The Ladies Man - How Charm, A Silver Tongue, And Understanding Women Won The Female Electorate Hands Down

Langston Barry had been attracted to women from a very early age.  He was in love with Mrs. Thomas, his English teacher, a woman of class and cultured beauty. It was hard for Langston to pay attention to conjugations and syntax when Mrs. Thomas taught, for all he could think of was her.

He was too young to imagine anything more - he was only in the seventh grade - but he sensed that something far more lay behind her Lanvin and Arpege. 

 

He peered over the top of the stairs when his mother had formal dinner parties, and watched as her beautiful wimen came through the front door.  Sybil Bernstein, was his favorite, a woman of Middle Eastern beauty, a princess of a Sultan's harem, a wife of Solomon or Saul.  

She wore diamonds in her hair and emeralds in gold pendants and bracelets.  Her low-cut dress was inviting. Her make up highlighted her cheekbones, gave her eyes mystery, and her cheeks a glow.  She was magnificent. 

Langston was not just drawn to older women.  Nancy Blythe who sat next to him in math class wore sleeveless blouses in the Spring and left the top button unbuttoned. The light breeze blowing through the classroom windows, mixed the scent of the lilacs, wisteria, and apple blossoms from the orchard across the road with her own. 

 

Algebraic equations added up to nothing. Nothing added up to anything except the impossibly desirable Nancy. 

This precocious appreciation of women was but a preamble to the real story of Langston Barry, but also the foundation for his success.  A man who truly loves women - their femininity, their sexuality - and understands their needs, will always have women who love him. 

The sexual equation is not a difficult one to solve.  Women are irresistibly attracted to men who find them interesting, beautiful, and worthy, men who have a confidence that derives from that understanding; men who know that they do not have try to seduce women, for they have already been seduced.

Women's natural, biological reluctance to mate until their partner has been thoroughly vetted - a man with a profession, from a good family, with solid earning potential, and a significant inheritance - disappears when they meet a man like Langston Barry.  No amount of prestige, respect, or promise can trump that profound understanding of them as women.  

Thanks to all of which Langston was never without a loving, desirable partner.  Yes, he was fortunate to have Great Uncle Foster's Hollywood looks.  Foster was an Errol Flynn lookalike and family history had it that he was not unlike the screen idol always surrounded by beautiful young women; but good looks for women who were attracted to Langston were only the frosting on the cake, nothing more.

So, it was natural that Langston was drawn to politics.  Why shouldn't the natural allure that attracted women, that dissolved their reticence, and made them pliant, complaisant lovers, be as effective in electoral affairs?

He found that after speaking at workplace gatherings, community affairs, and ceremonial events, women gathered around him, eager to know more about him.  The art of conviction came easy to him, and he was a natural at weaving intimacy, interest, and appeal in everything from mutual funds to urban development.  There was something so genuine about his appeals, so considerate and promising about his manner, that women lost sight of substance.  

The head of the Republican Party of Ohio, a canny kingmaker who had supported successful candidates for office from school board to Senate, saw the political potential in Langston, and approached him with an offer to join him in the upcoming Congressional campaigns in the state. He did not have to be a rabid partisan, but a reasonably convinced voter, and his natural ability would do the rest. 

'Speak to the women', the political impresario unnecessarily reminded Langston. 'They will get our man elected'; and so it was that Langston Barry, unschooled in politics and the policies of the party became the most important and influential campaigner on the campaign trail.  His name was rarely mentioned by the press, for his speaking engagements were low key and he was a virtual unknown; but these appearances were held to standing room only crowds, each member of which told ten others were had not attended; and before long, Republican polls were in uncharted territory. 

It was not long before the Party deemed him worthy of his own electoral campaign, and decided to groom him for a seat in a wobbly district whose incumbent had become increasingly crusty and disliked.  The speeches, appearances, informal gatherings, meet-and-greet assignments he had willingly undertaken as a volunteer were excellent warmups for the next round.

Langston was not sure about politics.  As a spokesperson, he was fine, unencumbered, and richly rewarded.  He had his pick of the women who found his appeals irresistible.  He had been right from the beginning - women's natural attraction to him thanks to his honest charm and simple interest in them had easily transferred to politics - and he profited from both. 

In fact the more lovers in this credulous crowd he had, the more other women wondered what it would be like to be with him.  Another truism - women, rather than put off by a man with numerous lovers, want a) to see what the fuss is all about; and b) to tame him, corral him, and harness him. 

So in a political sense he worked both sides of the aisle - his natural appeal to women gave him political currency, and that currency afforded him new lovers, whose love in turn became the currency for more lovers and more political appeal. 

Why should he trade this in for serious Washington politics?  He had a good professional job, made even more profitable thanks to his new visibility.  He was provided generous perks and entitlements as recompense for his political efforts, and he had the pick of any of the Republican women gathered to hear him speak. 

He demurred, and insisted that he was better suited for being a behind-the-scenes man, a loyal operative helping others further their political career. 

Besides which, thanks to his public acclaim and newfound general appeal, he - like thousands of politicians before him - had profited mightily.  Investors were eager to invest, lenders happy to extend their courtesies, and before long Langston had made millions through the creative financial instruments, credit swaps, and innovative investment partnerships made popular by Jeffery Skilling and Enron, which had come under intense SEC scrutiny for a while, but emerged again in new, legal garb. 

'What could be better?', Langston thought, watching the sunset from the bougainvillea-filled terrace of his home on St. Bart's, 'and I did nothing to get it'. 

Yes, Langston was one of the fortunate ones, the ones endowed with a natural sense of appeal to women, a simple, basic understanding of their needs.  They were no complex equations to solve, no differential I calculus, no imaginary numbers and reverse algorithms.  Plain, simple beings, that was all; and it was amazing how many men still struggled with figuring them out.

'Ahh....', sighed Langston sipping the last of his pina colada. 'Women, can’t do with 'em, can't do without 'em'.  He signaled the boy for another drink, set his glass down, and said, 'Nonsense. I can do with both’.

'You're Stupid!' - The Politically Incorrect President And The End To Engineered Fantasy

'You're stupid', replied President Trump to a reporter who had asked him a stupid question, one with no substance and only asked to try to make him look bad. 'You are a stupid person', he went on, 'a very stupid person', after which he made a few desultory comments, and proceeded to the next questioner. 

Now, this language was shocking to the progressive Left which for years had chosen to ignore the truth, to revise English to be as gentle, inclusive, and welcoming, and to foist on the American public an airbrushed version of reality.  There are no fat people in America, they said, only 'otherly statured'.  There were no dwarves or midgets, only 'little people', and most importantly no one was stupid.  The bell curve no longer described the human equation - a cluster of very dumb people at one end, a cluster of brilliant people on the other, and the rest falling under the great arc of the middle. 

Children who used the word 'stupid' were quickly corrected and disciplined. 'We don't use words like that', one mother was overheard saying to her young daughter in Turtle Park. 

'OK', said the little girl, 'but he's dumb...a retard', an accurate, precise, absolutely correct description of Johnny Paluka, a clod of a boy who didn't know left from right.  The boy was indeed on the far asymptote of the bell curve. 

'Oh, Dottie', said her mother. 'We don't say things like that'; but the little girl, too young, untried, and innocent of any far-flung notions of false propriety, insisted that she was right.  'He belongs in the broom closet'. 

