Nobody would ever accuse me of being a math whiz, though I do feel I have skills some of my younger acquaintances lack: I eschew a calculator on occasion to make sure the various cortices of my brain responsible for addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division get a little workout.
You just never know when your battery may run down while you’re stranded on a desert island and have an immediate need to balance your checkbook.
Oh, and there’s another mathematical task that I’ve mastered.
An older friend told me not long ago that physicians who are concerned that a patient may be in the early stages of dementia will test mental agility by asking said patient to subtract backwards from 100—by 8s.
I’ve gotten quite facile at that effort—and have moved on to 7s with similar success.
Why am I telling you all this? Because I’m inviting you to join me in exploring a story that involves number theory—a deep dive that I have no business whatsoever attempting.
But my friend Allan, who excels in math, knows I like quirky stories and thoughtfully sent me this one, which appeared in Popular Mechanics.
So once again, Annie plunges ahead—undeterred by her total lack of experience. I promise, though, that I won’t go beyond what I understand, which means there won’t be a whole lot of number theory here.
I hope not too many of you will be disappointed by this limitation…
Christopher Havens (Chris) is the name of the guy in the title. He’d made quite a mess of his life: a high school dropout, he had become a homeless drug addict.
And then in 2010, he committed murder, killing a 25-year-old man with whom he’d been feuding; there was apparently a methamphetamine connection.
He was convicted and sentenced to serve 25 years in the Washington Department of Corrections.
He didn’t immediately transform himself into a model prisoner—far from it. Soon after being incarcerated in 2011, his behavior earned him a place in solitary confinement.
That’s where and when he “got math”—recognized his love for mathematics.
He’d spend as many as 10 hours a day studying, and then entered the Intensive Transition Program, ITP, which he described (with a vulgarity) as
“a one-year program which helps people get their minds right. It’s designed to effectively aid you into ‘taking your head from your backside.’
“This was my schedule. Eat, math, remove my head from my backside, brush, rinse, repeat. It was an important time in my life.”
After that, he sought information to help him with his studies by writing the following letter:
“To Whom It May Concern:
I’m interested in finding more information on a subscription to Annals of Mathematics for personal use.
I’m currently serving 25 years in the Washington Department of Corrections and I’ve decided to use this time for self-betterment. I’m studying calculus and number theory.
As numbers have become my passion, can you please send me any information on your mathematic journal. Thank you…Chris Havens.
P.S.: I am self-teaching myself (sic) and often get hung on problems for long periods of time.
Is there anyone I could correspond with, provided I send self-addressed stamped envelopes?
There are no teachers here who can help me so I often spend hundreds on books that may or may not contain the help I need. Thank you.”
(It isn’t clear where he gets the “hundreds” he spends on books, but that’s not central to our story.)
The letter circuitously reached a man named Matthew Cargo in January, 2013. Cargo, then production editor for Mathematical Sciences Publications, forwarded it to two mathematicians: the parents of his partner, Marta Cerrruti.
Cerruti wrote about the results of that connection in phys.Org.
“Initially, my father, Umberto Cerruti, a number theorist who was a professor of mathematics at the University of Torino, Italy, agreed to help Havens simply because we asked him.
“My father thought that Havens was likely one of the many cranks that fall in love with numbers and come up with a flawed theory. To test him, he gave Havens a problem to solve.
“In return, my father received a 120-centimetre-long piece of paper in the mail, and on it was a long and complicated formula. My father entered the formula into his computer and to his surprise, the results were correct!
“After this, my father invited Havens to work on a problem involving continued fractions he was working on.”
OK, here’s where I have to stretch a bit. Continued fractions, which Euclid discovered in 300 BC, enable the expression of all numbers through sequences of integer numbers, which are positive and negative numbers expressed without fractions.
Cerruti gives pi as an example: the ratio of a circle’s diameter and circumference is written as 3.14159…
“The sequence of numbers after the initial digit continues forever and is totally chaotic. But written as a continued fraction its expression is simple and beautiful.”
Continued fraction of pi. Image courtesy of commons.wikimedia.org
Although this particular aesthetic is beyond my ken, Cerruti’s point is that continued fractions show the power of number theory.
Much of this is theoretical, pure math, but number theory plays an important role in cryptography today.
Even I understand that its many uses are applicable in both financial institutions and the military, among other areas. It’s the reason you can buy something online or pay your bills in what are for the most part secure transactions.
Havens was so motivated that he started a Prison Mathematics Project in which he explained math to other inmates.
The group met biweekly and used books sent by Cerruti’s father. That change from the man who’d been in solitary confinement struck me as extremely impressive.
And the story gets dramatically better:
From his prison cell, Havens made a significant contribution to the field of continued fractions—so significant that he is named the first author in an article published in the January, 2020, issue of the journal Research in Number Theory.
(If you want to read the article, you’ll have to plunk down $99 for it.)
He reached this lofty spot using the highly sophisticated tools of pen and paper, “exchanging ideas with his co-authors in Italy though hard-copy letters mailed across the ocean,” Cerruti writes.
Cerruti describes Havens’ pathbreaking work: He “showed for the first time some regularities in the approximation of a vast class of numbers.”
In essence, he provided number theorists with an important new tool whose applications may be vast. According to Cerruti,
“finding new ways for writing numbers is one of the most important problems for a number theorist, although the results may not have an immediate application.”
She points out that some supercomputers are employed solely for computing pi digits into the trillions.
Havens’ achievement has also had a huge impact on his own outlook and future plans.
He’s studying for an associate degree through the mail and is determined to complete bachelors and graduate degrees in math and to pursue a career once he’s released from prison.
And he hopes to turn the Prison Mathematics Project he founded into a nonprofit organization to help inmates with a talent for math.
He told Cerruti:
“I definitely have plotted out a long term life plan to accommodate paying a debt that has no price. I know this path is permanent…and there never is a day that it’s finally paid off.
“But this longevity in debt is not bad. It’s inspiration. Maybe this will sound stupid, but I serve my time in the company of the soul of my victim. I dedicate a lot of my biggest accomplishments to him.”
She is an international icon, yet she talks with strangers as if they are her very best friends. She revels in her status, yet openly discusses her vulnerabilities. She moves deftly from riotous humor to wrenching soul-searching with an apparent spontaneity that’s surely grounded in practice. She’s a marvel.
If you’re fortunate enough to have Netflix access, you can watch the new documentary, Becoming, now. If you don’t have Netflix, I’m sure it will be more widely distributed in the near future.
I don’t think my description of the film will detract from your experience: Michelle Obama’s magnetism—and the poignancy of the recent trajectory of her life and that of President Obama—must be witnessed to be fully appreciated.
(The amazing orator, President Charisma, plays a relatively small part in this documentary.)
But if you’d rather watch it without a sense of deja vu, I excuse you from reading this post—with absolutely no hard feelings.
I viewed the documentary as a welcome antidote to the present. It combines snippets from Michelle’s 34-city 2018 book tour following the publication of her book Becoming, with shots from those often happy White House years filled with hope, and remembrances of her childhood and early years with Barack.
It reminds us that our national reality not so many years ago says much about who we are as a people—the good and the bad—but in better perspective than many of us can currently manage.
When asked what those last hours in the White House were like, she says they were very busy. Apparently, daughters Malia and Sasha often had sleepovers there with their friends, and the friends pleaded for one last visit the night before.
So the 44th First Lady of the United States ran around calling out to sleepy young girls,
“Wake up; the Trumps are coming and you got to get out!”
While we’re on the subject of the White House, I note two actions Michelle took early on.
She and Barack were dismayed they were being served by aging African American or Latino men dressed in tuxedos. These men could have been her uncles, she said.
“I didn’t want them [her daughters] seeing grown men serving them in tuxedos.”
So they changed the dress code.
Additionally, she begged the housekeepers not to make Malia and Sasha’s beds. As she explained:
“They won’t be living here forever. I am not raising girls who don’t know how to make a bed!”
