I recently attempted to come to Senator Franken's aid by pointing out the photograph of him leering at the camera while pretend-grabbing a woman's breasts was clearly meant to be a (stupid, adolescent) joke and that no actual contact was made.
I stand by that assessment.
But now we have a report from a woman who says Franken latched onto her butt for three or four seconds during a photo op at the Minnesota State Fair. Franken says he takes a lot of such photos and doesn't remember this particular one.
He's missing the point. We're not asking him to remember the photograph. We're asking him to address the butt-squeezing aspect of the incident. Perhaps he could say something like: "I never grab people's butts without written permission."
If the "photo with the butt-grab" doesn't ring a bell, I think we can only conclude grabbing butts is so common an activity for the man that in the end it's all a blur.
He says, "I feel badly [she] came away from our interaction feeling disrespected."
The take-home message: When Senator Al Franken grabs your butt he does so with the deepest possible respect.
Monday, November 20, 2017
Sunday, November 19, 2017
SCHADENFREUDE
Donald Trump whispers an opinion that women accusing Republican senatorial candidate Roy Moore of sexual misconduct are telling the truth. He then Tweet-shouts about Democratic senator Al Franken(stein).
The difference, of course, is obvious.
Trump is gleeful to get a chance to rail against Franken's perceived faults. The man's on the other side, a detractor, a political opponent, a member of the demonic Democratic party, those misguided folks who hate America and desire nothing more than to drive the country into the mire.
It's the infamous photograph!
Franken is seen grinning for the camera, his hands boob-flexed and poised above the flack-jacket of a sleeping woman. Trump demands to see the rest of the photographs. Does he seriously think there are more pix of this pretended sleep assault?
I think his schadenfreude-powered mind has become greedy.
Either that or he's projecting what he would have done, what he may well have done in the past, in his encounters with women of lesser power.
Like Trump, Roy Moore repeatedly denies these accusations. He points out it can't be a coincidence all this stuff is coming out just before the election. He concludes it's politically motivated.
Of course part of it is politically motivated, but that doesn't mean it's not true.
Another part is brought forth by the publicity generated by the first revelations—new women getting the courage to come forward. And of course part of it is the tenor of the times. We're in the middle of a sexual harassment flak.
It's like the UFO flaks of the past: a rash of sightings hits the news, followed by lots more.
Undoubtedly, some of the follow-on reports were caused by hysteria—folks suddenly aware of every-day phenomena they used to ignore. And some of it was fake—folks just wanting to be part of the story.
(There's very close to zero chance any of those reports were ever true. And that goes for all those people—maybe millions of them—who claim to have been yanked out of bed, hauled up through the ceiling of their room, and had their butt explored by big-headed space aliens.)
Similarly, some of the current flurry of reports of sexual misconduct are likely to be mistakes, or misremembered encounters, or cases of over sensitivity. Some are also bound to be outright lies designed to get revenge for other unhappy events.
(That Kevin Spacey would accept responsibility for acts he cannot recall suggests a pattern of black-out drunk activity that borders on the career-suicidal. Talk about a ticking time bomb!)
Fortunately for Franken's accuser, she has photographic proof of at least part of what she's complaining about. She says it shows Franken groping her. It almost certainly does not. I suspect it's just what is looks like: a joke, a pretend-grope. It doesn't appear his fingers are in actual contact with the material.
But is it stupid? You bet! Is it adolescent? Decidedly! Is it senatorial? I don't know, maybe. Some of them boys be rascals. Should Franken be embarrassed? Absolutely! Should the woman feel violated? Not as much as she appears to be. I think the properly measured response from her should have been: "Oh, grow up!"
She goes on to describe a rehearsal for a USO skit about a man forcing himself on a woman. And in the rehearsal, she says Franken forced himself on her. Wet kiss, darting tongue, and so forth. Hard to see how this legitimately applies to a rehearsal. Or to the skit itself, for that matter. Actors are supposed to act out, not actually perform, the events depicted on the stage.
Franken says he remembers the rehearsal differently.
And of course Donald Trump sees it all very differently, in his overheated mind's eye.
Schadenfreude (happiness over the failure of others) carries with it the implication of relief. This time it was the other guy who got caught, not me.