Now, this little episode was not unique - children observe objectively, judge intelligently, and respond truthfully until they are hammered into some fantastical adult image. 

'Who did you play with, today, Jamie', another mother in another park asked her son. 

'Billy Farnham', responded the boy. 

'I don't think I know him.  Is the the one who lives on Randecker's Lane?'

'No.  He's the fat one'. 

His mother recoiled in shame.  'We don't say things like that', she warned. 

'But he is fat, Mommy', her son replied. 'The fattest boy in the class and the fattest boy I have ever seen'. 

 

Despite the school's attempts to encourage inclusivity - to be sure that the 'mentally challenged' and the 'otherly statured 'boys were included in playground activities - they were shunned, laughed at, and ignored.  The children were acting like every member of every society has since the very first human settlements - ridding the group of the outsider.  The bell curve was no different in Paleolithic times. Homogeneity, the integrity of the majority, the purity of the masses have been bywords of human communities since we came down from the trees.

No amount of socialization, engineered harmony, or prescriptive behavior can change this basic, inalterable, ineluctable fact. 

Much has been made of bullying in these days of social justice; and yet it has been another persistent aspect of growing up and beyond forever.  Children learn how to deal with bullies.  Either you avoid them, kowtow to them, or fight them; and each reaction describes very telling psycho-social behavioral traits and anticipates how you will survive in the adult world.  

'Sticks and stones' are warning signals - life after childhood will not be a fairy tale, and the savvy child will learn to react either in kind with a well-placed, well-timed counter insult, stony indifference, or avoidance. 

 

Shaming works wonders.  Fat girls under the catty pressure of their bitchy classmates quickly lose weight.  Boys under peer pressure shape up, lose their annoying tics and habits, and become part of the group. When challenged, dummies try their best and reach the upper limits of their native ability. 

Calling out horrendously poorly chosen dress, shoes, or hairstyle works like magic.  The accused for the first time looks in the mirror with conforming eyes, and the next day looks like everyone else. 

Uniqueness, individuality, a well-defined personality expressed by words, appearance, and action are not affected by this call to conformity. There is a measure of suppleness in social criticism.  The masses recognize a special person of merit despite some cloying inconsistencies.  Charm can overcome ugliness, respect and deference can quiet catcalls, intelligence overwhelms social ineptitude.  Not always, for suppleness too has limits to its extension, but often. 

Political correctness is nothing less than an Orwellian attempt to deny reality.  What you see before your very eyes is not as it seems.  An obese woman in a bikini is not an oddity, a self-indulgent, arrogant misfit, but a beautiful person the equal of any Hollywood starlet.  Yet since Ancient Greece and Rome, the standard of female beauty has not changed in the least.  The statues of Aphrodite and Athena resemble the most beautiful women of today.  The features of both are symmetrical, perfectly aligned, and balanced.  Their bodies are long, lithe, and graceful. 

 

The Orwellian reformists insist that such standards are themselves false, created by a misogynist men who can see no further than a woman's exterior.  Yet the truth speaks loudly.  Look at the cover of any men's or women's magazine and see the same classic beauty. 

Beauty is definitely not in the eye of the beholder. 

So, why not accept acknowledged standards of intelligence, beauty, and behavior and be tolerant of those who fall far from them? Why call out the less intelligent, less beautiful, less endowed as 'stupid, dumb, retarded, clumsy, fat, short, and ugly'?

Because such outspoken honesty is the best way to encourage adherence to the norm - to standards of human beauty, intelligence, and physical ability and most of all encourages the less endowed to perform to their maximum, always trying to achieve the highest standards while knowing they will always fall short. 

The Left cannot get over Donald Trump's aggressiveness and his refusal to accept its Orwell-speak.  The progressive agenda - insisting that there are not two sexes but many, all arrayed on a fluid gender spectrum; that inner city black is the inheritor of African sentience, intelligence, and environmental awareness and should be placed atop the human pyramid; that all cultures are equal and none should be assumed better or more developed than others - is contrived fantasy, anti-historical, revisionist, and ignorant of the foundational makeup of society. 

Finally and at long last, reality is seen as what it is, not what it should be.  History is back, the record of human settlements, empires, and civilizations again open for objective inspection, and the difference between individuals, societies, cultures, and religions there for inspection. 

Trump is not 'presidential', progressives say as if there were such a standard.  They only mean not behaving as they would like; but Trump, for all his outrageousness is both quintessentially American and presidential.  The days of fear-of-the-dark presidencies and the faux compassionate, idealistic years of fairytale land are over. 

Small Town America And The Ghetto - Only The Trash Is Different

Pharoah Jones was the King of Anacostia, Washington's deepest inner city - a neighborhood of endemic crime, drug abuse, single parenthood, truancy, gangs, and violence.  Yet, there is money to be made everywhere in America, and it only takes enterprise, ambition, and intelligence.  There is a bell curve for every population, and Pharoah Jones was on the bright side of it.

Jones' empire was impressive, a large conglomerate of drugs, prostitution, extortion, trafficking, and money laundering.  He had partners in the Sinaloa cartel, the Kingston crewes, MS-13, and the Gambino family.  He was Washington's version of Frank Lucas, the Godfather of Harlem who a few decades ago ruled as vast an illicit empire.

Both men never hid from the law, so secure were they in their protection, their cover, and their network.  Police, judges, magistrates, city council members, federal agents all were either on the payroll or intimidated into silence.   

As such Pharoah Jones was never seen without his full-length white ermine coat, 24 karat gold chains, South African diamonds, Angolan emeralds, and Indonesian cultured pearls.  His ride was a Cadillac Escalade, chopped and channeled with silver spinners.  It was an armored lowrider, triple enameled black with red and purple trim, tinted glass, wet bar, and complete quadraphonic hi-tech sound system. 

He had houses on Washington's Gold Coast, Palm Beach, St. Barts and St. Tropez.  His millions were secure in offshore accounts in Aruba, Bimini, and Antigua. 

He had two wives, three consorts, and Fulani and Egyptian concubines.  His children were too numerous to count, but when he did, he showered them with gifts, promises, and gold.  

Now, the rest of Anacostia was a shithole - a pestilential, god awful, miasmic slum - but the perfect address for a man of Pharoah Jones' enterprise.  Even SWAT teams were reluctant to go there, so well-armed and fearless were the street gangs.  The last time that the forces of law and order went in to Anacostia, they were ambushed, encircled, and fired upon with the most modern Soviet, Israeli, and South African automatic weapons, grenade launchers and rockets.  They were forced to withdraw after taking many casualties. 

An emissary from Anacostia sent to the Mayor's office and the FBI, warned against any such intrusions into what he called 'sovereign territory', and offered generous gifts to both to encourage compliance. 

Pharoah Jones, through a combination of intelligence, street sense, business savvy, and canny risk analysis, was one of the most respected and feared men in The Nation's Capital. 

Seymour Babbidge, Senior Vice President of the Chillicothe (Ohio) Savings and Loan was not unlike Pharoah Jones in that he managed a not insignificant empire.   Although small town America was limned as the heart and soul of the nation, the repository of family values, propriety, rectitude, probity, and social harmony, it was nothing of the kind.  