The last day in the White House was highly emotional, but she knew she had to keep her feelings hidden for fear her tears would be misunderstood. But once on the plane, she says:
“I sobbed for thirty minutes—eight years of trying to do everything perfectly.”
Elsewhere she notes that
“It was hard to wake up every day and maintain the level of perfection absolutely required of Barack and me as President and First Lady.”
She recalls the first campaign, in 2008. She had become an effective campaigner, and the opposition knew it. She was depicted as “the angry black woman,” and Fox News commentators asked: “Does Michelle Obama hate America?”
The fun “fist bump” the Obamas shared became a nefarious sign of their alleged radicalism, their “otherness.”
This barrage had an impact: she began to talk less freely and became “more scripted than ever before.”
Being so falsely portrayed wasn’t easy. She is candid about the impact.
“That does hurt. That changes the shape of a person’s soul.”
If anyone wonders whether Michelle Obama will ever run for office, which is an oft-heard liberal dream, I believe she has definitively provided her answer.
With Obama’s election, she recalled:
“Life changes instantly—we were shot out of a cannon and didn’t have time to adjust. Every blink of eye is analyzed. Your life isn’t yours anymore.”
There’s surely a measure of irony in the fact that she chose this very public book tour as a time to reflect on what she’d just been through, to be “unplugged for the first time in a long time.”
I don’t think it’s a stretch to suggest that it was also a thoroughly justified means of reminding the public of Barack and Michelle Obama’s many solid accomplishments in those eight years—at a time when they have—in public, at least—silently watched the White House’s current occupant systematically seek to destroy every one of them.
There’s no mention in the film of Michelle’s famous “kitchen” garden, that tangible evidence of her successfully launching a campaign to improve the health of Americans, especially school children, which included improvements in the quality of school lunches.
Image courtesy of letsmove.obamawhitehouse.archives.gov
To me, the destruction of that garden and all its bounty was an early and potent symbol of the senseless cruelty and disregard for the public’s health that Donald Trump has demonstrated (an attitude writ large in our present disastrous situation).
But back to our heroine. On the book tour, she greets each admirer with warmth and humor. They love her, and she basks in that affection. She challenges young people, urging them to ask themselves these questions: Who are you? What are you about? And what gives you joy?
They tell her how profoundly she’s affected them. One young woman says that Michelle’s discussing her postpartum depression helped her get through her own. Michelle describes the benefits she derives:
“Sharing somebody’s story gives me what I don’t have because all my actions are so sanitized. It helps me stay connected.”
Watching her connect with each book buyer on those interminably long lines was one of my favorite parts of the film.
Notably, in one gathering she met with the members of two book clubs who had read Becoming: one comprised of all African American women; the other all white women. The book “creates bridges.”
One of the white women describes her family’s being part of the “white flight” from Chicago neighborhoods as the racial composition changed. Michelle observes that it was her family from whom they were fleeing.
She points to her class photos: the kindergarten class has many white faces; the 8th grade class is entirely African American.
When an African American teenage girl asks her how she’s able to avoid feeling invisible, she pays tribute to her parents: at the dinner table on the South Side of Chicago, she and her brother were always encouraged to speak up, ask questions.
“My parents always made me feel visible,” she says. “We can’t afford to wait for the world to regard us as equal. I have high expectations of young people.”
She describes in detail a searing occasion on which—without the confidence her parents’ instilled—she might have been invisible. Her brother had gone to Princeton, but the high school guidance counselor told Michelle she was not Princeton material.
She did go to Princeton, where she learned on arrival that one of her intended roommates had moved out after hearing she was African-American, believing she was dangerous.
Still, she excelled there, graduated from Harvard Law, and learned that not everyone in these hallowed institutions is as special as one might think.
She makes a similar observation based on world travels and being in some of the most rarefied meetings among leading, exalted individuals.
“I’ve been at the most powerful tables in the world. I’m coming down from the mountaintop. Don’t listen [to the naysayers who may question these young people’s worth]; they don’t know how they got there.”
Of the guidance counselor’s misguidance, she says she’s “still a little salty about that one.”
In the course of the book tour, she fills large venues—with people exuding happiness and good feeling.
“What I experience in those big arenas is the power of gathering: we’re sharing a set of experiences.”
The image of those diverse, highly civilized audiences is in stark relief to the Presidential rallies marked by hatred and divisiveness that we’ve been witnessing in the past several years.
Michelle provides a stunning insight into her thoughts, feelings, and White House life in detailing the day that marriage equality became the law of the land.
It happened to be the same tragic day as the funeral services for the African Americans gunned down in church by a white supremacist in Charleston.
When the Obamas returned from Charleston to the White House, now illuminated with the appropriate equality colors, they saw joyous people congregating in front. “I need to be a part of this,” she said, dragging Malia as her partner in crime to get outside.
After pulling on the locked front doors, she persuaded the Secret Service to let them slip out the back, where they saw some of the celebration from the steps.
“I had to have some indicator that all this is worth it,” she says—“we’re moving the country forward.”
She expresses sadness about the voters in 2016.
“A lot of our folks didn’t vote. It was almost like a slap in the face. I understand those who voted for Trump. But people who didn’t vote at all—young people, women—thought this was a game. They just couldn’t be bothered at all. That’s my trauma.”
I sure hope that sentiment resonates broadly this November.
Does she still feel that “when they go low, we go high?” she was asked. “I try,” she says, with a wry smile. But she does still feel there’s a desire to overcome “the racialism and tribalism that are tearing this country apart.”
“If we’re gonna get anywhere with each other, we have to say who were are…I am the former First Lady, and the descendant of slaves…
“The energy that is out there is much better than what we see. This country is good; the people are good.”
When Stephen Colbert interviews her about filling arenas with people from all different backgrounds, she says,
“I’m not alone. I like this not being divided. Share stories; be vulnerable. I remain hopeful that people want better…”
She has been doing just that. And now,
”My life is starting to be mine again. There is another chapter waiting for me out there.”
I haven’t yet read her book Becoming. But I look forward to reading every chapter. And then watching her evolve into her next chapter…and the next…
After The New York Times published an Op-Ed by a woman who said she believed Tara Reade’s assertion that Joe Biden had sexually assaulted her—but she would vote for him anyway, Biden was asked in an interview what he thought about that. He responded:
“If she believes Tara Reade, she shouldn’t vote for me. If I believed Tara Reade, I wouldn’t vote for me.”
Here’s Why I Feel Compelled to Return to the Issue Now
This may well be a very close election, in which every vote counts. Thinking of Biden’s words cited above, I decided that if I can help anyone who has doubts about whether Biden committed such a crime—and those doubts might lead them either to waver or stay home—I want to offer what is to me some more convincing evidence in his favor.
I’m further motivated because The New York Times just reported on the extensive planned Republican efforts to keep as many likely Democratic voters from successfully casting their ballots as they can (using the largely discredited excuse of voter fraud).
Thus, no vote should be lost when the individual voter’s participation is so urgently important.
The disinformation campaign waged by the Trump organization is well under way. Lest you think they’ll shy away from this topic simply because of the 25 women who have charged Trump with sexual misconduct, his own videotaped bragging about having done so, and the fact that Michael Cohen, Trump’s former lawyer, remains in jail in part for paying women to silence them about those charges, think again.
Remember when Trump debated Hillary, and he invited a number of Bill Clinton’s female accusers to accompany him? The words “distraction” and “deflection” are now frequently applied to trumpian behavior.
Could be, but I was so convinced by what I’d read, and so concerned that this issue would unfairly dominate the campaign—despite Trump’s abysmal record—that I felt it was worth taking an early stand, expressing my hope that the press wouldn’t go down every rabbit hole.
For now, I believe there’s been enough follow-through that most of the media recognizes this story doesn’t have the “legs” that appeared early on.
Perhaps some wariness set in when the second woman to come forth was quickly dismissed as a phony whose story was demonstrably untrue.
Now There Are These Investigation Results
PBS Newshourpublished a lengthy, detailed article after interviewing 74 former Biden staff members, 62 of them women, about Tara Reade’s charge.