I understand one of Trump's accusers is getting ready to sue him for slander for calling her a liar during the campaign. This might get interesting.
The difference, of course, is obvious.
Trump is gleeful to get a chance to rail against Franken's perceived faults. The man's on the other side, a detractor, a political opponent, a member of the demonic Democratic party, those misguided folks who hate America and desire nothing more than to drive the country into the mire.
It's the infamous photograph!
Franken is seen grinning for the camera, his hands boob-flexed and poised above the flack-jacket of a sleeping woman. Trump demands to see the rest of the photographs. Does he seriously think there are more pix of this pretended sleep assault?
I think his schadenfreude-powered mind has become greedy.
Either that or he's projecting what he would have done, what he may well have done in the past, in his encounters with women of lesser power.
Like Trump, Roy Moore repeatedly denies these accusations. He points out it can't be a coincidence all this stuff is coming out just before the election. He concludes it's politically motivated.
Of course part of it is politically motivated, but that doesn't mean it's not true.
Another part is brought forth by the publicity generated by the first revelations—new women getting the courage to come forward. And of course part of it is the tenor of the times. We're in the middle of a sexual harassment flak.
It's like the UFO flaks of the past: a rash of sightings hits the news, followed by lots more.
Undoubtedly, some of the follow-on reports were caused by hysteria—folks suddenly aware of every-day phenomena they used to ignore. And some of it was fake—folks just wanting to be part of the story.
(There's very close to zero chance any of those reports were ever true. And that goes for all those people—maybe millions of them—who claim to have been yanked out of bed, hauled up through the ceiling of their room, and had their butt explored by big-headed space aliens.)
Similarly, some of the current flurry of reports of sexual misconduct are likely to be mistakes, or misremembered encounters, or cases of over sensitivity. Some are also bound to be outright lies designed to get revenge for other unhappy events.
(That Kevin Spacey would accept responsibility for acts he cannot recall suggests a pattern of black-out drunk activity that borders on the career-suicidal. Talk about a ticking time bomb!)
Fortunately for Franken's accuser, she has photographic proof of at least part of what she's complaining about. She says it shows Franken groping her. It almost certainly does not. I suspect it's just what is looks like: a joke, a pretend-grope. It doesn't appear his fingers are in actual contact with the material.
But is it stupid? You bet! Is it adolescent? Decidedly! Is it senatorial? I don't know, maybe. Some of them boys be rascals. Should Franken be embarrassed? Absolutely! Should the woman feel violated? Not as much as she appears to be. I think the properly measured response from her should have been: "Oh, grow up!"
She goes on to describe a rehearsal for a USO skit about a man forcing himself on a woman. And in the rehearsal, she says Franken forced himself on her. Wet kiss, darting tongue, and so forth. Hard to see how this legitimately applies to a rehearsal. Or to the skit itself, for that matter. Actors are supposed to act out, not actually perform, the events depicted on the stage.
Franken says he remembers the rehearsal differently.
And of course Donald Trump sees it all very differently, in his overheated mind's eye.
Schadenfreude (happiness over the failure of others) carries with it the implication of relief. This time it was the other guy who got caught, not me.
I understand one of Trump's accusers is getting ready to sue him for slander for calling her a liar during the campaign. This might get interesting.
Tuesday, November 14, 2017
THE UNASKED QUESTION
It's never the right time, of course. Folks are grieving, and so forth. But later, when things lighten up, the question simply doesn't present itself.
So it's got to be now.
Following the mass shooting in that church in Texas, folks naturally want to know why the gunman did it. But that's not the question I'm talking about. Folks want to know why such super-destructive weapons are so readily available, but that's not the question I have in mind, either.
My question is specifically about shootings in churches, and nobody ever asks it (at least, not out loud):
How could God allow this to happen in his house?
After such terrible events, folks are naturally brought closer together, usually in church. Folks pray for guidance. They take comfort in the Lord—but at no time are they allowed to question his plan.
"The Lord works in mysterious ways his wonders to perform."
So sit down and shut up; put your hands together and pray for forgiveness.
That's right, forgiveness.