While there were enough proper merchants, doctors, teachers, and farmers to maintain the image, the real Chillicothe was in the hands of Seymour Babbidge who built a billion dollar financial empire with the same savvy, instinctive sense for weak links, gullibility, credulousness, and greed as Pharoah Jones.

Years ago he saw a lucrative opening - his bank had profited from one of Jeffery Skilling's Enron creative financial instruments. It was the ideal cover - as were a hundred other small, independently-owned institutions across the country - for Skilling's ingenious schemes; and thanks to that interest, Babbidge, selected as point person for Enron, was the first to benefit.

Skilling quickly realized that he had a diamond in the rough in Seymour Babbidge. Babbidge quickly understood the ins and outs of the Enron 'creative' network, and was to be the 'facilitator' with other independent banks affiliated within the Independent Bank Association. 

There were men like Babbidge throughout the system, men willing to take a few risks and unprecedented steps to make unaccountable, tax free money, and they formed 'the network of the willing' as Skilling had called it. 

Before long hundreds of millions of dollars were passed first through semi-legal institutional channels and then through the hands and offshore bank accounts of Babbidge operatives.  Like any good scam, investors were paid off, but lightly, while the bulk of the profits went into the pockets of Babbidge's men. 

Now, just like the residents of Anacostia, the good people of Chillicothe knew - or certainly suspected the goings on behind closed doors at the Chillicothe Savings and Loan. The remarkable returns on their investments, as small as they were, were indicative of something bigger. 

This complicity was based on a more fundamental moral corruption.  Behind the scenes of Midwest propriety, faith, and fidelity the same disregard for social mores found in Anacostia, existed in Chillicothe. Husbands and wives cheated on each other with regularity.  

Infidelity was so brazen that after church on Sundays, husbands virtually strolled into the arms of their lovers under the transparent cover of 'playing eighteen holes' while their wives entertained their paramours in the rooms of the Farmington Arms. 

Druggists cheated a little here and their on their taxes, lawyers overbilled, butchers kept their thumbs on the scales, and furriers sold otter as mink. 

On the surface, Chillicothe seemed as it was supposed to be - a place of courtesy, bonhomie, and good faith.  Men tipped their hats at ladies walking by, opened car doors for them, smiled broadly, and wished them well.  Children were all well-behaved and if not scholarly, at least good students. 

Daniel Goldhagen wrote a book about Germans' complicity with the Nazis during World War II.  The Germans had to have known about the concentration camps, the gas chambers, and the ovens, Goldhagen said, but they kept quiet.  The Nazis were doing what they had wanted to do long ago. 

The principle behind the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki was based on the assumption of complicity - no regime can stand without the support of the people.  There are no such thing as innocent civilians in warfare.  Dresden was incinerated on this assumption. 

The people of Chillicothe were no fools, and as mentioned, many made out quite well at Seymour Babbidge's bank.  They, like the Germans, had to know but did nothing. 

This is all to say that while family values are not exactly a scam, they are a convenient cover for a society which since the age of snake oil salesmen has had scams, cons, and Ponzi schemes in its blood. 

This is not exactly a bad thing, for American capitalism is based on the same credulousness, consumer ambition, and social dynamics used by crooks.  'A sucker is born every minute', said circus impresario P.T. Barnum, and how right he was.  Everyone wants to believe that the freak actually has two heads, that the promise of fifty-percent risk free return is real, that the stock broker is your friend. 

'Caveat emptor' does not apply just to dry goods, but to American life in general.  The ethos has not changed, just the marketplace.

It is unlikely that either Pharoah Jones or Seymour Babbidge will see the inside of federal prison, but Skilling, Bernie Madoff, and Rudy Kurniawan have, so you never know. 

Meanwhile Babbidge is enjoying life skiing at Gstaad, wintering in the islands, and treating his mistress like the princess she really is. 

And Pharoah Jones?  Same deal, different venue.  Both real Americans. 

The Tart, The Archbishop, And The General - The Taste Of Power Is Very Sweet Indeed

Lucinda Flanders grew up in a small town in Ohio in a classic rural district with more cows than people. The family farm raised pigs, had two milking cows, and small fields of corn and wheat. They lived modestly but well, were churchgoers, Republicans, and charitable neighbors. 

As such, her parents were unsure what to do with their daughter who had none of their rectitude and social probity, and at a very young age was spending more time with boys than on her duties at home.  There was something devilish in her, something unexpectedly different, desires and ambitions which did not match those of her parents or the community.  

She was seen in the back seat of cars, in the Toller's barn, in the cornfields, and in the gymnasium in spectacular contortions that reminded Mr. Adams, the history teacher, of Japanese Edo pornographic woodcuts where the subjects, like Lucinda were straddled, arranged in athletic positions, and performing calisthenic sex.

 

Talk of expulsion ran through the school administration; but because Lucinda was an honor student, a basketball star, and budding mathematician, the authorities could do nothing.  She was indeed a blot on the spotless reputation of the school, but given her talents and reputation - Billings Senior High was put on the map thanks to her athleticism and championship at the statewide math competition - they decided to look the other way. 

It wasn't until Mr. Cartwright, the French teacher decided to try his luck with Lucinda, was immediately successful, but was unfortunately caught in flagrante delicto with the delicious young girl and summarily fired. 

'The Billings Brothel' shouted the Chillicothe Times Herald, and soon after the first edition hit the newsstands, both Mr. Cartwright and Lucinda Flanders were told never to return. 

At his point Lucinda could have gone in any one of three ways - to Ohio State on a basketball scholarship, to Los Alamos Center for Advanced Mathematics, or the street and a life of languorous, sybaritic sexual pleasure. 

She didn't have a choice really, for those girls who are born with such sexual precocity cannot possibly deny it. In Lucinda's case, with her combination of intelligence and sexual ambition, she soon realized that she could capitalize on both.  Men were easy marks, and why not use her canniness and sexual appeal for profit?

It was at this point that she had the good fortune to meet the Very Reverend James J. O'Connor, Archbishop of Bolivar County, a man of ambition and rising prospects.  The Vatican had taken notice; but O'Connor, one of the few remaining straight prelates in the archdiocese, had a particularly strong attraction for young women.  Perhaps it was being surrounded by gay priests in the rectory, on the altar, in the sacristy and in the church refectory that the ordinarily careful and abstemious priest stepped over the line as soon as he saw Lucinda Flanders. 

Even if her reputation had not preceded her, he would have been drawn to this succulently delicious morsel. Sex shouted from every pore, from every strand of her carelessly tossed hair, her perfume, and her undulating, seductive walk.  It was a done deal from the moment she walked into the nave, knelt in a pew, and started saying the rosary. 

 

This piety was nothing of the kind - she had her eye on trouble, and her mind had set its sights on the archbishop, a man of God but known as a gentleman, a courtier, a man whose admiration of women was no secret. What a star to be hitched to! What a conquest! Washington, Rome, the Vatican itself. 

If it hadn't been for the buggery in every nook and cranny of the Church, Archbishop O'Connor might never have taken the step, the one that led to a Garden of Eden sexual paradise; but fed up, angered, and frustrated at the diddling and twiddling of priests, acolytes, and altar boys, he decided to express a manhood which had long been repressed. 