The NewsHour writers say they sought to get these individuals’ sense of how he acted toward women over all those decades, what they thought of Reade’s allegations, and whether there had been a pattern of the behavior she alleged.
Of the interviewees, more than 20 had worked in Biden’s office during the less than one year Reade was there. Many of them didn’t remember her.
According to the NewsHour reporters:
“None said they had experienced sexual harassment, assault, or misconduct by Biden. All said they never heard any rumors or allegations of Biden engaging in sexual misconduct” until Reade’s recent charge.
“Overall, the people who spoke to the NewsHour described largely positive and gratifying experiences working for Biden, painting a portrait of someone who was ahead of his time in empowering women in the workplace.”
Some Salient Points:
*Ben Savage worked directly with Reade, who had served as a junior aide in Biden’s office for about nine months. Savage said Reade had been fired for poor performance, which he had seen directly, and not in retaliation against her alleged claim of sexual harassment (which she upped to sexual assault only recently).
*Former staff members cast doubt about Reade’s assertion that Biden had asked her to serve drinks at a fundraiser (which she’d at one point implied was related to her firing) for two reasons.
—First, there was an office policy banning most of his Senate staff from doing campaign work. “Never would have happened. We all knew there was a very hard line there,” said a staff assistant, Melissa Lefko, who served when Reade was there.
—Second, two male junior staff members said Biden specifically didn’t want women to serve beverages or do similarly stereotypical tasks, and had asked the young men to do them instead.
*Those interviewed also pointed out that the area in which Reade claimed the assault took place was a heavily trafficked locale in which there would have been “a high risk of being seen.”
*Female staff members who frequently worked alone with Biden in his small office “said he never made passes at them or behaved in other ways that suggested sexual impropriety.”
Elizabeth Alexander, a former aide in both the Senate and White House, said she’d accompanied Biden all over this country and the world, traveling alone with him. ”Never, ever, ever did I feel uncomfortable.”
It was a time when some members of the Senate were known to sexually harass young women. One staffer said:
“You got to know which senators you didn’t want to be on an elevator alone with. No one ever said Joe Biden was one of them.”
Of his habit of touching women, many said they gravitated to him as a kind of “comforter-in-chief,” and wanted an arm on their shoulder or a kiss on the cheek.
“Most saw it as an endearing quality that wasn’t sexual in nature…as an expression of empathy, as opposed to flirtation.”
But some expressed regret that they probably should have said something because such actions may have made others uncomfortable.
And since Biden has apologized for that behavior, saying he now understands it was inappropriate, it’s reasonable to assume he would have learned that lesson years earlier.
Concerning His Accuser…
Politicointerviewed more than 12 people who had interactions with Reade. The picture they drew is disturbingly similar: manipulation, lying, turning against people who had helped her, including financially, as she was often in financial trouble.
According to the writer:
“Over the past decade, Reade has left a trail of aggrieved acquaintances in California’s Central Coast region who say they remember two things about her—she spoke favorably about her time working for Biden, and she left them feeling duped.”
One of the “aggrieved acquaintances” said:
“We are actually starting to find each other and put the pieces together because we saw her face on CNN. I thought to myself, ‘hey, I have a support group now. I think we are Alexandra/Tara survivors.’” (Reade has used several names atvarious times.)
She gave them all the impression that she’d spent years in Biden’s office, it was a high point in her life, and she’d helped write landmark legislation—not that she’d served for about nine months as a junior aide and had been fired for incompetence.
In my May 2 post, I referred to Lynn Summers, who was forthright in interviews that Reade had manipulated, lied, and stolen money from her. Reade’s attorney has since sent Hummer a “cease and desist” letter.
“We’ll be more than happy to provide actual physical evidence that backs up Ms. Hummer’s story. All Reade has is a lawyer trying to bully my client.”
In view of the above, I don’t expect the mainstream media to spend much more time on the Tara Reade accusation.
But that doesn’t mean the shameless Trump organization won’t keep trying to bring it up.
Trump’s younger son Eric is, right now, peddling a video of Biden with the family of a member of Congress he’s just sworn in. Biden leans over to kiss the head of the man’s young daughter, in full view of the family and cameras.
This is purportedly all the evidence you need to confirm that Joe Biden is a pedophile. Ridiculous? Of course. But we are living in surreal times.
I won’t be surprised if one or more women emerge in October with all kinds of unprovable charges. I just hope the press will do its due diligence thoroughly before even considering whether such charges merit public disclosure.
For example, automatically assuming that an old friend whom Reade called to refresh her memory years after she reportedly first told her of the event may not be worthy confirmation of her veracity.
As former prosecutor Michael Stern has observed, the corroborating friend must always rely on the accuser’s telling the truth.
Based on what we’ve learned to date, I believe a perversion of the much-needed #me-too movement has been made by a pathetic woman against an honorable man—at a time of enormous importance to our democracy.
I’m not about to write of food
Or remembrance of repasts
My blog is clogging up right now
And I need your help real fast.
I used to have a sub-menu
That offered all my oeuvre
But a WP Engineer warned
Its growth was a SNAFUer.
S/he led me to the solution
That’s inspired this short chat
To see if what works for WP
Isn’t a bothersome gnat.
I’ve passed my one-hundredth post,
To me, that’s really cookin’
Computerwise, it’s not too bad
A widget* helps those lookin’
So to the right of the full texts
Linked titles are there to see.
I like to keep them all in view
And many seem to agree.
My stats tell me that lots of folks
Read posts going quite far back
But on your phone to reach that list,
You must scroll, scroll, scroll—alack!
Our Happy WP Engineers
Have told me what to do:
You must change your design, they say–
Or else we just can’t help you.
But I like the look I have now
I really hope to keep it.
So I turn to you, dear readers
It’s time you interceded.
Must I choose between my fond wish
You see all posts, come what may—
And my perhaps stronger hope this
Menu won’t drive you away?
Image courtesy of pixabay.com
______________________
Ok—enough with the rhyme. I know I should be archiving older posts, but if I do, I’m not at all sure that as many people would read them.
Often after five or six older posts have each received a single view, the next day I’m pleased to welcome a new subscriber. The ease of perusing those lists is clearly helpful in exploring my work.
And I realize that most of you are probably reading my most recent one or two posts as they appear, so this may not be an issue for you at all. I would still welcome your observations.
Is a tradeoff necessary? Please let me know your thoughts about my current setup and any possible ideas for helping me accomplish my dual goals.
If scrolling through all those posts on your phone to get to the linked titles is a drag, please tell me. All suggestions are welcome, as long as you’re kind.
*Explanatory note for my email subscribers: “In WordPress, widgets are blocks of content that you can add to your site’s sidebars, footers, and other areas…”
If you’re viewing this on your computer, the sidebar widget facilitates the index. But since on the side of the phone there’s no room for it, the linked list appears at the very bottom of those now many posts.
Here’s how I would reallyreallyreally like to feel when I think about Donald Trump, his Senate Republican enablers, and the thugs who are using the pandemic to terrorize and strut around with their AR-15s and shotguns:
“Resentment is like drinking poison and hoping it will kill your neighbors.”
“Do not allow your anger to control your reason, but rather your reason to control your anger.”
“As I walked out the door toward my freedom, I knew that if I did not leave the anger, hatred, and bitterness behind me, I would still be in prison.”
In other words, I would like to have the heart and patience and wisdom of Nelson Mandela.
Image courtesy of en.wikipedia.org
I am—or have been—a conciliator by nature. I’ve never tried to paper over people’s differences of opinion—and how those differences play out in their actions. But I’ve always sought to search for the commonalities among us.
(This blog began with the goal of finding common ground, and I wrote a post early on explaining why I wouldn’t deal with the Elephant in our national living room. But when babies were put into cages and other offenses defying human decency became evident, I found that orientation unsustainable. I’d love to get back to it at some point.)
Through practicing the lovingkindness aspect of meditation, I still try to wish us all well—everyone and every living thing. Even…this President and his enablers. But I repeatedly fall short. Extremely short. Earth to Saturn kind of short.