And I don't mean the ability to forgive God for letting this happen. You need to beg God to forgive you for whatever it was you did to bring this horrific event down upon your community.
It's a given: You must have done something wrong.
Self-righteous folks (like Alabama judge Roy Moore, currently in the news for other reasons) even claim the attacks on 9/11 were God's angry reaction to American sins, like allowing sodomy to exist in our society.
It makes sense, right? After all, God once killed virtually every living creature on the planet—including countless millions of innocent animals—because he disapproved of man's sinful ways.
It's right there in the Bible, a book written by God in his spare time and designed to frighten little children before they have to go back to school on Monday morning.
(It's a tribute to humanity's innate goofiness that we can get any pleasure out of anything, considering the crap-storm awaiting us.)
My point is not that you should blame God for being such a dick (though it ought to be no surprise bad stuff happens around a supernatural being you're supposed to fear).
I just wonder why more people don't come to the somewhat obvious conclusion that God simply does not exist.
Remember, by denying God you won't be standing up to the Big Guy, you'd merely be questioning one of society's more heavily-reinforced traditions.
Religion is a house of cards—without the actual cards: It's an imaginary house of cards.
It's the emperor's new clothes—without the emperor. Or anyone to observe him or his theoretical lack of clothes.
There is, as the saying goes, no there there.
Q: How can such an airy load of fluff come down so heavily on humanity's fragile noggin?
A: Because we let it.
Humans are built this way: You can teach a child anything, including the opposite of anything, and he'll believe you. Later, when the kid's all growed up, he still believes whatever outrageous crap he's been told.
Why? Because the human brain—which is responsible for constructing an image of the world—edits our view of the world to include stuff that proves everything in our head to be true. We just know, okay?
(How can you doubt your own brain?)
As a consequence, adult humans already know everything (as far as they know), which is why it's so hard to teach them anything. The stupider we get, the more we think we know.
Why would the brain act this way? I think it's because it gives us confidence to believe in our ability to understand how things work. And confidence is a useful survival tool.
Speaking of tools, we invented gods to explain the mysterious operation of the universe, and to gain some sort of control over what seem like random events.
Pray to god, get a prize.
Sometimes you have to pray awfully hard to get spring to follow winter, but it's a life-and-death situation. If somebody in your tribe isn't praying with sufficient vigor, you might have to kill him—if only to protect the others.
It's a decision that falls to the shaman to make. (Better not get on the bad side of that guy.) Holy men spend a lot of time learning to figure out what God wants. You can't doubt their abilities without putting everybody at risk.
For many of us today, respect of holy authority still holds sway. Appealing to that authority in times of calamity is natural and prudent, because there is a lot at stake.
Better not to ask questions, right? You don't want to threaten the whole house of cards.
Here's the thing. Every religion comes with two documents: the four-color brochure that shows God flying over the heads of grinning people, the Almighty performing aerial acrobatics for his crowd of admirers; and a vast, encyclopedia-sized collection of carefully crafted apologies designed to explain why the brochure is actually true despite everything you see in the world around you.
(There's a whole sub-section entitled, "Why Bad Things Happen To Good People." Somehow, I don't find it convincing.)
Religion is a rickety, artificial contraption that's just bound to fall apart some day.
Just not today, apparently.
So it's got to be now.
Following the mass shooting in that church in Texas, folks naturally want to know why the gunman did it. But that's not the question I'm talking about. Folks want to know why such super-destructive weapons are so readily available, but that's not the question I have in mind, either.
My question is specifically about shootings in churches, and nobody ever asks it (at least, not out loud):
How could God allow this to happen in his house?
After such terrible events, folks are naturally brought closer together, usually in church. Folks pray for guidance. They take comfort in the Lord—but at no time are they allowed to question his plan.
"The Lord works in mysterious ways his wonders to perform."
So sit down and shut up; put your hands together and pray for forgiveness.
That's right, forgiveness.
And I don't mean the ability to forgive God for letting this happen. You need to beg God to forgive you for whatever it was you did to bring this horrific event down upon your community.
It's a given: You must have done something wrong.