God would understand, for His church had become such a den of iniquity that a return of good Biblical (Joshua begat Esther, etc.) values would be condoned if not championed.  And so it was that the affair began and continued through the Archbishop's rather unusual recognition and invitation by the Cardinal of Washington, DC to take over the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, a local branch of the same Vatican office formerly run by then Cardinal Ratzinger, later Pope Benedict XVI. 

 

'Come with me', the Archbishop said to Lucinda, and so the couple moved across the country - he to the archbishop's elegant residence on the campus of Catholic University and she in a Dupont Circle townhouse, paid of course by the Archbishop from his inheritance.

It was to their credit that the illicit affair was kept secret for so long.  Washington is a porous, information-hungry, seditiously catty society and such a dalliance would have been front page news; but the assignations between the two lovers was always done far from the spotlight, often in uncomfortable quarters, but just as often as trysts in the Shenandoah as Mr. and Mrs. Jones. 

The affair remained secret and the Archbishop was being talked of as the replacement to the Cardinal who, now in his late 80s was said to be considering retirement to a villa in Tuscany.  O'Connor was doing quite well for himself, and saw himself as a Renaissance man, a Roman priest with a mistress and a fortune. 

At about this time General Abraham Lockhart Pender came into his life. Pender, a three-star general who served his country with distinction in both Afghanistan and Iraq, had been troubled with existential doubts.  He felt he was losing his faith. 

Brought up Catholic, educated at Georgetown, the country's premier Jesuit university, and a faithful congregant at the mystery of the Mass, he was at spiritual sixes and sevens.  No amount of prayer, introspection, or reflection could shake free the increasingly mordant questions of faith that kept him up at night. 

 

And so it was that the General sought and was granted an audience with the Archbishop, a man of suitable and comparable rank; and in a series of private meetings, his spiritual uncertainties began to fade. 

It was at one of these meetings that the General met Lucinda Flanders, hired by the Archbishop as his aide-de-camp, accounting advisor, and ecclesiastical factotum.  He needed nothing of Lucinda's services, but wanted his lover close by for comfort, pleasure, and companionship. 

Now, the General, long restricted by the Army's strict code of moral behavior, had grown sexually restive and, just like every man who had preceded him, was immediately attracted to the young and still nubile Lucinda Flanders. His overtures were obvious, and she took notice.  The archbishop's promised transfer to the Vatican was still far away, Rome was now just a fanciful dream, so the fortunes of a man of political power and influence looked very attractive. 

When the archbishop found the note on his pillow informing him of Lucinda's departure, he was at first disconsolate - at his age he would never again have such a young woman in his bed and would have to return to the celibate life of cold, hard emotional penury; but God provided.  He accepted his fate, upped his devotion, and led life as it should be led, a bit cold and stony, but rewarding nevertheless.  

As luck would have it, the General was transferred from Commandant of Fort Mead to the Pentagon, and his political future was bright.  He, still a youngish man of strategic battlefield brilliance and military intelligence, would make an ideal candidate for high office, and so he became a Republican Party celebrity, showered with attention, favors, and promises. 

Now, America is not France where the President can install his lover in the Elysees Palace without raising eyebrows, and before Sarkozy, Francois Mitterrand had longstanding affair with his mistress with whom he had a daughter, again to no particular public criticism. 

No, America is still a Puritanical, censorious, prurient society, and so the affair between the General and Lucinda had to be kept particularly quiet.  If and when his political future materialized then and then only would he jettison his wife and consider marriage with Lucinda. 

By this time, Lucinda's interest in men, Washington, and power had faded.  Her coffers were full, her offshore bank accounts rich with unaccountable equities, and her privacy still intact. Even as profligate, libertine, and sexually excessive as she was, she could return to Ohio without having left a trace on Pennsylvania Avenue. 

Her parents were delighted to have her back among the cows and chickens.  That fol-de-rol when she was a youngster was long forgotten, and she was just plain Lucy again.  The old song verse, 'You can't keep 'em down at the farm once they've seen Paree' didn't apply.  She was happy to be back. 

Shaming Is Back! - The Demise Of Inclusivity And The Return Of Ethos, Universal Standards, And History

Hedy Lamarr was an American Hollywood actress known for her classic beauty. 

Despite the claim to the contrary, beauty is not in the eye of the beholder, and even those who may prefer a woman of less classic, dark looks and more sensuously alluring, will agree that Lamarr was  beautiful.  Her type of beauty, with predictable cultural variations over time, is reflective of those characteristics which have always made women attractive. 

Symmetrical features, luminescent eyes, full lips, and luxuriant hair all express health, wealth, and well-being as well as being pleasing to a natural sense of geometrical order (the golden mean is universally appealing), and sexual appeal.  There is little difference between the women painted by Leonardo and Hedy Lamarr.

It is no surprise that the women portrayed in art – the women of Botticelli, Leonardo, Caravaggio, Ingres, and the sculptors of ancient Greece, Egypt, and Rome – have been beautiful.  The wives and courtesans of royalty, the aristocracy, and the socially prominent have been beautiful, and while kings like Henry VIII, desperate for an offspring, chose as much for fertility as for beauty as he continued to remain childless, most demanded only the most attractive.

The standards of female beauty have endured for millennia for beautiful women whose facial symmetry, balance, and sexual suggestion are desirable regardless of status and class.  

The last few years of 'diversity, inclusivity, equity' (DEI) have denied this. There are no such things as universal standards of beauty, or of anything for that matter say progressives, and each individual and his racial, ethnic, or gender group is unique, special, and deserving of the same attention, respect, admiration and emulation as those more resembling historical models. 

The obese, the diminutive, and those whose fearful symmetry is misshapen, are equal to Hedy Lamarr, Nefertiti, Dido, Athena, La Gioconda, or any of the classically beautiful women of the past. Men should look past the superficial, meaningless, attributes of physical beauty and look to the real woman within.  

Women should not be enslaved by the past, but should follow their own inclinations.  Women who are overweight - obese in fact - should not be intimidated by the covers of Cosmopolitan, Elle, Vogue, and Harpers Bazaar, the Rockettes, runway models, Hollywood, or the line dancers at the Sands. 

Nonsense, of course, and anyone looking at them, conditioned by so many millennia of classically beautiful women and attuned to their symmetry as a marker for health, wealth, and well-being, can see beauty no matter how much they try to suspend disbelief. 

This progressive, woke reform is reminiscent of Orwell's Animal Farm and 1984 - frighteningly prescient, dystopian novels where the State so manipulated the obvious, the truth, and reality that its subjects came to believe the lie.  'Four legs good, two legs bad' was the State mantra in Animal Farm, and with that invented conviction, it created its own version of civil society. 

Fortunately the woke era is behind us, and the febrile, illusionary, fantastical assumptions of progressivism are receding.  Obese people are unattractive, unhealthy, ungainly, and far off the bell curve.  Beautiful white women are no longer dismissed as irrelevant in a multicultural society in which African blackness should be the standard, but considered the closest to the classical norm. 

When black models are featured in fashion magazines, they are chosen for their white features.  They are not Bantu but Fulani or Hamitic - a look appealing to both white and black readers.  

 

The cult of inclusivity does not end with fashion or standards of beauty, but extends to all aspects of society.  There is no such thing as a model American, patriotic, hardworking, socially responsible, ethically and morally just, nor anything remotely considered a universal ethos. 