What to make of all this? I just listened to another tenpercenthappier.com meditation (I’d written about these helpful sessions previously) in which Sebene Selassie, a meditation teacher, explored the various ramifications of anger in our current bizarre environment.
“Anger can be an intelligent emotion,” she said. “It shows us what’s wrong with the world and is a motivation for action.”
I like that assessment. I’d just finished hand-writing a bunch of postcards to Democrats living in a state that will be important to the November election outcome.
These are folks who have spotty voting records, and our purpose is to urge them to sign up for vote-by-mail ballots so they can vote safely and comfortably from their homes.
It was an annoying task that left me with a neck ache and cramped fingers, but I’ll be doing it every week because—as I wrote repeatedly on those cards—“the stakes are very high; protect our democracy.”
That concrete action, multiplied by all the volunteers doing it, could have an impact. So perhaps when I’m so engaged, my reason controls my anger.
Some months ago, I printed on this blog the contact info for all the Class of 2018 Democratic members of Congress who had won in swing districts and then bravely voted for impeachment, knowing they could be jeopardizing their reelection.
These courageous souls are now being targeted for defeat by the Republican National Committee. I was encouraging people to send them donations and/or volunteer with their campaigns. (If you’re interested, you can find the list here.)
.One of my friends from across the aisle let me know he thinks there’s something underhanded about dabbling in politics beyond one’s own district.
But since the voters in the targeted state will play a significant role in a decision that will ultimately affect my family and me directly, I have zero qualms about such efforts.
Selassie also talks about “taking action without taking sides.” That brought me up short. How do we do that? A viewer at the end of her session asked that very question:
How can we not take sides when our politics are so polarizing?
Selassie’s answer was that this is a perfect time for us to recognize our interconnection. “One thread over here can unravel on the other side of the world,” she said.
Pondering our interconnection, which I do from time to time, provides a welcome respite from ranting. It happens when I disagree with my friend from across the aisle. I get angry, but I know he’s a good person with strong values who just happens to view the world differently.
When I get angry–furious, really–at the terrible toll this pandemic is taking because of our dreadful national leadership, I also think about all the generosity and kindness shown by individuals helping others—solid evidence of our interconnections.
I just read an article that I think exemplifies Selassie’s point about interconnections. A 13-year-old Israeli Jewish boy was gravely wounded in 2002 when he stepped on a land mine. Until last year, he was in agony, his foot constantly feeling as though it was on fire.
Then, at age 31, after years of harboring hatred for the Arabs for what they’d done to him, he was operated on by a Palestinian Arab surgeon, an expert in the intricate nerve pathways involved in his injury.
The surgery was a complete success, and a bond has formed between surgeon and patient. (This story is considerably more complicated; if you want to read the details, click here.)
Selassie points out that if we look beneath our anger, we see the fear, anxiety, and grief that’s there. And I know that’s true too.
But we needn’t banish our anger, she says; we can accept it, checking in with our bodies to make sure we’re not permitting the anger to turn into the constant stress that we know can be so damaging.
(A quick inventory would involve relaxing tense shoulders, clenched jaws, tight stomach, and the like.)
So I realize I can hold two concepts simultaneously. One is that it’s important to focus on all the people who have chosen to demonstrate their better selves at this critical time for all humanity.
The other is that I am channeling my anger into actions that I hope will ultimately result in the removal of the forces I find so terribly destructive. Anger leading to action: that feels just right.
Donald Trump and his enablers won’t be with us forever. I remain hopeful that in the near future, the lessons of this pandemic will lead to competent government delivering a much stronger safety net.
We’ll always have our differences, but they’ll be less raw if people are less fearful and anxious about their economic insecurity and lack of healthcare. I believe we can reduce the tensions that have been worsening our political polarity.
It seems appropriate to end with another nod to Nelson Mandela:
“A fundamental concern for others in our individual and community lives would go a long way in making the world the better place we so passionately dreamt of.”
I altered the first line of an old song (“Let’s Fall in Love”) to shamelessly draw you in to a discussion of an important topic.
As an intro, here’s a little Haiku for These Times
Social distancing—
Ants isolate selves when ill
Healthy queen makes room.
Ant image courtesy of commons.wikimedia.org
Why are ants so much smarter than a growing number of humans? I’m speaking now of the American variety (of humans, not ants), but surely there are others.
There is near unanimity in the scientific community that social distancing is essential if we are ever to gain control over the coronavirus.
Most people in the US are pretty cranky about the isolation and feel/recognize the terrible economic burden it imposes. We want out as soon as possible, but we understand that social distancing is for our safety and that of others.
And it doesn’t take a college degree to understand—just common sense, a willingness to listen to reason, and a bit of compassion.
Yet the President has swung both ways on the issue, now firmly enunciating what he regards as essential: reopening the economy—come what may.
And he’s encouraging defiance of the standards his administration developed–even as the coronavirus has sneaked its way past the Secret Service and into the White House.
He’s a very confused person who declared himself a success when deaths passed 64,000 and told us we can expect twice that many. As I write, they’re about to pass 78,000.
Is there a magic number that will maybe move him to consider the role he might play in reducing this catastrophe?
Meanwhile the Senate Republicans see no need to beef up the successful food stamp program when millions more need it—for fear that people will become accustomed to such “handouts.”
Bulletin just in from Politico: Republicans all in to focus on touting Trump’s success in handling pandemic.
But let’s get back to the animals. Unlike the heavily armed Michigan “protesters” whining that their liberties are being infringed upon, animals know when it’s not safe to go get a haircut.
I’ll state at the outset that I’m not endorsing all these animal behaviors—merely pointing out their existence and the reasons for them.
Take mandrill monkeys, for example. They spend a lot of time grooming each other, keeping one another’s fur clean and free of parasites.
But if one member of their group shows signs of a contagious disease, that poor soul is involuntarily isolated. They do, however, make exceptions for ailing family members.
Mandrill monkey image courtesy of pxfuel.com
Chimpanzees take matters even further, aggressively ousting an ailing member. Jane Goodall reported observing a chimp with polio in Tanzania in 1966. At one point, the chimp, partially paralyzed, reached out to greet his fellows, but they moved away from him.
Goodall did note that eventually, chimps would allow some of their stricken fellows to return.
Honeybees do more than move away. Older bees, capable of smelling serious bacterial diseases like American foulbrood, which destroys the larvae, will throw the bees out of the hive.
As this seemingly heartless act (forgive me; I tend to anthropomorphize) actually protects the colony as a whole, leading to healthier bees, beekeepers and researchers have been selectively breeding for this behavior for many years.
American Bullfrog tadpoles also react to chemical signals to prevent them from catching a lethal yeast infection, according to Joe Kiesecker, a research scientist.
American Bullfrog tadpole image courtesy of flickr.com
In the late 1990s, models of the spread of disease were based on the prediction that animals got sick by random contact with infected beings.
“But it’s clear animals are smarter,” Kiesecker said. Healthy tadpoles he studied avoided those that were sick.
I think you get the picture. The concept of social distancing, practiced in varying ways, isn’t some wild-eyed idea from scientists that Trump would prefer not to listen to. It is an evolutionary survival mechanism.
According to Dana Hawley, professor of biological sciences at Virginia Tech:
“Anytime we see a behavior that has evolved again and again in lots of different animals, that tells us that this has to be a very beneficial behavior.”
Hawley and Julia Buck, an assistant professor of biology at the University of North Carolina Wilmington, have said:
“The evidence from nature is clear: Social distancing is an effective tool for reducing disease spread. It is also a tool that can be implemented more rapidly and more universally than almost any other. Unlike vaccination and medication, behavioral changes don’t require development and testing.”
We humans presumably have the intelligence and compassion to use this concept effectively and wisely. But we dare not pretend it isn’t necessary for our survival.
Yet that seems to be what some “magical thinkers” are doing.
