the people around you, and think how much better this is than doing the same trip by stage coach.


A New Yorker piece called "White House On Lockdown After Television Is Hurled Out Window"

In these times of outrageousnous, I had to read through the writer's bio to confirm this was a joke.  It's hard to do satire when the president does it so much better.


From the Catholic Anchor,  World Refugee Day celebration set for June 11 in Anchorage.

"World Refugee Day is an annual international celebration established by the United Nations to honor, recognize and celebrate the positive contributions of refugees worldwide.

“Catholic Social Services hosts its annual World Refugee Day celebration on Saturday, June 11, 4-6 p.m., at Clark Middle School* in Anchorage.

[UPDATE:  Seems I got last year's announcement and the times wrong.  Sorry about that.]

After facing unimaginable challenges as they were forced to flee their homes, living precariously for years in refugee camps or cities, our clients have been given the opportunity to rebuild their lives,” Catholic Social Services related in a statement about the upcoming celebration. “'They now have access to rights and freedoms they have long been denied: stable housing, education for their children, and opportunities to work and become economically self-sufficient.'”

I've been doing some volunteer work** with RAIS (Refugee Assistance & Immigration Services) and I promise you'll meet some very interesting people from places like Bhutan, South Sudan, Mexico, Congo, Somalia.  People you've been reading about.  And maybe have seen out and about in Anchorage.  But this will a setting where you're encouraged to engage them in conversation and ask about why they've left their homes and what it's like to be here.

*Clark is north of the Glenn on Bragaw - where the old Mt. View library used to be.

*Not a lot.  A few Saturday mornings.  The program is just getting started and they're working out the kinks.  But I've met some impressive people.

Comey Hearing Reminds Me Of Watergate

The Comey hearing began at 6am Alaska time and I listened in bed, not completely awake the whole time.  But here are my sleepy thoughts

I'd read the statement yesterday and was struck by how carefully neutral the writing was.  It attempted to state things as factually as possible, careful to anticipate possible misinterpretations and to clarify them.  Very different from most of the writing we read nowadays.

His testimony at the hearings was the same.  Very carefully considered - trying not to say anything that he didn't mean, to avoid anyone reading into what he said.

There's been plenty of commentary about what he said, so I'll focus on how things were said.

Given all the talk about political polarization, this reminded me a lot of the Watergate hearings tone.  Senators from both sides were respectful and asked reasonable questions.  Republicans did ask questions that sought an interpretation more favorable to Trump, but not unreasonably.  For instance one Senator (Cornyn of Texas I believe, but I'm not certain) pursued the possibility that Trump was justified in understanding that he wasn't the target of an investigation.  Comey had told him that, but would not publicly state that on the grounds that the situation could change and that would require a "duty to correct."

[Added at 10:15pm:  I forgot to mention the questions from Idaho Sen. Jim Risch from Idaho about whether Comey had been ordered to call off the Flynn investigation or not.  Comey quoted Trump saying, "I hope that you . . ." and took that is at least a request if not an order.  Risch suggested it was less than an order.  I think by itself, if that were the only action on Trump's part here, Risch might be able to raise some doubts.  But given that he also wanted Comey to pledge his loyalty and when the investigation wasn't called off, he fired Comey, and Tweeted that it was because of the Russia investigation . . . Well, good try Risch.  You got it on the record, but it's not very persuasive.  And besides commands and requests can be said many ways.  With the lift of an eyebrow in some cases.  And I finally figured out that when my wife asked if I wanted to go out to dinner, she was telling me that I did.]

The only Senator that I heard who seemed to be off topic was John McCain who wanted to know why the Clinton email investigation was closed if the Trump Russia connection was kept open.  He wasn't clear to me what his point was.  That because the Russians were involved in the Clinton email leak, it should be kept open?

Many things about this hearing reminded me of what it was like listening to Watergate hearings.  The somberness, the respectful tones, the possibility of tapes, the number of venues that carried the hearings live.  (Well, there are a lot more ways to listen nowadays.)  There was none of the grandstanding and outrageous behavior we've been seeing from Congress lately.

But if you think about it, the gravity of a bungled break-in at the Democratic headquarters is of a lot less consequences than getting election help from one of the United States' biggest competitor nations.

Considering Trump's Lecturing About NATO, Let's Look Again At NATO Expenses And Benefits

Trump apparently took his testosterone supplement today as demonstrated in this video from Politico where he shoves his way to the front of the photo op at NATO.  Or is he just jealous of the attention Montana House candidate Gainforte got for knocking down a reporter?

During his visit to NATO headquarters, Trump moves in front of Montenegro Prime Minister Dusko Markovic to be in front of the group pic.twitter.com/kYDfshnVrp

— POLITICO (@politico) May 25, 2017

 He also went on to repeat his demands that all NATO members pay their 2% dues.

I realize that Trump gloms on to simplistic notions like this, but that doesn't mean that the rest of us have to accept his limited grasp of things.

I did some checking on the NATO formula in February of this year in response to a reader comment and it seems appropriate to repost the gist of it again today.  The whole post includes a comment by a reader  who says he was career army including as staff to National Security Council.  This isn't a comprehensive study, but it does raise questions that Trump's simplistic 2% mantra misses.

"NATO -   Basically they all say it’s more complicated than those numbers say:1.  There are different NATO budgets.  One is related to NATO non-military costs and each member pays according to a formula based on its GDP.  In that area, countries are paying pretty much according to the formula. 
2.  The Congressional Research Service says the US gets plenty of benefits from NATO

“DOD has noted that the United States has benefitted from NATO infrastructure support for several military operations, including the 1986 air strike on Libya, Desert Storm, Provide Comfort, Deny Flight, peacekeeping activities in the Balkans, as well as military operations in Afghanistan and training in Iraq. Finally, the Pentagon notes that U.S. companies have been successful in bidding on NSIP [NATO Security Investment Program] contracts.”

3.  When it comes to military contribution, the calculations include the total military expenditures for each country.  Most of the NATO countries only have troops related to Europe and NATO.  The calculation for the US includes all military spending world wide.  It’s true that some of those forces can be brought in, if needed, to deploy in Europe.  But it’s also true that the US troops in Europe are not solely to support NATO.  They can if needed, but they also support US military missions in other places - like Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, etc.  So the calculations of those expenses, which make the US contribution look huge (less than your $700 million figure, but more than your 20% figure), are misleading because those expenses are for much, much more than defense of NATO. "

White Tears

"I do not know if I have ever been alive.  How would I tell?  Where in the living creature does life actually lie?  No single part of a cell is alive.  And life itself is just an aggregate of non-living processes, chemical reactions cascading, birthing complexity.  There is no clear border between life and non-life.  Once you realize that, so much else unravels."