Anything goes - criminals are the disaffected, ghetto slums honor the street and the vibrancy of black culture, illegal immigrants are refugees from injustice and incivility, gangs are alternate communities for the disenfranchised, dwarves are little people with the same insights and ambitions as the height-favored. 

The Orwellian world exists in the United States, and although it is being dismantled and dismissed, its infection is widespread. Under the current conservative administration, Americans are being asked to call out the ridiculous assumptions of the recent past.  It is now OK to depict the inner city as a crime-ridden, drug-infested, dysfunctional place; that slavery is no longer an excuse for anti-social behavior; that entitlements based on reverse racism are nothing but patronizing political largesse; that prisons are full of young black men because they belong there. 

We no longer have to see a black face on every television commercial, or a gay couple, or happy interracial bonhomie when little exists in real life. Most of all, we can call fat people fat. again. 

Shaming has always worked as a psycho-social dynamic.  Shame a fat person enough, and she will lose weight.  Refuse to accept ghetto culture as a legitimate American expression and call it out for the corrosive force that it is. Stop lionizing African culture and criticizing European civilization when the former has given us little and the latter everything. 

'White is beautiful...White lives matter...European colonialism gave the world civilization'.  These and other mantras are increasingly heard in America.  Of course the progressive Left cries, 'Racism!' but few pay attention to that overused, inchoate, desperate howl.  An originalist society based on the federalist principles of Jefferson, Hamilton, and Adams - individualism, individual enterprise, opportunity, and mobility - deny no one the chance for health, wealth, and well-being.  On the contrary it is the best way to achieve it. 

The tributes to European history, the objective analysis of world cultures and migrations, the irreversible standards of behavior, beauty, and social probity are meant to expose the cultural monopoly of the discredited Left.  The turning of progressive memes on their heads is meant to reset the cultural, historical balance.

Progressives cringe at the parade of blonde, blue-eyed, beautiful young things parading to and from the Trump White House.  Not only have the tables been turned but decades of liberal discontent and faux reformism are out the window.  

 

Liberals are at sixes and sevens, still bitching and moaning about the continued oppression of the black man and the return of heterosexuality, but are at a loss as to what to do.  For ten years they have run on nothing but Trump hatred, and now that he is dismantling their most cherished programs, they are upset, troubled, and lost. 

'About time', say many, delighted at Trump's cleaning of the Augean Stables and putting America right.  It is as though a great, censorious, dark cloud has been lifted and the nonsense of the past is finally being dissipated and removed. 

Oh, yes,  'God Bless America'.  Religion is also back. 

The Wampanoag Should Have Known Better - The First Thanksgiving, White Wolf, And Comanche Savagery

White Wolf, Comanche chief, was well known for his patriotic barbarity.  In the name of resisting the white invasion of Indian lands, White Wolf disemboweled, eviscerated and dismembered men, women, and children in white settlements. 

 

It was a powerful, unmistakable message to potential settlers and to the Union Army which was deployed to protect them. Both settlers and soldiers were fearful of him, admired his ferocity and tenacity, and thanks to his reign of terror, white settlements and Union Army raids both stopped. 

Before he died peacefully in 1900 at 80-90 years old, he had this to say, recorded by a journalist from the Oklahoma Eagle (although White Wolf spoke some English, it was broken and heavily accented, so this transcription was edited for clarity.  The content has not been altered):

Americans celebrate Thanksgiving, a day of shame and pity for Indians who should have known better.  The Wampanoag were idiots ('shit-eaters') who were imbecilic traitors, native fools, disingenuous ('squirrel-minded') dupes, emasculated, womanized men.  They opened the door to the round eyes, gave them succor and hope, and left the rest to me.  

I had to clean up after the cowardly ('barking dog') Wampanoag who should have slaughtered the white devils on Plymouth Rock, fed their innards to the dogs, and tossed their bodies into the sea.  Had these retrograde, blundering, craven fools done their job, I would not have had to spend Comanche lives keeping them at bay. 

I wish I had another hundred years to live, a hundred more white-slaughtering, woman-defiling, baby roasting years . 

The editor of the Eagle hesitated when he saw the journalist's transcript.  Such a hateful Indian screed might well set off more White-Indian violence, reopen old wounds, and cause the reservations in the state to rise up.

The journalist argued that history is history, and to hear it in the words of one of the most important Native Americans, was worth publication. 

Unfortunately it never saw the light of day but kept in the paper's archives to be discovered and made public many years later. 

 

At the same time, the controversy over Indian names for sports teams was raging - one side claiming that such names and images were a patronizing gesture and all such references should be removed; the other insisting that it was Native American courage, valor, and patriotism that were being celebrated, and names and images should stay. 

During this debate the Washington Redskins owners decided to change the name of the team and remove the famous warrior profile from all helmets, flags, and paraphernalia.  They also asked their fanbase for alternate names.  The White Wolves was among the most prominent. 

To name the team after an Indian hero, a proud Native American who stood for racial and ethnic identity, who was profoundly patriotic in his defense of Comanche lands, and who defied the colonization of the West would be very American and very fitting.  Many conservatives particularly appreciated the irony in the proposed choice - if progressives were so keen on 'diversity', let them chew on this white-killing, infant immolating savage.

Of course the name White Wolves was summarily dismissed.  The owners were afraid that any Indian name, however reflective of Native American heroism and pride was too contentious; and so it was that they settled on the absurdly common, neutral name The Commanders 

The Cleveland Indians were faced with the same progressive opprobrium and changed the name of the team to The Guardians a name borrowed from an Art Deco bridge across the Ohio River having nothing whatsoever to do with American history, Indian heritage, or the idea of patriotism. 

White Wolf went on in his interview with the Eagle journalist:

The Wampanoag should have poisoned the white devils with the same deadly poison in which their arrows were dipped before battle.  They should have invited them into their tents and taken scalps.  They should have driven lances into every last one of these intruders.  That would have been a fitting Thanksgiving...for the Wampanoag!

Every Thanksgiving there is a flurry of criticism about the holiday.  After all, it was nothing but the first snookering of Native Americans, trading their generosity and good will for slaughter.  As White Wolf said, the Pilgrims were nothing but the first genocidal settlers in the New World. 

In the years, decades, and centuries to follow, the pattern was continued. Politely ask the Indian to move on and make room for white settlers, and if he refuses, either kill him or chase him west of the Mississippi. 

All revisionist nonsense, of course.  The Nineteenth Century was no inclusive, diverse, equitable place, and races and ethnicity were either European, high, and noble; or black, brown, red and inferior.  How could Europeans not come to this conclusion when all of Africa had not moved out of the Stone Age? When savages were still living in teepees and slaughtering each other in tribal warfare at the same time the cities of Europe were magnificent with cathedrals, palaces, and gardens?

Killing Indians was no big deal.  They were simply in the way.  An ugly thought? Only to hypersensitive, modern revisionists.  The great Westward Expansion, Manifest Destiny were the muscular statements of the new nationalism. Thanks to the Louisiana Purchase and Lewis and Clark, America would soon extend from sea to sea. 