The Texas Lieutenant Governor has said “there are more important things than living.” (I wish he’d been asked to name one.) Former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie concluded that “there are going to be deaths no matter what,” so we should forge ahead in opening the economy.
The President appears to have simply picked up his golf ball and gone home: telling us what a great job he’s doing while acknowledging the death tolls will be far higher than anticipated.
Without adequate testing—which both the President and Vice President get every day, by the way—as well as tracing, we’ll never know how many of us this pandemic has truly sickened and killed. And we won’t be able to contain it better than we’re doing.
A powerful New York Times editorial by Charlie Wurzel expressed concern that as the death toll rises, we will become inured to it—just as we have to the unfathomable toll from gun violence.
Wurzel quotes Dr. Megan Ranney, an emergency physician and professor at Brown University devoted to gun violence prevention, who sees similarities between individuals protesting gun control and those protesting pandemic lockdowns.
You will recall that the President encouraged the armed people who terrorized those in the Michigan State House.
According to Ranney:
“This group has moved the reopening debate from a conversation about health and science to a conversation about liberty…It’s no longer about weighing risks and benefits and instead it’s this politicized narrative…
“Most gun owners are smart and responsible and safety-conscious—just like most Americans want to do what’s right for public health. But the small minority dominates the conversation.”
Wurzel writes:
“As in the gun control debate, public opinion, public health and the public good seem poised to lose out to a select set of personal freedoms…where any suggestion of collective duty and responsibility for others become the chains of tyranny.”
The animals who practice social distancing are following their instincts. But we are seeing a deliberate rejection of social distancing now by the President, Senate Republicans, and a small but noisy group of malcontents.
They base their objections on a distorted view of economics and individual liberties that not only presents a false dichotomy between the economy and human life, but also cruelly casts our most vulnerable people as the sacrificial “warriors” in this dreadfully unnecessary war.
As we have seen, people of color are among the most heavily affected. In addition to the disproportionate deaths and poverty, they are even being subjected to heavier policing in the areas of social distancing and wearing masks.
(Is there reason to wonder why African American men may be reluctant to don masks when the most recent senseless killing of an unarmed, innocent young man out jogging is so painfully fresh?)
The term Social Darwinism comes to mind. Briefly, this long discredited theory reshaped Darwin’s theory of evolution to create a negative societal ideology. To Social Darwinists:
“Survival of the fittest”—the idea that certain people become powerful in society because they are innately better. Social Darwinism has been used to justify imperialism, racism, eugenics and social inequality at various times over the past century and a half.”
In my previous post, I expressed my belief in Joe Biden’s innocence of charges of sexual assault made by former staffer Tara Reade, as well as my great concern that the press will keep the story alive, thereby damaging an innocent man and threatening his candidacy for President against Donald Trump.
I stated my concern that the story would be covered with a fervor I do not feel is justified by the facts as we know them.
I didn’t discuss the now-Justice Brett Kavanaugh confirmation hearings in that post (except in the comments section) because I think comparisons with the charge against Biden are totally off base.
So does New York Times columnist Michelle Goldberg. She remains skeptical about Biden but dismisses criticisms that the Democrats, in defending Biden, show hypocrisy when compared with their defense of Kavanaugh’s accuser.
The Democrats, she writes, “would never have the audacity to demand that their political opponents act on a story with as many ambiguities as Reade’s.”
But I must say the two men’s reactions tell me much about temperament and character.
You may recall that when Christine Blasey Ford claimed that Kavanaugh had assaulted her, he yelled and cried at his hearings about the terrible injustices being done to him.
In contrast, Biden quietly but emphatically said, “It never happened,” and he declined to attribute motives to his accuser, Tara Reade, or to say anything about her character.
At a fundraiser among Obama alumni last week, Biden said the following, which I find extraordinary (he’s more tolerant than I am):
“My knowledge that it isn’t true does nothing to shake my belief that women have to be able to be heard and that all the claims be taken seriously. It isn’t enough just to simply take my word for it and to dismiss it out of hand.
“Frankly, that shouldn’t be enough for anyone, because we know that this sort of approach is exactly how the culture of abuse has been allowed to fester for so long.
“I’m heartened to see it, although it’s painful sometimes, that by and large journalists are doing what they’re supposed to do.
“They’re going out there listening to the allegations. They’re taking it seriously and they’re investigating it. And they’re talking with folks who were there at the time, scrutinizing personnel records, examining the evolution of the claims, looking into the culture of our office.
“And I’m not concerned about what they might find, because I know the truth of the matter. I know that this claim has no merit.”
I fear Biden’s confidence may be misplaced. The press is honing in.
And despite the fact that he was the overwhelming favorite among primary voters, some people who didn’t vote for Biden seem to be eager to push this story to justify a do-over. Bernie Sanders’s supporters are evident in this campaign.
The Washington Post just published an Op-Ed by Lyz Lenz, a columnist for the Cedar Rapids Gazette and a victim of sexual abuse.
She insists Biden must withdraw, dismissing all the contradictions in his accuser’s stories as part of the inevitable cycle of questioning that victims of sexual assault must endure.
She does compare the Biden and Kavanaugh episodes and says the Republicans should have withdrawn Kavanaugh (which was never a consideration), thereby equating the two.
Having determined that Reade’s charges are “credible,” she writes:
“I do not want to be forced to balance the accusations against Biden and Trump—playing the ‘Which is worse?’ game. But that is what I’m being told to do.”
I don’t know who is telling her she has to do that, but I trust I’m not the only one who sees the nonsense in that comparison.
And here are her ideas about how the Democrats should handle this issue:
Bernie Sanders could jump back in, or other candidates might (she caucused for Elizabeth Warren), or the party leaders might pick a governor who’s handled the pandemic well.
As I’ve said, Biden wasn’t my first choice, but I do think his experience and compassion make him right for our time.
And can you imagine anything more anti-democratic than nullifying all those voters’ wishes because of a single and highly questionable allegation by one woman?
I have seen any number of Twitter tweets from African American voters responding to the Bernie devotees’ campaign for his reentry. They expressed what I believe is justifiable outrage that their votes would be summarily dismissed.
And if party leaders acted on Lenz’s idea and suddenly came up with a nominee whom not a single Democrat had voted for, the Bernie folks’ charges that the party, not the people, were determining the outcome (charges that were put to rest by the primary vote in the eyes of most observers) would surely be an issue.
One can see the mischief lying ahead by considering another woman who has just come forth. A niece of Christine O’Donnell, a former Tea Party Republican Senatorial candidate, claims that Biden commented on her breasts when both attended the 2008 Gridiron dinner—and she was just 14!
Sounds extremely offensive (as well as similar to complaints against Trump).But as it happens, Biden wasn’t there; one of his aides had substituted for him because Biden was having surgery that week.
So the woman said it must have been 2007. But Biden wasn’t there then either.
As former prosecutor Michael Stern observed in his USA Today piece asserting Biden’s innocence, which I quoted from in my previous post, the fact that Reade can’t remember date, time, or location makes it impossible for Biden to disprove the allegation by providing evidence to the contrary.
I believe the same is true with the missing complaint—in which Reade now says she’s not sure exactly what she’d actually charged—something about his making her feel “uncomfortable,” she thinks.
She had all her personnel records, but she just didn’t keep, or misplaced, the one document that she says was the most important aspect of her interactions with Biden. The New York Times investigation couldn’t find it.
And yet, the burden is on Biden to open up his entire political life. The Times Editorial Board, in what a friend deemed “a statement of breathtaking naivete,” not only called upon Biden to give access to his papers; it said that honorable Republicans should call on Trump to do the same.
As I concluded in my previous post:
There were mea culpas after the damage was done from members of the media for obsessing over Hillary’s emails in 2016 while letting Donald Trump off the hook. That must not happen again.
Professor Heather Cox Richardson, a political historian at Boston College, has reached a similar conclusion about Trump and the media with regard to the accusation against Biden.
“…Please follow me here: I am not speaking of the claims of Ms. Reade, which are a separate conversation. I am talking about the use of her story to control our political narrative.