Self-righteous folks (like Alabama judge Roy Moore, currently in the news for other reasons) even claim the attacks on 9/11 were God's angry reaction to American sins, like allowing sodomy to exist in our society.
It makes sense, right? After all, God once killed virtually every living creature on the planet—including countless millions of innocent animals—because he disapproved of man's sinful ways.
It's right there in the Bible, a book written by God in his spare time and designed to frighten little children before they have to go back to school on Monday morning.
(It's a tribute to humanity's innate goofiness that we can get any pleasure out of anything, considering the crap-storm awaiting us.)
My point is not that you should blame God for being such a dick (though it ought to be no surprise bad stuff happens around a supernatural being you're supposed to fear).
I just wonder why more people don't come to the somewhat obvious conclusion that God simply does not exist.
Remember, by denying God you won't be standing up to the Big Guy, you'd merely be questioning one of society's more heavily-reinforced traditions.
Religion is a house of cards—without the actual cards: It's an imaginary house of cards.
It's the emperor's new clothes—without the emperor. Or anyone to observe him or his theoretical lack of clothes.
There is, as the saying goes, no there there.
Q: How can such an airy load of fluff come down so heavily on humanity's fragile noggin?
A: Because we let it.
Humans are built this way: You can teach a child anything, including the opposite of anything, and he'll believe you. Later, when the kid's all growed up, he still believes whatever outrageous crap he's been told.
Why? Because the human brain—which is responsible for constructing an image of the world—edits our view of the world to include stuff that proves everything in our head to be true. We just know, okay?
(How can you doubt your own brain?)
As a consequence, adult humans already know everything (as far as they know), which is why it's so hard to teach them anything. The stupider we get, the more we think we know.
Why would the brain act this way? I think it's because it gives us confidence to believe in our ability to understand how things work. And confidence is a useful survival tool.
Speaking of tools, we invented gods to explain the mysterious operation of the universe, and to gain some sort of control over what seem like random events.
Pray to god, get a prize.
Sometimes you have to pray awfully hard to get spring to follow winter, but it's a life-and-death situation. If somebody in your tribe isn't praying with sufficient vigor, you might have to kill him—if only to protect the others.
It's a decision that falls to the shaman to make. (Better not get on the bad side of that guy.) Holy men spend a lot of time learning to figure out what God wants. You can't doubt their abilities without putting everybody at risk.
For many of us today, respect of holy authority still holds sway. Appealing to that authority in times of calamity is natural and prudent, because there is a lot at stake.
Better not to ask questions, right? You don't want to threaten the whole house of cards.
Here's the thing. Every religion comes with two documents: the four-color brochure that shows God flying over the heads of grinning people, the Almighty performing aerial acrobatics for his crowd of admirers; and a vast, encyclopedia-sized collection of carefully crafted apologies designed to explain why the brochure is actually true despite everything you see in the world around you.
(There's a whole sub-section entitled, "Why Bad Things Happen To Good People." Somehow, I don't find it convincing.)
Religion is a rickety, artificial contraption that's just bound to fall apart some day.
Just not today, apparently.
Sunday, November 12, 2017
DONALD TRUMP - AMERICAN HERO
Nobody knows how the Trump presidency is going to end: impeachment and resignation; limp through one term and expire; go out in a burst of glory after two tempestuous terms; alien abduction culminating in a fatal anal probe.
But one possible ending was avoided last week, when fog prevented Trump's visit to the DMZ between North and South Korea.
Imagine if he'd insisted on going, and the Blackhawk had gone down, killing all on board. The man would have been hailed as a hero, and much of the current political carping would be forgotten, lost in the fog of time.
What had he just been saying about believing Putin about the Russia Thing? Gone.
(Actually, Trump seems recently to have walked back his position taking Putin's word over the assessment of US intelligence agencies. My guess, he'll stumble back the other way before long.)
What of his avowed destruction of the Obama legacy? Gone, mostly. Though many in his party will want to keep up the good work, just to honor the man (Trump, not Obama).
What of his unsubstantiated claims of having been wiretapped in Trump Tower? Forgotten.
Did he really win the popular vote in 2016? No one will ever know.
All the lies about Hillary and others? Forgiven, surely.
(Politics is a contact sport, after all.)