I've just spent a couple of days unraveling.   An outsider meets and insider and they create their own inside by taking from another circle from which they are excluded.  And one of the insiders of that group, from another time, comes to claim his due.  Time merges one period into another.

"Time is flattened here in the back room"

At times I was lost, hoping that author Hari Kunzru hadn't abandoned me somewhere on the road, as he abandoned characters. (He always came back to get me.)

Cover (by Peter Mendelsund) close up

Kunzru paints words and sounds onto pages shortcutting conventions, but not shortchanging the reader. An ethereal musician says:

"Since I was a child I could always play, always find the thread of what I was feeing and follow it up and down the strings." 

I just finished the last lines today.

"The needle vibrates, punctures my face just below my left eye.  The tattooist's homemade gun is powered by a motor from an old CD player.  The ink is made out of soot.  Four tears, one each for Carter, Leonie and their parents. I listen to the buzz of the motor and think of what I learned by listening through the crackle and hiss, into the past:  they either add dollars or days and if you don't have dollars, all you have to give is days."

I'll write more.  But first I need to let it sink in.  I may even reread it before I try to write more.  This is just an appetizer.  This is no ordinary book.  The inside of the dust jacket tells you beautifully about the story and yet it tells you nothing.  How this book even arrived at my door is a story in itself.  More soon.

Oscar Screwup Response Was Class Act

It was any event organizer's worst nightmare.   The last award.  The most important.  And the wrong film was announced.  The La La Land crowd - there were a lot of people who took the stage - began their jubilant thank you's when La La Land producer Jordan Horowitz (I didn't know who it was at the time) told the audience that it was a mistake, that Moonlight had actually won.

There were no tears (at least visible on tv), no refusal to give back the awards, no yelling, no blaming.  Just the opposite.  It was one of the wrong winners who announced the mistake and who said very positive things about the actual winner, and the La La Land crowd gracefully ceded the limelight to the crew from Moonlight.

The mistake was acknowledged immediately and openly and the response was all so adult, so gracious, so harmonious.  This was not some minor issue, but rather the most prestigious award in the film industry, an industry filled with ambitious people.

Our news has been so dominated by three-year old tantrums lately, that this is a wonderful relief, and we should all be glad for the error, just to see how decent people behave.

Deadline says that PricewaterhouseCoopers has claimed the blame:

"We sincerely apologize to Moonlight, La La Land, Warren Beatty, Faye Dunaway, and Oscar viewers for the error that was made during the award announcement for Best Picture. The presenters had mistakenly been given the wrong category envelope and when discovered, was immediately corrected. We are currently investigating how this could have happened, and deeply regret that this occurred. We appreciate the grace with which the nominees, the Academy, ABC, and Jimmy Kimmel handled the situation."

Another, adult statement.  No weaseling.  Just standing up and admitting the fault, and apologizing to those who were affected.

"Get Happy"

From Forbes:

"Americans spent $11 billion in 2008 on self-improvement books, CDs, seminars, coaching and stress-management programs–13.6% more than they did back in 2005, according to Marketdata Enterprises, an independent Tampa-based research firm that tracks everything from adoption agencies to funeral homes. Latest forecast: 6.2% annual growth through 2012."

A Health Affairs article says Americans spent $201 Billion on mental health.





Yet here's this coffee copy telling be to just 'get happy.'  We could save a lot of money if this works!

At first I dismissed the idea.  But then I started wondering how many people see a message like this and smile.  A smile isn’t happiness, but it’s a step in the right direction.  And if it works for even a few people that’s a big deal.

So I’m curious if any of you readers have ever been moved by a message like the one on the coffee copy to smile, or even more ambitiously, to change your mood to happy.

The next question, of course, is whether a different message on the cup - visual or verbal - would be more effective.  A cartoon?  A picture of something soothing or uplifting?  A green cup rather than a red cup? (I wanted to give you a link, but everything I'm pulling up is a short zippy piece with no backup evidence and lots of click bate.  Don't want to impose that on you.)

Of course, I realize that the real objective of this message is probably for consumers to associate the coffee in this cup with being happy.  When you buy this cup of coffee, they are saying, you buy happiness.  And as with any addiction, a copy of coffee brings people temporary relief, if not happiness.  Because if coffee drinkers were actually happy people without the coffee they wouldn’t need another cup to get happy.

What Does "Change" Mean In Regard To Trump?

People write things like, "now that he is no longer a candidate" or "once he becomes president" Trump will change with the office.  Mitt Romney seemed to think he could have a calming effect. Tech leaders felt meeting with Trump would have a positive effect.  Thomas Friedman thinks there might be some room for optimism.

Really?  The man is 70.  What things will a 70 year old change?

He's not going to change his basic way of behaving, and from his point, why should he?  Everyone said it couldn't work in the primary and he won.  Then it couldn't win in the actual election, and he got enough votes in key states to win the electoral college.  So from his point of view - even if a 70 year old could easily change his basic behavior, there's no reason to.  His behavior works.

He can change things that aren't fundamental parts of his personal identity and the habits he's acquired over the years.  His basic goal in life is to win, but it doesn't seem to be wed to any ideology beyond that.  So specific policy issues could change based on the last person Trump talks to before he makes a decision.   Things like what he's going to do about Israel, building a wall on the Mexican border, or climate change.

But the bluster, the belief that he's the smartest guy in the room, his wheeler/dealer business style, his bullying, his need for attention and approval, those things aren't going to change.

If he's lucky, those around him will edit him before he goes public.  He's not the kind of guy who takes easily to editing, but once he discovers how much work being president is, he'll delegates lots of the work to others.  Though some of the people he's appointed have belief systems worse even than Trump's in areas.

He'll continue to be quick to take offense when someone slights him.  He'll continue to demean others.  He'll continue to make quick judgments because he thinks he is smart enough to figure it out.  He's not likely to start reading much.

The positive thing about Tweeter Trump is that he publicly says, and puts on record, what he's thinking.  The kinds of things I'd guess lots of powerful figures think, but only say when surrounded by like thinkers, and don't utter publicly.  That means we know a lot more about his true beliefs and values than we have of others in the past.  Well, we surmised, but they rarely gave us proof we were right.