“The attempt to get Biden to jump through hoops Trump ignores is classic gaslighting. It keeps Biden on the defensive and makes sure he is reinforcing Trump’s narrative, thus strengthening Trump even as Biden tries to carve out his own campaign. It is precisely what the Trump campaign, abetted by the media, did in 2016.”
As the friend I quoted earlier observed:
“This will be a rough and tumble campaign, and we cannot shrink from the fight. Biden has stepped up to the challenge and met it head-on. We must demand the same of Trump, knowing that he will never comply.
“In the ‘what are you hiding?’ contest, Trump loses badly. Steel yourself for more difficult moments but take heart from the fact that the electorate is turning on Trump…
“It will be a close election and will be hard-fought, but we are up to the task. Put doubts aside and move forward with all deliberate speed!”
And if you feel as I do that the press–in its admirable zeal to be fair–may be falling into the same damaging role that it played in 2016, please consider writing letters to the editor or otherwise making your opinions known.
This post began as an exploration of presumptive Democratic Presidential nominee Joe Biden’s positions on the issues. I imagined myself chatting with him while he was endeavoring to campaign from his basement.
But the charges of sexual assault against him by a former staffer, Tara Reade, are getting a good deal of media attention.
Biden was slow to respond, allowing former staffers to speak on his behalf. But Friday morning, he issued a statement, which you can read here.
He speaks of his pride in the role he played in developing the Violence Against Women Act, and then he says:
“In the 26 years since the law passed, the culture and perceptions have changed but we’re not done yet. It’s on us, and it’s on me as someone who wants to lead this country.
“I recognize my responsibility to be a voice, an advocate, and a leader for the change in culture that has begun but is nowhere near finished. So I want to address allegations by a former staffer that I engaged in misconduct 27 years ago.
“They aren’t true. This never happened.
“While the details of these allegations of sexual harassment and sexual assault are complicated, two things are not complicated.
“One is that women deserve to be treated with dignity and respect, and when they step forward they should be heard, not silenced.
“The second is that their stories should be subject to appropriate inquiry and scrutiny.
“Responsible news organizations should examine and evaluate the full and growing record of inconsistencies in her story, which has changed repeatedly in both small and big ways.”
He goes into detail about inconsistencies that I’ll cover shortly, and then he concludes:
“We have a lot of work to do. From confronting online harassment, abuse, and stalking, to ending the rape kit backlog, to addressing the deadly combination of guns and domestic violence.
“We need to protect and empower the most marginalized communities, including immigrant and indigenous women, trans women, and women of color.
“We need to make putting an end to gender-based violence in both the United States and around the world a top priority.
“I started my work over 25 years ago with the passage of the Violence Against Women Act. As president, I’m committed to finishing the job.”
I emphatically agree that all women who claim to have been sexually assaulted deserve a fair and respectful hearing and the presumption that they are telling the truth.
And then their stories must be fully vetted by impartial observers. I am questioning whether that is happening in this case.
Former Vice President Biden wasn’t my first choice as the Democratic nominee. I do worry about his age and health—but not about his mental acuity. I’ve watched him any number of times lately, and he seems totally with it and highly informed and sensible.
At a CNN Town Hall shortly before this abrupt end to the primaries, he was actually terrific on substance, performance, and connection with questioners.
Nor do I worry that he’s a sexual predator. I hadn’t thought I’d have to address the sexual assault charge against him in this post, but it seems to be gathering steam, and I see it as a dangerous, misguided attempt by the press to pursue a story without due diligence.
Keep in mind that Joe Biden was fully vetted by President Obama’s team before he was chosen to be Obama’s Vice President. He served as Vice President for 8 years without a whiff of scandal.
It seems inconceivable to me that the Republicans would not have found any “dirt” on Biden if such an issue had existed.
We do know that eight women, including Reade, complained last year that Biden had inappropriately kissed, hugged, or touched them.
According to The New York Times,he “acknowledged the women’s complaints about his conduct, saying his intentions were benign and promising to be “more mindful and respectful of people’s personal space.”
Biden is widely regarded for his warmth, toward both men and women. He has been a hugger, a touchy-feely kind of guy. At one time, that behavior was fully acceptable. It no longer is, and he understands that.
In his current statement, he says he will “continue to learn from women, to listen to women, to support women, and yes, to make sure women’s voices are heard.”
It’s worth noting that Tara Reade’s original 1993 complaint did not include sexual assault: she made that charge in March of this year and filed a police report in April.
I have seen Ari Melber and Chris Hayes of MSNBC, and New York Magazine writer Rebecca Traister all say the fact that an old friend (who says she’s voting for Biden) validated that Reade told her the story contemporaneously makes them take it very seriously.
In fact, it wasn’t contemporaneously, which means close enough in time so that memories are fresh. It was several years later. And Reade called the friend to apparently refresh her memory.
In addition, none of those I heard seems to have considered that a friend could be repeating a lie without realizing it.
But former prosecutor Michael J. Stern does explore this possibility in his compelling article in USA Today.
“The problem with statements from friends is that the information they recount is only as good as the information given to them.”
I am linking to Stern’s article and other sources that have persuaded me that Tara Reade is not telling the truth.
For those who don’t have the time to read through them, I’m quoting what I think are the most significant points.
First, Stern’s orientation: as a former sex crimes prosecutor, he writes:
“When women make allegations of sexual assault, my default response is to believe them. But as the news media have investigated Reade’s allegations, I’ve become increasingly skeptical.”
His reasons include the following:
—She has changed any number of details in her story a number of times, with “implausible explanations.”
Aside from the highly questionable one about changing what she says Biden did to her, she lied about losing her job.
She originally told The Union, a California newspaper, in 2019 that she refused Biden’s request to serve drinks at an event, and then “felt pushed out and left Biden’s employ,” according to The Union.
But she told The New York Times last month that she faced retaliation after filing a sexual harassment complaint with the Senate’s personnel office, and Biden’s chief of staff fired her.
To Stern, the disparity between those two assertions “raises questions about Reade’s credibility and account of events.”
—The three former Biden staffers whom she claimed to have told about the assault emphatically denied she did so.
“And they did not offer the standard, noncommittal ‘I don’t remember any such complaints,”‘ Stern writes. “The denials were firm.” One said: “‘She did not come to me. If she had, I would have remembered.'” Another’s comment was similar.
The third said:
“‘I never once witnessed, or heard of, or received any reports of inappropriate conduct (by Biden), period.’ If Reade had made such a complaint to her, she added, it ‘would have left a searing impression on me as a woman professional, and as a manager.'”
—Although Reade provided a copy of her 1993 Senate employment records, she has no copy of the complaint she claims she filed against Biden when she left, or was fired, from her job in Biden’s office.
Nor could The New York Times find such a document. Biden has said he’ll ask The National Archives, where such documents reside, to do a search.
—She couldn’t recall the date, time, or location of the alleged assault.
To Stern,
“Reade’s amnesia about specifics makes it impossible for Biden to go through records and prove he could not have committed the assault, because he was somewhere else at the time.”
–She says she told her mother (now deceased) and her brother.
But when her brother was interviewed by The Washington Post, he didn’t mention the sexual assault–the most important part of her charge–but texted that detail to The Post several days later.
Stern finds that time gap questionable.
Similarly, her mother was, according to her, the anonymous caller to The Larry King Live show in 1993. That call was reported as new evidence last week.
The caller said her daughter had been working for a prominent Senator, “could not get through with her problems at all,” and chose not to go to the press “out of respect for him.”
Writes Stern:
“Given that the call was anonymous, Reade’s mother should have felt comfortable relaying the worst version of events. When trying to obtain someone’s assistance, people typically do not downplay the seriousness of an incident. They exaggerate it.
“That Reade’s mother said nothing about her daughter being sexually assaulted would lead many reasonable people to conclude that sexual assault was not the problem that prompted the call to King.”
–Multiple times, in 2017, she praised Biden for his work combating sexual assault. She also tweeted: “My old boss speaks truth. Listen.”