 

When asked by the journalist if he still hated Thanksgiving, White Wolf said:

Instead of the white devils feasting on turkey and yams, the Wampanoag should have been feasting on white baby liver, testicles and human blood sausage.  An Indian 'Thanksgiving' would have changed the course of history. 

So, as we all sit down to our Thanksgiving dinner, we should remember that it might have been us who were eaten and savored.  

The current President of the United States, Donald Trump, has vowed to change the name of the Commanders and the Guardians back to their original names, the Redskins and the Indians.  He has made public his respect and admiration for Native Americans, felt that expunging them from public consciousness is the worst sort of historical revisionism, and that their images and symbols reflect their courage, honor, and valor, 

It's about time! White Wolf would be very, very happy. 

Short, Fat, And Ugly - Anybody Can Make The Grade In America, The Story Of A Canny, Undersized Crook

Mr. and Mrs. Blanton hoped that their boy, Arnold, would grow up - not in any sense of maturity but just physical. stature. He was marked for shortness at birth, was always below average as he moved through his toddler years, and seemed to have stopped growing when he was ten.  

Somehow the boy's abnormal size twisted his other senses of proportion, and he became overweight - fat and ungainly. With every year he gained even more weight until he was unfittable - the sizes for older boys flapped on him like a tent but cinched him tight in the  waist.  As hard as Mr. Finkelstein the tailor tried, altered garments looked like clown suits, bunched at the knees, far too short, and accentuating the boy's Jabba the Hut neck. 

 

Worst of all, the boy was ugly.  God had been unjustly unkind when he created little Arnold, for there were no redeeming features in the child's face.  Even as a baby, friends, family, and neighbors could not gin up any thing more than a ‘What a baby!' when shown the infant.  As he grew older, the hoped for moderation in his features never materialized.  His eyes stayed too close together, his mouth too large, his ears floppy and elephantine, and his nose....

It was some consolation to the Blantons that the boy was smart, a whiz with numbers, and an uncannily logical mind.  He was making sense of Fermat's Last Theorem when other boys were still on the nine times tables.  The little tyke was a genius, said his third grade teacher, and must be given all the support his parents could muster. 

And so it was that Arnold benefitted from tutors, the Russian School Of Advanced Mathematics, and a fast track through the public school system. 

Now, children being what they are - nasty, cruel, horrible little blighters - Arnold was teased mercilessly.  Even the constant reminders of inclusivity did nothing to mitigate the taunts of his classmates. 

Of course, this was all par for the course - human society is built to marginalize 'the other', to assure that its average is not lowered, that the gene pool remains intact - but because poor Arnold was a trifecta of 'the other', short, fat, and ugly, he was a particularly easy target. 

His parents commiserated with him and gave him all the love and the support they could.  He would make his way despite God's unfortunate measure.  Besides, Robert Reich, a Cabinet Secretary in the Clinton Administration, was an ugly Jewish dwarf but went on to become a notable progressive and Harvard professor.  Danny DeVito, a fat, ugly, and short Hollywood actor had not let his physical appearance stop him; and neither one of these men had Arnold's genius. 

As with  many particularly endowed people of high intelligence, Arnold became quickly bored with purely intellectual pursuits, and by the time he graduated from Harvard (the university in its halcyon years of diversity were delighted to check many boxes upon his matriculation), he was on his way financial success.  

His ease and familiarity with mathematics, statistics, and the most complex accounting procedures allowed him to penetrate the inner workings of the market and come up with innovative financial instruments of which Jefferey Skilling of Enron would be proud. 

Who was this Harvard geek that was making so much money, Wall Street wondered? but Arnold kept his own counsel and a basement apartment on Harvard Square and cranked out sophisticated financial algorithms that few could understand. 

Few knew that this ugly clot, crabbing his way up the stairs to the street, shopping only from the bottom shelves of the supermarket, and wearing outrageous clown suits, was making money hand over fist. So much so, that his Aruba and Bimini bank accounts were overflowing.

'A sucker is born every minute', said Arnold, repeating he famous words of P.T. Barnum, circus impresario, and so it was that Arnold's legal financial wizardry turned into a somewhat less respectable variety.  

Flying under FTC, SEC, and Treasury Department radar, he reaped millions before he was twenty-five.  He was Skilling, Madoff, and Kurniawan (the brilliant Indonesian wine fraudster) all rolled up into one and then some. 

He of course could not see over the steering wheel of a normal Porsche or touch the accelerator or brake pedals, so he special ordered his Carrera with all the gizmos which would enable him to tool around town just like any normal man.  Arnold wanted a Lamborghini, and he certainly could afford one, but the Porsche offered him style, performance, and cachet while not attracting too much unwanted attention. 

 

There were not a few women who, like many, were quite willing to overlook Arnold's peculiarities for his money.  The Porsche and some nicely tailored clothes did not scream wealth, but suggested it, so there might be something in it for these women after all.  

Not exactly tarts, but certainly open to a sexual libertinage if it meant some financial gain, these women proved the right kind of consort for the upwardly mobile Arnold who was not out for intelligence, class, or sophistication in a woman, but sex. 

Such financial wizardry cannot for long be unnoticed by those in the business who were as canny about their creative instruments as Arnold, and it was soon he was courted by the country's greatest snake oil salesmen - men who, like Arnold, had figured out Wall Street equities, investment, and operations and done marvelous end-arounds to make semi-legal millions.  A partnership with him could pay vast rewards. 

In a series of clandestine, very well-guarded meetings, these Wall Street operatives made their pitch to which Arnold demurred.  He was better off on his own, more independent, operating with more flexibility, and less apt for discovery.  He knew that by refusing these magnates' offers he would become their adversary if not their enemy, but confident of his intelligence and innate capabilities, he was not worried. 

Arnold became The Man To See, a man of canny, financial genius - able to make millions under the noses of the feds and the pukka investment banks on Wall Street.  He was at once admired, feared, and emulated.  If this fuckin' dwarf could do it, why not them?

Ironically it was Arnold's physical misfortune which propelled ordinary-looking bankers to unsuspected enterprise. Whenever Arnold was seen rolling - for that was exactly what it was, this undersized, misshapen, poorly-dimensioned freak bobbing and weaving his way - into 21, Max's Kansas City, Chez Benedetto, or any of the other New York watering holes, observers felt nothing but jealousy, fierce intimidation, and competition.

A triumph for inclusive multiculturalism! suggested one of Washington's progressive claques who valued diversity over honesty, such was Arnold's successful chicanery and the marvelously fabulist ideology of the Left. 

In a way, it was indeed a triumph, for whatever grotesque, malformed, morbidly obese, ugly American could have possibly done what Arnold had? His freak show grotesquerie disappeared in a flood of dollars, euros, renminbi, and yen.

When was it time to emerge from the penumbra, Arnold wondered?  While he enjoyed the favor of his harem of concubines, he had not yet reached the bigtime. Only marriage with one of Boston's finest young heiresses of old money would do - a Park Avenue penthouse, homes on the islands and a winter retreat in Gstaad, in-laws descended from the dukes of Northampton and Gloucestershire. 

Only when his shorts bunched in his crotch, or when someone had put the foie gras on the top shelf of the refrigerator, or when he caught sight of himself in the hall mirror, did he have doubts about his future. 