So, I expect to see current Trump relationships change as new disagreements arise and or he decides someone's help is needed for something.  His friendship with Putin is based on a similar authoritarian style, so Trump recognizes another player who sees the world as he does.  But the first time Trump realizes that Putin has played Trump for a fool, that friendship will end.    Other actions - like supporting Netanyahu's pro-settlement stance - may have initial positive benefits, but will quickly lead to a backlash.  The world is a lot more complicated than doing business deals.  The US military power is a lot less effective in a world of ied's  and suicide bombers than he thinks it is.  Putin was able to use military power in Syria because he doesn't care about collateral damage.  An American president has to think about such things.

My fear is that Trump will do a lot of damage both in the US and the world, before he leaves office. Things that will have to be undone before we can move on.  And while he won't kill people Hitler style, if he does slow down climate change action, the result will be turmoil and human suffering and death around the world.  Severe weather events will create havoc for farmers all over the world.  Rising temperatures mean that crops that grow at a certain latitude now, or with a certain level of rainfall, won't in twenty years or less.   This will disrupt food supplies and livelihoods everywhere.

Many people believe that the five year drought in Syria was related to climate change and a major contributor to the rebellion there.  Farmers could no longer raise their crops and moved to the cities where they couldn't make a living.  They were the dry kindling of revolt.

Americans believe that their way of life is far superior to how people live in the rest of the world.  But those who have traveled, worked, and lived in other countries long enough to become friends with locals, know that their middle classes' lives were not significantly different, in the most important ways, from American lives.  These are the people who are now refugees from the killing in Iraq, Syria, and other parts of the world.  Civilization is a fragile thread.  We aren't immune from craziness here.  There are Americans who would be happy to perform 'ethnic cleansing' of non-white parts of the US population, just as the Hutus and the Serbs and ISIS did and are doing.  Those fleeing Aleppo or Bagdad were just as shocked to see their normal lives disrupted by horrendous urban military violence, as American will be if it happens here. The election of Trump shows us that nearly half the voters are willing to overlook all sorts of authoritarian, racist, and sexist behaviors for the hope of regaining the respect they had living in a society where non-whites and women had significant barriers to economic and social justice.  Focus on 'others' rather than the economic system in which owners of businesses get rich by replacing workers with machinery makes economic improvement ever so much harder.

I hope I'm wrong on all accounts.  Trump's style is one where there are few friends for the long haul.  It's why he wants his family as his close advisors.  This is a Mafia like world view.  Only family can be truly trusted.  Because his style creates lots of enemies.  I'm sure the Cruz's, the Christie's, Bush's, and others are just biding their time until they can avenge the personal abuse Trump heaped on them.  And like the people of Aleppo, the rest of us will be in the cross fire.  Probably not actual violence - though I don't rule that out - but more likely the destruction of our social infrastructure that protects the victims of a form of capitalism that has no respect for workers, that buys companies to raid workers' pensions, that lies to customers to squeeze out more profit, and finds all sorts of ways to make the rules work for those who are already wealthy against those who are not.

I've rambled on long enough here.  I offer a June 2016 Atlantic analysis of Trump by Dan P. McAdams, a professor of psychology at Northwestern as a more in-depth and nuanced assessment of Trump's qualities and how they may play out in the presidency.

Understanding Trump Voters: Look At Advice On Why Women Choose Bad Boys

For some Trump supporters (as it was with some Obama supporters) this is more like a romance than an election.  So I thought it might be helpful to go to some advice on relationships for help understanding at least a portion of the Trump supporters.  

Financial Samurai had a post on "Why Do Women Go Out With Deadbeat Losers?"

My theory is that in the beginning, most women don’t know the guy is a deadbeat loser. He probably is reasonably attractive and tells a good story about his current situation and his ambitions. Obviously, he will be on his best behavior during the wooing process. It might take one week, or it might take many months, but until a consummation is made, guys can be very charming! By the time a woman hooks up with the guy, only afterward will she see his true colors. 

Quora had a forum that asked: "Why is it that girls often choose the wrong guy as their boyfriend, although the right person always stood by her?"  I'd note that many assumed the question was from the 'right person' and challenged his perception of who was the right guy.  But there were others who assumed girls do often pick the wrong guy. Here are a few excerpts from some of the responses:

From Luis Garcia on Quora:

• When they are teens, girls aren't mature enough to make good choices, so they get impressed by superficial things, like a car or an expensive date. 
•  Teens are much more affected than mature women by hormones. So they go for the wrong guy just because they're more physically attracted to him. 
•  Teens are rebellious, and girls might go out with the wrong guy precisely because they're parents told them that he is the wrong guy.  [I think this may explain a lot of Trump supporters]
•  Teens are subject to peer pressure, so they might go out with the wrong guy just to be seen as "cool" by their peers.

From Anonymous on Quora:

"Humans tend to be attracted to status, which has to do with hierarchy and not morals.  Although we should base our choice of mates on their ability to do right by us,  most people cannot help but be swayed by public opinion or social status.  Maybe it is ego and maybe it is an instinctual search for a stronger gene pool.
Here are the high-status indicators that will trump good morals almost every time:

• Acting like you are good at doing things.
• Acting like you know what you are doing.
• Acting like you are not afraid.
• Acting like you know important stuff.
• Acting like you have or will have money.
• Good social skills.

None of these indicators in any way relate to being a good romantic partner, but these are the standards which many people use.  The real question may be:  Why would a person imagine they could achieve happiness with someone who chooses status over substance?"

Peter Kemau on Quora:   (He even takes the dynamic to the political realm.)

I'm going to assume that the wrong guy here is the infamous  "bad boy" character. If you really think about it, it has to do with instinct. For women with no experience of a bad relationship, the allure and charm of the bad boy is irresistible. There is something about someone who has confidence, arrogance and an outgoing attitude. Most politicians do, that's why they are able to mass-seduce,  spiritual/religious leaders too. They can make most people believe in them even though their intentions are not particularly honest. 

 Aysha Griffen on Quora offers a different insight:

Often, we are attracted to those who can help us heal a deep childhood wound by letting us play out a similar dynamic, in the hope of redeeming it. This is all unconscious, and usually ends in us rewounding ourself because no one can give us the love or make up for the wounding, except our own conscious self-love. 