Stern writes:
“It is bizarre that Reade would publicly laud Biden for combatting the very thing she would later accuse him of doing to her.”
–Also in 2017, Reade was condemning Vladimir Putin’s efforts to harm American democracy by interfering in the 2016 election.
But in 2018, she referred to Putin as a “genius” whose athleticism is “intoxicating to American women.”
She wrote:
“President Putin has an alluring combination of strength with gentleness. His sensuous image projects his love for life, the embodiment of grace while facing adversity.”
By 2019 she had expressed the belief that Russian interference in the 2016 election was hype.
More recently, she has claimed that her expressions of admiration for Putin, made in opinion pieces, were taken out of context for a novel she’s writing, and she doesn’t support Putin.
Stern provides other compelling examples as well. His examination is well worth reading.
–Also illuminating is the information provided by Lynn Hummer, founder of a California horse sanctuary where Reade was a volunteer from 2014-2016.
According to an article in Medium, Hummer claims that Reade “stole from her nonprofit, lied, and created stories to obtain sympathy and money.”
“Look, this isn’t about protecting women. This isn’t about the #metoo movement. This isn’t about Joe Biden. This is about truth. Tara Reade stole from me. She lied to me. She stole from my organization. She manipulated me and she duped me…And I have documentation, images and emails to prove it.”
Biden, to his credit, has said he’s not going to question Reade’s motives, though he doesn’t understand why she’s making the charge.
I think one of the reasons it’s so problematic for Biden and his supporters to speak openly about this issue is that to respond honestly, they would be casting aspersions on Tara Reade’s integrity and mental stability.
In this #metoo era, that is difficult to do. We are not talking here about all the women who succeeded, at last, in getting justice from Harvey Weinstein.
As Stern concludes:
“We can support the #MeToo movement and not support allegations of sexual assault that do not ring true. If these two positions cannot coexist, the movement is no more than a hit squad. That’s not how I see the #MeToo movement. It’s too important, for too many victims of sexual assault and their allies, to be no more than that.”
Chris Hayes, whose original reportage was so roundly condemned on Twitter that it morphed into a #FireChrisHayes movement (which I condemn), discussed the three groups of attacks he received.
The first and second groups he could accept: people who supported Biden and people who said “I don’t care; I’m voting for him anyway.”
But the third group–people who attacked Reade and cited other things about her, such as her strange fascination with Putin–he claimed, was doing just what the #metoo movement was designed to counter.
Hayes’s comments gave me pause because in citing Stern and Hummer, I am falling into that third group.
But how can we arrive at the truth if we simply focus on a single incident that inevitably comes down to a “he said; she said” dispute?
To me, hearing independent complaints from Hummer, the horse rescue woman, that Reade had manipulated and stolen money from her, is relevant to character.
Her comments about Putin, I feel, are an indication of instability. Can an unstable person still be a victim of abuse? No doubt, but all these are pieces in a puzzle.
When that puzzle threatens the integrity of a man whose otherwise worst charge was that he inappropriately hugged women who didn’t want to be hugged, I think all the pieces should be considered.
Experts in sexual abuse nearly uniformly say there is always a pattern–not a single instance.
I greatly worry that the press will make this into a “Hillary’s email” issue–though the topic is much more visceral, especially for women, who will be the deciding voters in the November election.
There are already calls for the University of Delaware to release his papers–despite his saying they have no personnel information and contain private conversations with President Obama and foreign leaders.
There are valid reasons that politicians uniformly keep their papers closed to the public until after they’ve left the political scene.
Nevertheless, this demand is made on today’s New York Times editorial page, which offers the following:
“Any inventory should be strictly limited to information about Ms. Reade and conducted by an unbiased, apolitical panel, put together by the D.N.C. [Democratic National Committee] and chose to foster as much trust in its findings as possible.”
All such demands seem to me ludicrous in these hyper-partisan times, and particularly unfair because the existing President has gotten away with hiding his income tax returns and a slew of other documents.
Why on earth should Biden do what to my knowledge no other candidate has done–and certainly not this most duplicitous and evasive opponent?
So I am deeply concerned that this drumbeat may seriously weaken the candidacy of a good man, and lead to Donald Trump’s reelection–he who has been charged by at least 12 women of sexual assault, including one who states that he raped her, and was elected despite having been shown on tape describing his modus operandi for sexual assault.
Press sources are saying this story of Biden’s alleged sexual assault of Reade now has “legs”–it’s not going away.
Of course the press has to follow this story to its conclusion. But they must look more closely at Reade’s contradictions, as Michael Stern has. And anyone who interviews Reade must ask her, politely, to explain her changed stories.
Many prosecutors and sexual assault victims on Twitter have agreed with Stern’s conclusions.
In important ways, I feel that Joe Biden is the ideal person to lead us now: his recent experience in the White House involved combating epidemics, resolving serious economic crises, and expanding health care—all critical to our near-term societal needs.
In addition, his obvious compassion is critically important for our hurt nation. And his willingness to work across the aisle suggests that if any bipartisan efforts are possible, he’ll be in a good position to take advantage of them.
I’ll leave my chat with him on the issues for another time–when I hope this story will fold its legs and–at the very least–give a closer look at all the charges against President Trump, whose behavior actually deserves scrutiny.
There were mea culpas after the damage was done from members of the media for obsessing over Hillary’s emails in 2016 while letting Donald Trump off the hook. That must not happen again.
These are times that are creating great and widespread anxiety, to be sure. Many people report experiencing nightmares. Few of us can remain fully unscathed as we’re forced to change our routines and cut ourselves off from the people and places that have offered comfortable reassurance.
And being alone with our thoughts does not, as Anne Lamott cleverly suggests, always provide us with the best company. We can be hard on ourselves by ruminating on our plights and getting stuck in a cycle of worries.
For me, mindfulness meditation has a very calming effect, and I’ll share with you below one particular resource I find helpful—whether or not you are a meditator, and even if you’re a “fidgety skeptic.”
I also love these wise words from the renowned meditation teacher Jack Kornfield, which underscore so much about being human:
“If you can sit quietly after difficult news,
If in financial downturns you remain perfectly calm,
If you can see your neighbors travel to fantastic places without a twinge of jealousy;
If you can happily eat whatever is put on your plate;
If you can fall asleep after a day of running around without a drink or a pill;
If you can always find contentment just where you are…
…..You are probably a dog.”
It’s a tough time for the two-leggeds, as Internet sensation Pluto the Dog refers to us. (She seems to be having the time of her life; so far there’s been no interruption in her treat supply chain…) And if you haven’t seen her and need an instant lift, I encourage you to look for her repeat performances on YouTube.
Fortunately, there’s also a treasure trove of free material on the Internet to help us get through this terribly difficult time.
I don’t want to oversimplify this issue. Andrew Solomon, a professor of medical clinical psychology at Columbia University who has written about his struggles with serious mental illness, observed in The New York Times that nearly everyone he knows “has been thrust in varying degrees into grief, panic, hopelessness, and paralyzing fear. If you say, ‘I’m so terrified I can barely sleep,’ people may reply, ‘What sensible person isn’t?”
If you’re feeling the way Sullivan describes, you may need professional help. Even if you’re just seeking some reinforcement, I won’t pretend the resource I’m recommending will banish your psychological or physical pain—or make it easier for you to ignore your sudden or worsening economic problems.
But I hope if you’re looking for some way to help you better adapt to our truly bizarre situation, you’ll give it a look.
And you needn’t be a meditator to appreciate its offerings and to find these common sense approaches helpful.
The source is Ten Percent Happier: tenpercenthappier.com. I actually paid a discounted price for a phone app last year.
Now, and for the duration of the quarantine at least, the content is available for free on YouTube.
Live sessions featuring some of the most prominent teachers in the world are aired at 3 pm weekdays and are subsequently available on video. I listen to them (I don’t always watch) each morning before I get out of bed.