Was the man a white-supremacist thug at heart? The debate will continue, but soft-pedaled for the foreseeable future.
Rivers of Fake News will dry up and be forgotten by all but a few rabid fans.
All that Trump was or could have been will be enshrined in hearsay and innuendo and partisan mumbo-jumbo—like Chernobyl under a blanket of concrete.
The man might end up largely rehabilitated, remembered almost fondly by most.
Yes, he could have had all that, had the chopper dropped off the radar and augured in.
Or it could have gone so terribly wrong: the Blackhawk belly-flopping down in North Korea, the President captured alive, held for years of starvation, torture, and beatings.
What a catastrophe!
We know what Trump thinks of heroes who get captured.
But one possible ending was avoided last week, when fog prevented Trump's visit to the DMZ between North and South Korea.
Imagine if he'd insisted on going, and the Blackhawk had gone down, killing all on board. The man would have been hailed as a hero, and much of the current political carping would be forgotten, lost in the fog of time.
What had he just been saying about believing Putin about the Russia Thing? Gone.
(Actually, Trump seems recently to have walked back his position taking Putin's word over the assessment of US intelligence agencies. My guess, he'll stumble back the other way before long.)
What of his avowed destruction of the Obama legacy? Gone, mostly. Though many in his party will want to keep up the good work, just to honor the man (Trump, not Obama).
What of his unsubstantiated claims of having been wiretapped in Trump Tower? Forgotten.
Did he really win the popular vote in 2016? No one will ever know.
All the lies about Hillary and others? Forgiven, surely.
(Politics is a contact sport, after all.)
Was the man a white-supremacist thug at heart? The debate will continue, but soft-pedaled for the foreseeable future.
Rivers of Fake News will dry up and be forgotten by all but a few rabid fans.
All that Trump was or could have been will be enshrined in hearsay and innuendo and partisan mumbo-jumbo—like Chernobyl under a blanket of concrete.
The man might end up largely rehabilitated, remembered almost fondly by most.
Yes, he could have had all that, had the chopper dropped off the radar and augured in.
Or it could have gone so terribly wrong: the Blackhawk belly-flopping down in North Korea, the President captured alive, held for years of starvation, torture, and beatings.
What a catastrophe!
We know what Trump thinks of heroes who get captured.
Saturday, November 11, 2017
TRUMP GETS TO THE BOTTOM OF THE RUSSIA THING
As reported by Newser, President Trump had only the briefest of meetings with Russian strongman Vladimir Putin in Vietnam. The Russian leader took the opportunity to again deny there was any interference in the American election.
Trump, of course, believed him.
He already knows the whole Russia Thing is a chunk of politically motivated Fake News promulgated by the Democrats, those incompetent idiots looking for an excuse to explain their poor performance in the 2016 election.
And this is solid knowledge, folks, backed up by every syllable of nonsense in Trump's golden dome, knowledge possibly put there by God himself. (You never know, right?)
Trump calls the intelligence community a pack of "political hacks." He's much more likely to believe Putin, who—presumably—is nothing like a political hack and would never lie to Trump.
Humans tend to believe the evidence that proves the junk in their heads to be true. Even more powerful is the evidence that reinforces a person's own self image.
Trump is a winner, and he knows it. Nothing can be allowed to interfere with that assessment. He won the election on his own, bigly, with no outside forces in play. If out of a thousand voices, 999 suggest doubt, Trump will believe the one voice that says otherwise, thereby proving him right.
Perfectly normal.
I'm pretty sure an ex-KGB colonel knows how to work Trump. All he has to do is tell the man exactly what he wants—what he needs—to hear.
Putin then sweetened the deal by complaining his aides screwed up his itinerary, making it impossible for him to spend the amount of quality time he craved to have with Trump. (The Donald knows everybody is desperate to spend time with him.) Putin told reporters those responsible for this scheduling mistake would be punished.
Because it was that important he meet with the American president.
Seriously, if Trump's head gets any bigger, he won't be able to fit through the boarding hatch on Air force One. They'll have to ship him home by freighter.
Trump, of course, believed him.