Wintery Knight takes what he calls a Christian look at why women choose weak men.  Good Christian men, he posits, will require more from their mates.

"Sometimes a really good man places moral and spiritual obligations on a Christian woman that require her to improve and grow, in order to help him with his life plan. Also, men flourish when a woman encourages him, recognizes him, supports him in his male roles. A good man who has definite ideas on what counts as good behavior may expect more from a woman, and those moral obligations can get in the way of her selfish pursuit of happiness."

So the women fear they won't live up to his expectations, according to Wintery Knight, and they'll be abandoned.  Thus weak men are a safer choice because they are easier to blame and control.

"Let me explain some other reasons why a Christian woman might prefer to have a weaker, non-Christian man: 

1. A woman may prefer to blame a man in order to rationalize her selfish actions, and an immoral man is easier to blame. 
2. A woman may prefer to blame a man in order to punish him for some real or imagined crime, and an immoral man is easier to blame. 
3. A woman may want to avoid moral obligations to a man, and a weaker man is easier for her to control. (e.g. – using pre-marital sex in order to avoid having to love a man self-sacrificially) 
4. A woman may need to avoid being judged or led morally by a man, so she prefers a man who is weak at morality and moral reasoning. 
5. A woman may need to avoid being judged or led spiritually by a man, so she prefers a man who is weak at theology and apologetics. 

So, it’s not that the poor, sweet, innocent women are helpless victims of nasty, evil, brutish man-beasts, at all. Far from it. Some of them DELIBERATELY CHOOSE to pass up the best Biblical Christian men, because they fear rejection or moral judgment or loss of control, and/or they want to avoid moral obligations to men that may interfere with their selfishness."

We've all known people who hooked up with the wrong romantic partner despite all the warnings from their best friends.  It sort of feels like that with Trump supporters.  The more you point out his flaws, the stronger they defend him.

Extrovert Advantage For Presidential Candidates, Introvert Advantages For President

Lots of factors that affect who gets elected president in the United States.  One, that seems to have a disproportionate impact, is the introversion/extroversion factor.  It's no surprise to anyone if I say that Hillary Clinton is much more introverted than Donald Trump.

And it's an issue important enough that a Rasmussen Reports survey actually asks people which candidate they'd rather have a beer with.  And it's not surprising that Trump comes out ahead.  (The large lead with men overcomes the small lead Clinton has with women on this question.)

Reading below, keep in mind that all bifurcations can grossly oversimplify and that people fall somewhere on a continuum from very introverted to very extroverted.  And I've just picked a list of characteristics I found online that seemed consistent with other things I've read on this.  The list was aimed at introversion and extroversion advantages at work.

As you go through the list, you'll probably quibble about the description as it applies to either Trump or Clinton.  For instance, in the Extroverts column, "have excellent communication and verbal skills.' I would say that Trump is very fluid and quick on his feet when talking, though I'm not sure that always translates to 'excellent communication.'

Basically, the extrovert sounds more comfortable speaking to strangers and crowds.  And for many, that translates into more honest, more genuine.  They are more comfortable coming up to strangers and talking because they can talk at that superficial level that one uses until you get a better comfort level with someone.  Introverts tend to hate 'small-talk."  They want to talk about serious stuff.  And, at least theoretically, people think more of people who think deeply.  I get lots of hits still on a 2011 post about the Eleanor Roosevelt quote "Great minds discuss ideas, average minds discuss events, small minds discuss people."


For the extrovert, talking is about connecting with other people more than about the content.

For the introvert, talking is about the content more than connecting with other people.  

So here's the list I got from My Star Job:

Introverts

Extroverts

Care about their job and their organisation  Concentrate well in quiet atmospheres  May know more than they reveal  Have very good attention to details  Love to handle long and complex problems  May seem aloof and quiet  Dislike interruptions and intrusions  Work well with little supervision  Always think and reflect before taking action  Do not like to attract attention to themselves

Always keep abreast of what is happening at work  Formulate good ideas through discussions and interactions  Socialise and network well  Have excellent communication and verbal skills  Love to be a part of everything  Get bored and impatient when work gets slow and repetitive Are fantastic at marketing themselves and their organisation  Thrive on attention · Are good at multi-tasking  Respond quickly to requests and always aim to find quick solutions

I think the best candidate AND the best president is balanced enough to be able to at least act as an extrovert and as an introvert as the occasion warrants.  But I also think most people are more comfortable with extroverts than with introverts.  And that seems to be the consensus.

Susan Cain's book Quiet:The Power of Introverts, reports her research on the topic.  Cain identifies many ways that our society encourages extroversion over introversion.  One example she gives is being pressured to put away her book and join the group activities at summer camp.  Our society is biased to favor extroverts.  From Ted Talks blog:

"That bias, she claims, is everyone’s loss. While the world certainly need extroverts, it also needs introverts doing what they do best. It’s a bias that has no name. To understand it, we need to understand that introversion isn’t about not being social, it’s not being shy, it’s about how someone responds to stimulation. While extroverts crave social interaction, introverts are much more alive while they’re alone. Cain brings in her thesis with the insight that, 'The key to maximizing talents is to put yourself into the zone of stimulation that’s right for you.'”

When we consider our current presidential campaign and the debates, I'd suggest we include in our discussions of the candidates, this factor of introversion and extroversion.

Clearly Trump is a raging extrovert - so much so that it's something of a problem.  But Clinton is definitely an introvert who, as a candidate, is forced to act in an extrovert role.  That's why she doesn't seem genuine, because she can't be her natural self while campaigning.  And all the time in front of crowds of people surely is taking its toll on her energy level.  As an introvert, she needs quiet alone time to recharge.  So our American bias against introverts hurts people's perception of Clinton.  It's even worse than it was for someone like Romney (also an introvert) because women are expected to be extroverts more than men are.

For those struggling to understand how Trump is still statistically in the presidential race, this is clearly a factor, and one we should be talking about.

(Though the years of right wing media attacks and congressional hearings on Benghazi and on emails have also had their effect in making people feel Clinton is more dishonest than past candidates for president. )

The Permanent Fund Dividend Is The Speed Bump For Legislative Spending

This hit me as I was reading a letter to the editor today that said the PFD is a 'gift.'  After reading Hammond's autobiography, it's clear he conceived of it differently.  Hammond tells us the Alaska constitution says the resources belong to the state and the people are the state, not the government.  So instead of a private developer getting the money, it's divided among all the population.