Dan Harris, a correspondent for ABC News, is the founder. Harris has explained that he turned to meditation after suffering a paralyzing panic attack on the air. He’s since become immersed in mindfulness and has developed strong friendships with a number of the leaders in the field.
But he remains ever the “fidgety skeptic” (his words) and is clear when he’s asked to recite or act in a way that doesn’t come naturally to him.
He will repeatedly interject about the scientific grounding of certain practices. I think this approach makes him a perfect host for a program that is far more universal than it might otherwise be.
Each session begins with Harris talking with the guest speaker, who briefly describes her/his background. The speaker then gives an explanation preceding meditation lasting about five-minutes—suitable for those who’ve never meditated before as well as more practiced folks.
And then the speaker answers viewers’ questions—often my favorite part of the session, as the questions, while unique, underscore so many similarities in what we’re all experiencing. And the answers are invariably helpful. In their entirety, the sessions run for about 20 minutes.
The goal, Harris says, is to bring some sanity into this rocky time, and to build a community, realizing the loneliness experienced even by those of us who are not quarantined alone—because we’re cut off from so many whom we care about.
Today I heard Rev. angel Kyodo williams (sic), trained as a Zen priest, describe ways to recognize the importance of being in the present moment by trying to look at things in a different way.
She used the acronym SKY, suggesting boundless spaciousness, to counter the constraints of both being so isolated and experiencing fear in these unprecedented times.
S is for Self-care: We should radically protect our own health and well-being, assess our own situation and take steps to protect ourselves, such as practicing social distancing. She noted that since her health situation puts her at risk, she has become considerably more aware of the need for self-care.
K is for Kindness: That means being kind to both ourselves and others—for example, accepting the annoyance we may feel toward people who seem oblivious to the 6-feet distancing advisory, but not being rude to them.
Y is for Yearning: We tend to contract with suffering, but if we acknowledge that we wish things could be different and are hopeful people take care, we can move out of that mindset. She suggests writing down our yearnings in order to breathe space into our perspectives.
I have been so pleased with the sessions to date that I’m doing what Harris suggests: spreading the word to help build a community when many people are feeling cut off. I hope if you think you may need something like it—or just want to investigate—you’ll give it a try.
I am hoping that recent events will make the reason for this post irrelevant. But I have my doubts. Despite efforts by his staff to persuade him to limit his appearances at daily press briefings, this President does not seem capable of surrendering the limelight.
In my April 8 post on this topic, I expressed some ambivalence about the idea that the press should no longer cover these briefings live at all.
It was never my belief that they needed to show the two-plus hour nightly events in their soul-sapping entirety, but I also wondered whether disbanding live coverage completely might be a bad precedent.
The approach that some were following seemed to be a good compromise: airing a portion and then cutting away, rather than dropping long-held norms just because he was slashing and burning them.
On Friday, I heard Eli Stokols, a White House reporter for the Los Angeles Times, say that covering this President raises profound problems for the press and is in fact, the central issue for them at this point.
I can imagine that most, if not all, members of the Fourth Estate are struggling to determine how to do their jobs when faced with the double whammy of a pandemic that requires them to deliver timely information to the public—and a President who lies, contradicts himself, insults them, and seems to care not one whit about anyone or anything but himself.
And then, as you know, this President offhandedly suggested that the scientists should look into the question of whether drinking or injecting disinfectants could be a possible treatment for the coronavirus.
For me, that was a moment of clarity.
He faced others on the podium as he raised what he apparently thought was a clever idea, and his scientific adviser, Dr. Deborah Birx, to her discredit, remained silent, eventually mumbling “not a treatment.” She wilted.
Stokols and his colleagues at the LA Times reacted with some thoughtful reporting and observations:
“A slew of federal and state agencies — and the makers of laundry bleach — issued an implicit rebuke to President Trump on Friday, warning the public that his off-the-cuff medical advice and off-the-wall musings in nightly White House briefings could endanger even more lives as the country’s coronavirus death toll passed 50,000…
“Trump’s inclination to view his rhetoric as fungible — his comments are often intentionally open-ended and then open to ex post facto dismissals — reflects a lifelong effort by a highly public figure to blur context and avoid consequences for his comments and actions.”
“Trump’s shifting and often self-contradictory comments are not a bug but a feature of his nightly briefings, where, even amid a profound national crisis and widespread anxiety, questions and specifics typically drown in a sea of self-lavished superlatives.
“Last week, he managed to flip-flop three times on how quickly to lift stay-at-home orders, first insisting that he had “total” authority to order states to reopen, then telling governors that they, not he, had that authority, and then urging citizens to protest decisions by the governors and “liberate” their states.
“When pressed Thursday as to why he continued to float untested and potentially dangerous remedies from the presidential podium, Trump lashed out at the reporter who questioned him. “I’m the president and you’re fake news,” he said. “I’m just here to present talent. I’m here to present ideas, because we want ideas to get rid of this thing. And if heat is good and if sunlight is good, that’s a great thing as far as I’m concerned.”
The next day, the President falsely claimed that he was sarcastically responding to a hostile press query.
In the meantime, while all responsible parties have been trying to contain the pandemic, protect the public, and find scientifically sound ways to consider when it’s safe to lift the quarantine, Trump’s suggestion that internal disinfectants were worth considering caused consternation and warnings from many quarters.
So many people spent so much valuable time that should have been devoted to more worthy efforts as this gargantuan threat persists.
Those who raced to address this obvious danger ranged from the Consumer Product Safety Commission to the US Surgeon General to the American Chemistry Council to the makers of Chlorox and Lysol, among others.
And former Vice President Joe Biden, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, exerting leadership from his basement, tweeted:
“I can’t believe I have to say this, but please don’t drink bleach.”
Lest you think that Americans wouldn’t be foolish enough to consider such a ridiculous idea, the Maryland Emergency Management Agency reported that its emergency hotline received more than 100 inquiries about whether the injection or ingestion of disinfectants could be a cure for COVID-19.
Reading that, the noted Constitutional scholar Lawrence Tribe tweeted:
“What worries me is how many DIDN’T call but just tried Trump’s insane experiment on themselves or their kids.”
On April 24, Congressman Adam Schiff tweeted:
“A week ago I asked whether it was responsible to carry Trump’s nightly stream of consciousness on live TV.
Today, he suggested drinking or injecting disinfectants or ‘sunlight’ to kill the virus.
So I will ask again: What value is there to this spectacle?”
There’s no longer any doubt in my mind. I fully agree with Adam Schiff. We have a President who is hazardous to our health. He needs to be quarantined—his every word fact-checked and accurately reported.
And it’s just as important that the press and cable TV programs stop allowing him to control the narrative. The public needs information.
That’s why they listen so intently when New York Governor Andrew Cuomo speaks—or Maryland Governor Larry Hogan—or the mayors who have been thrown in disarray when the governors of their states have precipitously decided to disregard scientific caution and remove the quarantines.
We’re not getting information from these press conferences. We’re getting bad theater, farce-turned-deadly.
As many have pointed out, his wacky schemes often serve as a distraction: reporters must follow the story and not ask their questions about the climbing and undoubtedly underreported incidence of infection and death and—his protestations notwithstanding—the lack of adequate testing, largely because he refuses to exert power when he really must.
Here’s a possible example of what might have been reported immediately after Trump made his bizarre recommendation.
“President Trump suggested today that ingesting or injecting disinfectants might be a treatment for coronavirus. This is a dangerous suggestion that could prove lethal, as the makers of Chlorox and Lysol rushed to emphasize. We regret to report that you will endanger your health and possibly lose your life if you listen to the President.
“And now, here’s a report on the impact of the lifting of regulations to prevent water pollution in neighboring communities…” or “Here’s the latest on President Trump’s pressuring the United Kingdom to bail out his failing golf course in Scotland….” or “What will the implications be from the President’s recent temporary Executive Order halting the issuance of many new green cards?”
With his poll numbers plummeting, his staff is reportedly engaged in an effort to persuade him to shorten these dreadful marathons. That is, at least, a start. But we’ll see if they’re successful, and if so, for how long.