He already knows the whole Russia Thing is a chunk of politically motivated Fake News promulgated by the Democrats, those incompetent idiots looking for an excuse to explain their poor performance in the 2016 election.
And this is solid knowledge, folks, backed up by every syllable of nonsense in Trump's golden dome, knowledge possibly put there by God himself. (You never know, right?)
Trump calls the intelligence community a pack of "political hacks." He's much more likely to believe Putin, who—presumably—is nothing like a political hack and would never lie to Trump.
Humans tend to believe the evidence that proves the junk in their heads to be true. Even more powerful is the evidence that reinforces a person's own self image.
Trump is a winner, and he knows it. Nothing can be allowed to interfere with that assessment. He won the election on his own, bigly, with no outside forces in play. If out of a thousand voices, 999 suggest doubt, Trump will believe the one voice that says otherwise, thereby proving him right.
Perfectly normal.
I'm pretty sure an ex-KGB colonel knows how to work Trump. All he has to do is tell the man exactly what he wants—what he needs—to hear.
Putin then sweetened the deal by complaining his aides screwed up his itinerary, making it impossible for him to spend the amount of quality time he craved to have with Trump. (The Donald knows everybody is desperate to spend time with him.) Putin told reporters those responsible for this scheduling mistake would be punished.
Because it was that important he meet with the American president.
Seriously, if Trump's head gets any bigger, he won't be able to fit through the boarding hatch on Air force One. They'll have to ship him home by freighter.
Wednesday, November 1, 2017
TWEETING MAKES IT TRUE
Shortly after the truck vs cyclists attack in NYC, President Trump tweeted about the incident, calling the man "sick and deranged." Combining this comment with his previous (and well-known) anti-Muslim sentiments may have exactly the wrong effect.
Clearly he thinks such attacks are perpetrated by Muslims for religious reasons—which is why he wants the US to accept no immigrants or visitors from Muslim countries. (He knows they're just too dangerous.) But labeling an Islamic attacker deranged could easily be construed as saying Islam itself is—by definition—deranged.
Such a statement might be considered radicalizing in nature.
Now Trump wants to cancel the visa program used by the NYC perpetrator seven years ago, apparently on the theory the man has been a threat from day one.
What is perfectly clear is that Trump will in no way hold himself responsible for this attack or for radicalizing the individual that did it. He absolutely rejects the idea that his strenuously-sought Muslim travel ban might be seen as an irritant to Muslim immigrants already in this country.
(Or born in this country, like the man who shot up the Pulse nightclub in Orlando.)
If Trump is determined to safeguard America from any and all attacks by Muslims, then he needs to go the whole hog: round up all Muslims already in this country and deport them. This process will have to be done in a lightning-fast move, since any hint of what's in store will likely radicalize moderate Muslims or push fence-sitters into immediate action.
Whatever happens next will be the fault of many individuals, but certainly not Trump. The man can do no ill to the country he loves, and to prove that statement he will say so on Twitter.
No one could ever hope for more than that.
Clearly he thinks such attacks are perpetrated by Muslims for religious reasons—which is why he wants the US to accept no immigrants or visitors from Muslim countries. (He knows they're just too dangerous.) But labeling an Islamic attacker deranged could easily be construed as saying Islam itself is—by definition—deranged.
Such a statement might be considered radicalizing in nature.
Now Trump wants to cancel the visa program used by the NYC perpetrator seven years ago, apparently on the theory the man has been a threat from day one.
What is perfectly clear is that Trump will in no way hold himself responsible for this attack or for radicalizing the individual that did it. He absolutely rejects the idea that his strenuously-sought Muslim travel ban might be seen as an irritant to Muslim immigrants already in this country.
(Or born in this country, like the man who shot up the Pulse nightclub in Orlando.)
If Trump is determined to safeguard America from any and all attacks by Muslims, then he needs to go the whole hog: round up all Muslims already in this country and deport them. This process will have to be done in a lightning-fast move, since any hint of what's in store will likely radicalize moderate Muslims or push fence-sitters into immediate action.
Whatever happens next will be the fault of many individuals, but certainly not Trump. The man can do no ill to the country he loves, and to prove that statement he will say so on Twitter.
No one could ever hope for more than that.
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