I think we can argue over that in a lot of ways.  Why not just give all the money away to the people?  Hammond does respond that it's for future generations, not just the one that exploited the resources.  And I'm of the opinion that the Fund earnings would make a great trust from which the state could pay for a significant part government.

But Hammond argues that the dividend is much more equitable - the poor get the same as the rich.  In fact, the dividend has a much greater positive impact on the poorer folks than on the richer.  While a progressive  income tax would take more from those who can afford to pay more.  And it would also catch folks who work in Alaska but live Outside.

Hammond also felt that the dividend gave the public an incentive to pay attention to the state budget.

And that's the part that made me think about a speed bump.

People drive faster than they should.  To slow them down, we build speed bumps.  Most people can't stand the bumps.  They are a pain to drive over, even slowly.  And they cost money to build and maintain.  BUT without speed bumps, people drive too fast.  We simply won't voluntarily drive slowly.  So, speed bumps are there to stop us from doing what we shouldn't do, since we can't seem to stop ourselves from doing the right thing.

I see the dividend - even if you disagree with most of Hammond's points - acts like a speed bump on governmental spending.  The public pays attention when their dividend is going to be cut because the legislature needs their money to pay for government.  Legislators just can't help themselves from spending more money than we have.  The dividend is a speed bump to slow down the spending.

It's not a perfect metaphor, but it helps frame one aspect of the dividend clearly.

Voting Should Be Like Brushing Your Teeth

You just do it every morning and night.  Because it's such an ingrained habit, you don't skip brushing.  It's like putting the key in the ignition, part of the routine that happens automatically.

For Alaskans, primary day is Tuesday.  Many of us have already brushed early, but the polls will close Tuesday night at 8pm.  There wasn't a lot on my ballot - US House and Senate primary choices, but my state rep was unopposed.  But, like brushing teeth, you just do it automatically come election time.

But like every metaphor, parts work and parts don't.  There's more thinking and preparation involved in voting.  If you don't brush, it's your teeth and gums that suffer.  If you don't vote intelligently it's your whole community that suffers.

And like brushing, just voting alone is not enough.  Flossing is important.  So is diet.  And learning about the candidates, supporting good ones with money, labor, yard signs are all important parts of healthy electoral hygiene.


[On other matters, it's been several days since Feedburner last worked for this blog and put my posts on other blogrolls.  For those of you who get here from other blogs here are some of the posts that didn't make it:

Mushrooms And Other Signs of Rain
Walkable Cities Circa 1669
If Women Relate Their Own Gender Battles To Clinton's, She Wins Big 
Man Goes 
Who Invented Inflatable Tube Guys?]

Judge to defendant: "Come on. Jack off."

This fits in the "Not sure what to do with this" file.  I'm sure there are defiant and abusive defendants in court every day.  But this judge needs to real help.  The defendant is doing all he can to have some power in this situation and carrying it off.  What's the judge's excuse?


The defendant tells the judge he wants a new public defender because the one he has won't properly defend him unless the defendant lets the public defender give him a blow job.

From transcripts pp. 6-7

Most people would probably dismiss this as the defendant being disruptive, punishing his public defender, and making it up to get a different public defender.  And that might be the case in many even most cases like this.  (Actually, I have no idea how often something like this happens.)  But it seems to me that when someone makes a claim like this, it's up to the court to check.  We know that women's and children's claims of sexual abuse and  are true much more often than not.  The movie Spotlight highlights the investigation of the allegations of sexual abuse by the Catholic church in Boston.  If priests can abuse people in their care, why shouldn't a public defender?

And I realize that if the judge gives a week for an investigation, there will probably be a lot of defendants making similar kinds of claims.  But the American system of justice is supposed to be fair, and the right to an attorney shouldn't be dependent on sexual favors from the defendant.  Wealthy defendants' attorneys find all sorts of ways to delay proceedings.  The defendant's claim shouldn't just be dismissed.  Courts will just have to develop ways to vet their public defenders and to find ways to determine if defendants' claims are valid.  Maybe let defendants tape interactions with the public defender. (I know that will raise other issues, but I'm just brainstorming here.)

The defendant in this case remained relatively civil until it becomes clear the judge is not going to give him a different public defender or even take his claims seriously at all.  At the bottom of page seven he finally gives up on his request and responds to the judge with "Fuck you."  The judge finds the defendant in contempt and sentences him to twenty days in prison.  Then forty.  And then everything falls apart.

From transcripts page 8

Things deteriorate badly.  The defendant and the judge talk about dicks and butts and and various sex acts.  The judge tells the defendant he "looks like a queer" (page 10).

And here's the section quoted in the title.

I did check to see if this was for real or not.  There are a number of legitimate sites that have reported it.  Here's from the Atlanta Journal Constitution.

I also tried to find reports of what has happened since this June 23, 2016 incident, but found nothing except reports on that day in court.  Though there was this plea from an attorney's website:

"The hearing escalated into murder threats against Judge Durham and his family, and unfortunately for the jurist, he made some comments that could land him in hot water with Georgia’s Judicial Qualifications Commission. I truly hope nothing bad comes from this exchange. We’re all human, and when provoked by stupid, humans are prone to say stupid things and take stupid actions. As Judge Durham Jr. muses in the hearing, “You have a constitutional right to be a dumbass.” Both men were at somewhat less than their civil best last week while exercising this right. Let’s hope this moment of incivility doesn’t tarnish an otherwise fine judge’s career or cost him his job.?

The author of this piece is an attorney in Knoxville, Tennessee, which is about 170 miles from Rome, Georgia.  Perhaps he's a friend Judge Durham, perhaps he just knows about him, perhaps he knows nothing about him and this is just a defense of judges in general, who, the author reminds us, are human beings and this one was pushed pretty hard.

I'm afraid this is more than a bad hair day.  I suspect there's more going on in the judge's life than has been apparent.   The judge was provoked, but judges are supposed to be trained in how to maintain decorum in the chambers.

And sometimes it's only when someone is under pressure that we see what they are truly like.  Sometimes.  I'm not saying that's true in this case.

Less than a month before this courtroom exchange, The Rome News Tribune had an upbeat article on Judge Durham, reflecting on his recent unopposed reelection and on the next four years on the bench.  It turns out Durham spent much of his childhood in Nigeria where his parents were missionaries. He was also asked what he liked and didn't like as a judge.