When would the scrim, the ornate Victorian curtains, the fabulously operatic stage settings be struck to leave him alone, fat, and ugly in the wings?  Wasn't it all a charade?  Didn't he have to pay the fiddler for his untimely and surprising success?

With his investments on autopilot, millions pouring in to his offshore accounts, his equities hitting near record levels, and his tax liability down to zero thanks to an equally canny accountant, Arnold still felt unsatisfied.  Was he so common as to look for a marriage dwarf? Someone as misshapen, bloated, and fish-head ugly as he? 

No, he was destined for a tall, blue-eyed, beautiful maiden of impeccable credentials who so far had eluded him. It was his due, his legacy, his fortune. 

 

If this story were true progressive fantasy, then Arnold's physical misfortune would make no difference to women who would love him.  Inclusivity means total, abject, unquestioning acceptance.

Unfortunately, the reverse is true - nobody loves a dwarf, a cripple, or a retard no matter how much money they have; so Arnold had to do with the finest of commercially available women.  

Madame Stoner's establishment on K Street had been in business for years, catering to the Congressional trade, and so Arnold was never without a consort - women who had been trained not to wince and grimace when the likes of him crawled on top of them.  On the contrary, they saved their best moans and groans for him, and the suspension of disbelief being what it is, both partners walked away happy. 

So, a misshapen, ugly, fat dwarf can indeed make his way in America and do quite well; but there are limits for even the most devoted inclusivist.  Arnold by any measure was at the very bottom of the human genetic chain, and the fact that he had a lively brain didn't matter in the least. 

When he died many years later and left a significant estate to no one in particular, leaving it to probate lawyers to squirrel through the codicils and clauses since he had no heirs nor named legatees, few were surprised.  He did the best he could in life, and no one should feel sorry for him. 

'May the crows feast' were the words etched on his gravestone, an indecipherable epitaph which many regarded as a 'Fuck you', but others thought a pithy reflection on life.  

Does Pornography Objectivize Women? - Of Course It Does, Isn't That The Point? The Inescapable Sexual Truth

Jimmy's Smoke Shop was a New Brighton fixture.  A shop carrying all the local newspapers plus those from Boston and New York, candies, cigarettes, novelties, bus tickets, and in the back room girly magazines. 

 

Jimmy DiMarco was the third member of the family to run Jimmy's.  His grandfather had opened it in horse-and-buggy days.  His father had continued the business, expanding from smoking supplies to Greyhound and Peter Pan tickets; and Jimmy made it what it was in the Fifties, a catch-all shop that catered to bus riders, school kids on their way back home, and older men who spent hundreds of dollars on the latest editions of 'Cunt!', 'Pussy', and 'Crack'.  

Those were the days before upscale adult magazines - the ones with long articles on the economy and social change.  Jimmy's racks were filled with straight, down-the-line pornography.  None of the men who sidled their way to the back of the store where Jimmy kept the magazines wanted nothing but. These men, well-dressed in suits, snap-brim hats, and overcoats - lawyers, bankers, and accountants - sidled because in those rather censorious days, any sexual interest other than that for wives was verboten. 

 

Of course New Brighton was just as sexually obsessed as any other small New England town, more so in fact if you tallied the assignations, cinq-a-septs, and longer affairs.  Word had it that Edna Jones, the wife of the Methodist minister, was having a steamy relationship with the pharmacist - an unlikely lover.  Herm Zackin, stooped, myopic, and very Jewish looking did his own compounding, boosted the new tranquilize formulations for his special customers, Edna Jones being one, and had an easy time with her, stoned as she was after one of Herm's concoctions.  

The affair lasted as long as Herm stayed in business which was quite a few years until Lilly and Pfizer heard about his little schemes and shut him down with the threat of punitive law suits. 

Betty Carlson was as close to the town tart as could be, a woman free and easy with her favors, eclectic in taste, married to a uxorious husband who had no idea of her affairs; but still waters run deep, and when he found out, he bought a pistol from Bristol Firearms, waited until dinner was over, and shot her dead as a doornail. 

 

This is all incidental to the story of Jimmy's Smoke Shop and its girly magazine rack. 

When Bobby Finkel, son of the furrier, reached the age of sexual interest, he was of course drawn to Jimmy's. Even in those days which were long before the howling hysteria of feminism and MeToo neo-Puritanism, there were laws on what one could and couldn't sell to minors.  These laws, even in blue law, Calvinist Connecticut, were rarely enforced, so Jimmy could let Bobby and his friends wander in the back if they didn't touch the merchandise and bought a dollar's worth of candy and gum up front. 

Eventually the temptation was too great and while Bobby distracted Jimmy, Barry Klein lifted the latest Cunt!, slipped it into his knapsack, bought a Whoopie Cushion, and walked out the door.  The magazine made the rounds - all Barry's friends had their turn - and when it was returned to him, ragged, torn, stained, and barely readable, it was time to head back to Jimmy's. 

There is nothing new in this story - men of all ages ogle women, desire them, dream about them, and think about them until the day they die.  The feminist claim that this persistent, single minded sexual interest is demeaning to women and objectifies them as sexual objects is absolutely correct. When a man's head is turned by a beautiful, sexy woman passing him on K Street, he is not thinking about her portfolio, her law degree, or her business acumen but about sex, and what it would be like to be in bed with her. 

In Anna Karenina the Konstantin Levin character laments the irony that God created Man as a remarkably intelligent, sentient, observant, creative, and insightful being, granted him a scant few decades of life, then consigned him to the cold, hard ground of the steppes for all eternity. 

A parallel irony is that this same God created men with a lifelong sexual desire for women, granted them a scant few decades to do something about it, then consigned them to lonely, solitary, unsatisfied longing.  In this miserable state, any woman would do, any young, supple, eager thing. 

Most educated men will not stoop to the sort of trash sold at Jimmy's. The tamest, most acceptable, and most virally available half-naked women are on movie sites - Taylor Swift, Scarlett Johansson, and a bevy of other Hollywood beauties are there to download and enjoy.  With a few clicks, the less educated or more obsessed can find the dirtiest, smarmiest, most incorrect, improper images and videos possible; but for most men, these beautiful, sexy, media icons are more than enough. 

So, enough claptrap about objectifying women.  They objectify themselves! Taylor Swift does not promote the most sexually provocative poses for nothing - she is a canny businesswoman, and although her stock in trade is music and pop extravaganzas, her sex appeal is a big part of the heady package. 

Sexy women's images are not just found in the pages of men's magazines.  Look at the cover of any women's magazine - Cosmopolitan, Elle, Women's Health, Vogue, Harper's Bazaar - and you will see alluring, sexy, attractive women.  Sex is sold by women for women for men. 

The age-old conclusion that when men look at women they see a sexual object; and when women look at men they see a cash drawer may be overdrawn and perhaps a bit incorrect; but it is nonetheless true. The most feminized, dutiful, respectful, faithful, and admiring man cannot help himself when, in of a sea of retreads he sees a beautiful, alluring, impossibly desirable woman and thinks exactly what every other man on the planet thinks - I want her. 

Little Bobby Finkel turned out to be a fine young man, married to Esther Pilchman right out of Yale, two children, house in the wealthy Washington suburbs, partner at Reed, Ramlow, & Cohen, occasional adulterer but generally faithful husband, admirer of Taylor Swift and Scarlett Johansson, envying those men who court them, but all in all, an ordinary man. 