"Family violence restraining order petitions are generally his least favorites, because he’s seeing either a seriously bad situation or people stretching the truth just to get back at someone. “I’ve been known to call Thursday mornings the Jerry Springer Show,” Durham said about the slot earmarked for family violence hearings. He said he enjoys most of the other work, especially trials, because there is always something new that is going to walk in the door. Laughing again, Durham said that he enjoys trials because he doesn’t have to do as much work as the attorneys." 

NOTE:  This hearing was on June 17, 2016.  A Friday, not a Thursday.

Here's the whole transcript.   Based on the times listed on the transcripts, this all took place over eleven minutes, from 2:08 pm to 2:19 pm.

There is a section where the court reporter writes:

"THE COURT:  Yelling.  Yelling."

Not sure what that means.  I'm guessing the words were left out and she just wrote in that he was yelling.  Which does suggest that the transcripts tell us very little - we don't know how calm or excited either part is for the most part.  Though there are times when the judge seems to be stuttering and the defendant interrupts him.

I suspect this case will become a classic law school case study for maintaining courtroom decorum.  

Some of you are probably wondering why I'm even posting this.  As the first line says, I'm not quite sure what to do with this, I just know it's very significant.   I'm sure this is, in its outrageousness, an extreme example of poor judge courtroom control.  But I also suspect that this is not the only judge who's abusive in court.  And I suspect defendants represented by public defenders are more likely to experience such behavior than those represented by well paid attorneys.  As I say, I'm not sure what this all means, but I think documenting it is important.  And, no, I don't think it's because it gives me an excuse to delve into a sordid situation.   It's more the fact that this sort of language and exchange took place in one of the last bastions of civility and decorum in the US.

Trump Sends Ghostwriter 'threatening cease-and-desist letter" Over New Yorker Article

The New Yorker reports that,

"Greenblatt [Trump's attorney] demands that Schwartz send “a certified check made payable to Mr. Trump” for all of the royalties he had earned on the book, along with Schwartz’s half of the book’s five-hundred-thousand-dollar advance. (The memoir has sold approximately a million copies, earning Trump and Schwartz each several million dollars.) Greenblatt also orders Schwartz to issue “a written statement retracting your defamatory statements,” and to offer written assurances that he will not “generate or disseminate” any further “baseless accusations” about Trump."

Tony Schwartz was the ghostwriter for The Art of the Deal.  The book has both his and Trump's name on the cover, but Schwartz says he wrote it all, based on what Trump told him and what he observed.  Now he's been interviewed in the New Yorker and says Trump's not fit to be president.  And Trump's attorney, as you saw in the opening quote, is telling him to recant and return all the money.


The original New Yorker interview with Schwartz is worth reading. While I'm no Trump expert, I have done some reading on him for the blog and what Schwartz says in the article is certainly consistent with the image I'm getting.

The article begins by telling how Schwartz got the job of ghostwriting Trump's book.  He'd written a piece about Trump that was anything but flattering, yet Trump loved the piece.

"In 1985, he’d published a piece in New York called “A Different Kind of Donald Trump Story,” which portrayed him not as a brilliant mogul but as a ham-fisted thug who had unsuccessfully tried to evict rent-controlled and rent-stabilized tenants from a building that he had bought on Central Park South. Trump’s efforts—which included a plan to house homeless people in the building in order to harass the tenants—became what Schwartz described as a “fugue of failure, a farce of fumbling and bumbling.” An accompanying cover portrait depicted Trump as unshaven, unpleasant-looking, and shiny with sweat. Yet, to Schwartz’s amazement, Trump loved the article. He hung the cover on a wall of his office, and sent a fan note to Schwartz, on his gold-embossed personal stationery. “Everybody seems to have read it,” Trump enthused in the note, which Schwartz has kept."

He then writes of his moral conflict when Trump asks him to write his memoir.   On the one hand he had qualms about a) being a ghostwriter and b) telling Trump's story at all.  But he had a second child on the way and money was tight, this would give him a great cushion.  He acknowledges that what he did perfectly fit the definition of 'sellout.'

And then there is handwringing about whether he should say anything about Trump now.  But as Trump's candidacy got stronger, he felt he had to speak up. (I'd guess that Trump sees anyone acknowledging any hesitation or having moral qualms as a loser.)  Schwartz had to say things he'd learned while spending so much time with Trump while writing the book.  For example:

". . . this fundamental aspect of who he is doesn’t seem to be fully understood,” Schwartz told me. “It’s implicit in a lot of what people write, but it’s never explicit—or, at least, I haven’t seen it. And that is that it’s impossible to keep him focussed on any topic, other than his own self-aggrandizement, for more than a few minutes, and even then . . . ” Schwartz trailed off, shaking his head in amazement. He regards Trump’s inability to concentrate as alarming in a Presidential candidate. “If he had to be briefed on a crisis in the Situation Room, it’s impossible to imagine him paying attention over a long period of time,” he said."  [emphasis added]

or . . .

"But Schwartz believes that Trump’s short attention span has left him with “a stunning level of superficial knowledge and plain ignorance.” He said, “That’s why he so prefers TV as his first news source—information comes in easily digestible sound bites.” He added, “I seriously doubt that Trump has ever read a book straight through in his adult life.” During the eighteen months that he observed Trump, Schwartz said, he never saw a book on Trump’s desk, or elsewhere in his office, or in his apartment. 

Other journalists have noticed Trump’s apparent lack of interest in reading. In May, Megyn Kelly, of Fox News, asked him to name his favorite book, other than the Bible or “The Art of the Deal.” Trump picked the 1929 novel 'All Quiet on the Western Front.'”

I'm sure a lot of folks don't read books these days, but they also aren't presidential candidates.  Well, there was a vice presidential candidate who couldn't name any magazines she read.

One wonders if Trump even read the original 1985 Schwartz article about him or just liked the cover and title and the fact that others were reading about him.

Schwartz talks about his frustration trying to get Trump to give him more than short superficial answers while trying to write the memoir.  He was ready to quit the project he tells the New Yorker, until he came up with an idea.  He'd shadow Trump in his office and listen in on his phone calls to understand how Trump did his deals.  He writes:

“'He was playing people,' Schwartz recalls. On the phone with business associates,
Trump would flatter, bully, and occasionally get mad, but always in a calculated way. Before the discussion ended, Trump would 'share the news of his latest success,' Schwartz says. Instead of saying goodbye at the end of a call, Trump customarily signed off with 'You’re the greatest!'

There was not a single call that Trump deemed too private for Schwartz to hear. 'He loved the attention,' Schwartz recalls. 'If he could have had three hundred thousand people listening in, he would have been even happier.'” [emphasis added]

OK, I've excerpted enough, but this is a New Yorker article, so it's pretty long and this is a tiny sampler.

Schwartz says he understood that speaking out would likely expose him to intimidation from Trump.

Having received a cease and desist order for a blog post myself, I do have a sense of how it feels.  In hindsight, it's clear that the letter was a bluff, intended to get any negative information about his client off the internet.  And Trump learned this tactic from his mentor Roy Cohn.   Fortunately, I was helped by Alaska's best first amendment attorney.

So with my experience guiding me, and remembering that a little knowledge can be dangerous, I'd say . . .  What would I say?  Unlike a with blogpost, the New Yorker can't unpublish their print article.  So what they want is a retraction and to cease and desist. And for Schwartz to pay back all the money.  So he's asking for a lot of different things, negotiating, and he'd probably settle for the retraction and a small symbolic concession check.  Or maybe just recanting would be enough.

But does he have a case?  I'd guess not.

UNLESS there was some sort of agreement Schwartz signed promising never to disclose anything he learned about Trump that wasn't in the book.  But if there were, I'm sure the attorney would have mentioned it.  And from all I'm reading, Trump is so full of himself and so impulsive that he probably didn't ask for anything like that.  After all, if the ghostwriter sees him all the time, he would only see how incredibly great Trump.  So, I'm guessing this is all bluster and, more ominously, part of a growing practice of threatening expensive lawsuits that force most reporters to give in.  Fortunately there are some protections.


Every time we get new insights into this candidate, we can find current examples to apply them to.
For example:

"it’s impossible to keep him focussed on any topic, other than his own self-aggrandizement, for more than a few minutes,"

Trump, he's saying, has to be the center of attention or he loses interest.  This Republican convention is different from any other.  It's almost like Trump thinks he's personally throwing a party and he has to be constantly mingling.  He just can't sit quietly while another person is in the limelight.

Or

"Trump would flatter, bully, and occasionally get mad, but always in a calculated way. Before the discussion ended, Trump would 'share the news of his latest success,' Schwartz says. Instead of saying goodbye at the end of a call, Trump customarily signed off with 'You’re the greatest!'"

We can all watch for this pattern:

Step 1:  Flatter
Step 2:  Bully
Step 3:  Maybe even get mad
Step 4:  Share news of Trump's latest success
Step 5:  Sign off with "You're the greatest."

OK, that's the pattern for phone calls according to Schwartz.  But we can see clear variations of it in how Trump behaves with his fellow candidates, with his audiences, with the Republican party.

I accept that there is a portion of the American public with whom Trump resonates.  Some are just very angry at their situation in life and they need someone to blame.  They love it when Trump tells them it's not their fault, it's Obama's and Clinton's and Muslims' and immigrants' faults.  They so want to believe an authoritarian Daddy will make it all better and they don't have to actually do anything themselves except cheer Daddy on.

Others have probably overcome a lot of odds by working hard and making something of themselves.  In doing so, they have become alienated from their cultural community, family, and/or friends.  They do see people they know who abuse the system and they want those others who they've outgrown to be punished for not working hard like they have.  Maybe they've made it out of an abusive family, or beaten the odds against racism or class barriers.  They too seek Daddy's approval and want him to acknowledge their achievements and punish all the siblings who aren't pulling their weight.

I'm, of course, spinning narratives that might explain many Trump supporters.  I'd guess many had erratic fathers like Trump - sometimes flattering, sometimes bullying, always telling the world how great they are.  So those aspects that disturb many about Trump feel comfortable to his supporters.  But that's just one interpretation.  Again, try it out and see if it fits.  And if you have better explanations, let me know.

". . . and the pursuit of happiness."

Folks, let's remember that life isn't just about keeping up with every tweet and facebook post or hearing the minute details of every shooting or every insult from Trump before anyone else hears it.

Yes, we need to stay informed so we can take the actions citizens of a democracy need to take to protect life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, but we don't have to do that ALL the time.  Or we won't have time to live that life, take advantage of that liberty, and find that happiness.


We can take breaks and marvel at the amazing world around us. We can explore the amazing gills of an amanita mushroom closely

Then turn it over and look at the top.

Enjoy the beauty of a pair of red dianthus.

We can take pleasure in the things my mom collected that were light enough to pack home and that we can use, like this insect blocker as we put out food on the deck for a dinner on a delightful Alaskan evening.  It was still wrapped and sealed.  But my mom saw it somewhere and thought it would come in handy.  And it does.  Though the insects haven't been nearly as bad this summer as in the past.

So get away from those computers and smart phones and go natural for a while.  Talk to the people around you about what makes you happy.  Breathe the clean air.  Ride a bike.  Bake a bread.

"Roy Cohn was one of the most loathsome characters in American history, so why did he have so many influential friends?"

Or,  how and why do 'good' people allow 'evil' to flourish?

I posted about the relationship between Donald Trump and Roy Cohn the other day.  But then I saw lots of other articles on line about Cohn.  From all accounts, Cohn was cold.  Heartless and ruthless.  Yet the rich and famous surrounded him.  Barbara Walters was a lifelong friend.  Nancy and Ronald Reagan had him (and his young boyfriend) over at the White House.

So, after noting his close relationship with Trump, and what that might mean about Trump, I started thinking about how a man like that was so well protected by supposedly respectable people.  (Of course, one possibility is that they weren't as respectable as people think.)

I  had this post part way done.  Then Wednesday I got an email from Netflix saying that Spotlight, the Academy Award winning film about the Boston Globe  reporters who exposed the breadth of the Catholic Church molestation  and its coverup, was now available.  It was a movie we'd missed and wanted to see.  (It's a very good film.  A modern day All the President's Men.)  It too raises the same questions - why did so many people - in the church and out - look the other way?

So back to the main question from Robert Sherrill at The Nation::

"Roy Cohn was one of the most loathsome characters in American history, so why did he have so many influential friends?"