Is there still a market for pornography? You bet your life there is, and although the Jimmy's Smoke Shops of the world are historical footnotes, the electronosphere has more than taken their place. Is this a problem or simply a reconfirmation of the old adage about lifelong male desire and 'the objectification of women'?

Dominique Strauss-Kahn, former French presidential candidate and self-described sexual obsessive, was arrested once for participating in a sexual orgy with hired women.  Strauss-Kahn objected and responded. 'How was I to know they were prostitutes?  All women look the same with their clothes off'.

And so it is with the rest of the sexual paraphernalia around town - who cares?  There will always be a Jimmy's Smoke shop in brick and mortar or in cyberspace.  

A Bollywood Love Story - Donald Trump And The Indian Prince Of New York

Donald Trump warmly welcomed Zorhan Mamdani, self-described Democratic Socialist Mayor-Elect of New York City but described by others as a Communist.  Trump smiled, patted him on the shoulder, gave him friendly, fatherly advice, and sent him off happy and delighted at having met the President of the United States. 

'Did you call Mr. Trump a fascist?', a reporter asked Mamdani at a press conference in the Oval Office after a meeting.  Mamdani fumbled, stumbled before Trump gave him a friendly pat on the arm, and said, 'Go ahead, it's OK, I don't mind'. 

 

Of course the President was only softening the young man up, tenderizing the meat before cooking.  Trump was the generous, loving uncle, the understanding father, the adoring grandfather - making think that no politician was better or more suited to govern than Mamdani. 

'He likes me!', Mamdani, smiling broadly, was overheard saying to an aide.  'He really likes me'. 

And so it was that the all the Sturm und Drang over the meeting of archrivals who had traded insults, allegations, and smarmy innuendoes in the past turned out to be a tempest in the teapot.  The two men liked each other, New York would not be subjected to the worst that Trump had promised - withholding federal funds, deploying ICE troops, finagling with New York's credit rating, and applying punishing political, financial, and economic pressure. 

Now, Mamdani's mother is Mira Nair, Indian film producer/director who makes love stories. Mississippi Masala, Monsoon Wedding, and Kama Sutra among others, and she had told her son that the President was no Hindi film villain, just Donald Uncle, kindly, loving, supportive, and patient.  His mother knew that there is a love story in every relationship, and politics are no different.  The fondness expressed by the President was obvious in his smile, his gestures, and his comments.  'Not to worry', she said. 

Now, admittedly at the end of Mississippi Masala, the inter-racial couple's future is not as rosy as they think. Yes, they are going off together, leaving Greenwood, family and friends, to start a life together, but such promise, everyone knows, is but a lovers' fantasy. 

'You and President Trump are that couple', Nair reminded her son; 'but your shared promises are real.  You have won over Donald Uncle, and the future is bright'.  

This Trump-Mamdani episode could easily be featured in one of Nair's Bollywood movies. The old Hindu maharaja of Jaipur, sitting in luxury in Hava Mahal, the Palace of Winds, surrounded by veiled, bejeweled courtesans, a sumptuous banquet set before him, the fragrance of frankincense and myrrh filling the room, grants an audience to the young prince of a neighboring state, recently risen to power when his father, the Maharaja of Udaipur dies. The young prince comes with a list of demands, sure to anger the Maharajah of Jaipur, demands even more threatening and aggressive than those of the young man's father. 

 

But the Maharajah greets him warmly, welcomes him to partake of the feast he prepared for him and sits him next to his most beautiful courtesan - a woman of extraordinary beauty who was the jewel in he crown of the Maharajah's harem.  The two men chat cordially, play a game of chess of which the Maharajah was very fond, and upon the young prince's move to checkmate, the Maharajah ceremoniously lays down his king, bows, and thanks the young man for his patience. 

When an aide to the prince hurries to the young man's side with a sheaf of papers containing the demands, the Maharajah frowns, and says, 'Later.  It is time for Scheherazade' and with that the golden curtains part and the most magnificent show of opulent splendor, the backdrop for the most beautiful dancing girls in the kingdom begins. 'Any one of them is yours', says the Maharaja to the young prince. 

And so it was that the young prince went back to his Udaipur palace, feeling he had regained a father and an uncle, that the two kingdoms would once again be allies, and that his young life would grow and mature in love and friendship. 

'How do you like it?', Mira asked her son.

Zorhan smiled, hugged his mother, and touched her feet in a traditional Indian gesture of respect.  'I love you, Mataji', Zorhan said. 

Zorhan felt exactly like the Udaipur prince, and went back to New York with a newfound feeling of affection for the President of the United States.  He and Donald Uncle would form a partnership that would redefine politics - ebony and ivory, the young rascal and the older patriarch, the old man and his young charge. 

As Mamdani rose from his chair in the Oval Office and, accompanied by his aides, walked out the door, Trump's aides gathered around him and cheered.  His Chief of Staff said, 'Well done, Boss' for he had seen the President at his very best - charming, entertaining, engaging, and persuasive.  The shine in the boy's eyes was visible as he looked around the room, the ornate Italian ceiling, the impressive portraits of Jefferson and Lincoln.

Trump smiled back at his aides and thanked them. 'But now, down to business' by which he meant to finalize the measures that he would take at the first sign of socialist defiance. There was no way that this President of the United States was going to watch America's premier city go down the drain.  He would shame, defy, brutalize, destroy 'Little Boy Blue' at the first sign of resistance.  

He would alternately make him the poster boy of the radical Left, the puppet of AOC, Bernie, and Chuck, the cabal of  socialist dynasty, and chop his legs off, denigrate, humiliate, and dismiss him in a Genghis Khan savagery...All the while treating him like a beloved grandchild, one of his own. 

Mamdani can be forgiven for such credulousness - far more powerful men had been taken in by the President's masterful, purposeful duplicity.  LBJ kept allies and enemies in line by face-to-face, OK Corral bullying. He was a master of threat, intimidation, and promise.  He got what he wanted because everyone was afraid of him, what he had on them, and what he would do with it.  He had risen to power from a dirt town in Texas, stopping at nothing to get there. 

Donald Trump was a smooth operator, a canny, seductive one; and that charm and ingenuous friendship was part of his willful, indomitable plan. Few politicians or businessmen could resist this heady mix of charm, threat, and resolve. 

The Mayor-Elect thought twice about putting the photo of him and the President on the wall of his City Hall Office, but decided instead to display it prominently in his official residence, Gracie Mansion.  It was a tribute to his - Mamdani's - influence and stature, not the President's.  

His wife, always supportive of her man but never too shy to make suggestions to him, still a boy in her eyes, a boy who would still be living with his parents had he lived in India, said, 'Are you sure, my love? Won't tongues wag?'; but he insisted, and planned to put the photo up the moment he took residence. 

Most serious political analysts know that Mamdani is no threat.  His proposals are nothing more or different than what the progressive claques in Washington had been flogging throughout the Biden years.  His free lunches, giveaways, open border-sanctuary city refuges, George Floyd defund the police policies, rent control, and all the rest are the same, frivolous, impossible, fantasies. 

Zorhan Mamdani slept well the night of his Oval Office meeting, happy and secure in his victory, while Trump stayed up watching a Mira Nair movie.