Here are some excerpts from the Sherrill article that make my (and his) point:

"Von Hoffman reminds us that Cohn "lived in a matrix of crime and unethical conduct," "derived a significant part of his income from illegal or unethical schemes and conspiracies," and thrived "cheek by jowl with so many men of sharp practice and dim luster in business and politics" that Cohn's pal Joey Adams, the comedian, would say of Cohn's dinner parties, "If you're indicted you're invited."

Yet,  the 'respectable' showed up too:

But important unindicted people were invited, too. And they went. Large slices of the upper crust of New York and Washington snuggled up to him, laughed and entertained one another with stories about his crimes as though they were choice insiders' jokes, and wrestled for the privilege of partying with Cohn and his crooked and perverse friends. Why choose his company? The sleaze of Roy Cohn was no secret. Why ignore it? Why excuse it? The only important questions forced on us by these books have nothing to do with Roy Cohn, but everything to do with judges and lawyers and publishers and writers and TV stars and politicians and developers–the wealthy and the powerful people who for many years ate Roy Cohn's shit with a grin.

Unfortunately, despite reciting all the things that made Cohn loathsome,  Sherrill  doesn't actually answer the question of why.  Though he repeats the question:

"And what were people like Geraldine Ferraro and Alan Dershowitz ("who was a somewhat well-disposed acquaintance of Roy's") doing at other Cohn parties and showing up as character witnesses when he was about to be disbarred?"

Here are some hints from a long Life magazine memorial by Nicholas Von Hoffman:

Peter Fraser, Cohn's twenty-something New Zealand born lover in Cohn's final years:

"People would ask me how could I be associated with somebody who did all these awful things in the 1950s," he says. "I don't know about any of that."

In the early 50s, a high school friend has Cohn over for dinner and overhears Cohn talking to Walter Winchell on the phone,  about destroying another newsman:

"And here was Roy Cohn saying, "Now, Walter, we could play this up, and we could do that, "and listening to this thing, I should have said, if I had had any guts, "Roy, that's outrageous", please leave. "But I didn't." - Anthony Lewis, columnist for The New York Times"

Probably the most common reason - it was symbiotic, they helped each other:

"For 40 years Roy had been taking care of the Newhouses, billionaire owners of newspapers and magazines, and for 40 years the Newhouses had been taking care of Roy."

And

"Zion, a former New York Times reporter, admits that Cohn did many favors for him, including helping him expedite a liquor license for a saloon Zion was buying, and he admits that Cohn was 'the best source I had" for news tips. In return, says Zion, he gave Cohn "advice" on how to handle the people at The Times. As for other things Zion did for Cohn, he says vaguely, "He never asked me to do anything I wouldn't have done for him anyway.'"

From SFGate:

"Many of [Barbara] Walters' other friends were horrified that she would even talk to Cohn, but what Walters reveals for the first time in 'Audition" is that Cohn somehow got a warrant for her father's arrest dismissed. .  .
Cohn liked to hint that they were more than friends "because I was his claim to heterosexuality," Walters says. 'He never said that he was gay, he never admitted to me that he had AIDS. He was a very complicated man. He died, alone, up to his ears in debt. He had been disbarred and he was hated. And I might have thought the same way, but he did something when my father was in trouble, [and] I never forgot that.'" 

Some, suggests Elizabeth Mehren in an LA Times book review of von Hoffman's biography of Cohn, just didn't understand exactly who he was:

". . . many people knew vaguely who he was without knowing fully what he had done. Those who were of age in 1950 would remember strongly the workings of the McCarthy committee, in which Cohn, as chief counsel, was the man who routinely asked witnesses, 'Are you now or have you ever been a member of the Communist Party.' Younger people would recognize Cohn from the pages of People magazine: a regular at Studio 54, the frequent dinner companion of Barbara Walters, a guest at the White House, the lawyer of rich and famous divorcees."

Another quote from Mehren offers another explanation why so many hovered around Cohn's light:

". . . as Steven Brill, editor in chief of the American Lawyer and a longtime critic of Cohn has said, Roy Cohn was like an automobile accident, the kind that makes rubberneckers stop and stare. "People are drawn to Roy Cohn that way," Brill told Von Hoffman."

Ultimately, it would appear that there was a giant web of connections and favors and threats.  Cohn could help you if you helped him, and he could harm you if you crossed him.  Sort of like a mafia boss - at least one of whom was part of Cohn's circle.

And in the movie Spotlight, we see how the Catholic church dominated Boston.   So many people in so many important positions - in the police department, the courts, the newspapers, the government, the businesses -  were part of the Catholic club, had gone to Catholic schools, been altar boys, still were members of the church, gave to Catholic charities.  As some of the victims said, when a priest talked to you, it was like talking to God.  The web was more than human.

And the key people at the Boston Globe were also part of the club and had ignored evidence that several different people had left them years before the movie begins.  It takes an outsider - a new editor, a Jew new to Boston -  to assign the story to Spotlight, the investigative team at the Globe. And it's an Armenian-American attorney who's been doggedly filing lawsuits in the court system for victims.  Other attorneys had been settling cases directly with the church, yielding small monetary settlements that required confidentiality agreements guaranteeing the secrets would be kept.

Ultimately, I think that if we can get deep into another person's psyche, we can understand why they do the terrible things they do.  That doesn't mean we excuse them.  But unless we understand why people go bad - whether it's some inherent biological cause or environmental factors, or both - we can never design ways to minimize the number of people that go bad, so to speak.  Talking about 'God's will" or  "agents of Satan" doesn't cut it for me.  That suggests there is nothing that could have been done to set the individual onto a more positive life path.

And with Cohn, some argue it was feelings of insecurity in a society that looked down on Jews and did worse to homosexuals.  Michael Kruse writes in Politico:

"He was a tangle of contradictions, a Jewish anti-Semite and a homosexual homophobe" 

His self-loathing, in this narrative, made Cohn fearful of exposure and humiliation, and thus he covered his own vulnerability as a Jew with his own anti-semitism and as a homosexual with his own homophobia.


The Takeaway

Cohn - and to a lesser extent the Catholic church portrayed in Spotlight - is the example of this post, but not the main point.

That's the issue of how 'good' folks protect 'bad' folks.  That's the question we should all be asking about the people in the news today.  It's the issue also we should ask ourselves about the people in our own lives that we should be calling out, or at least not giving the cover of our approval.


[UPDATE May 14, 2018:  Here's a New York Magazine article from April 29,2018 that covers similar ground in more detail and explores why none of the prominent Democrats at that time called out Cohn and, in the years since, Trump.]