Secrets of Playboy

 

Delia Kane, age 14 at  The Exchange Luncheon, Why is her photo up here on this thread? Well, it'll become more apparent below, but we now know that the Playboy mansion had a minor who grew up in it, and whose fell into vice about it, tried to write about it, and who had those writing suppressed by Playboy.  Additionally, from other sources, which won't receive as much press as the current A&E documentary, Playboy actually promoted the sexualization of female minors in its early history to such an extent that the result of an independent European study caused this to cease before it became a matter they addressed. This was apparently through its cartoons, but it's worth nothing that apparently at least one Playboy model was 17 years old at the time of her centerfold appearance and another, who later killed herself, was a highschool student, albeit a married one.  Girls and young women were accidents of unfortunate labor early in the 20th Century. But the late 20th Century, they were the target of pronographers and sex explotiers.  Which is worse?

This is a documentary currently running on A&E which is an exposé on Hugh Hefner.  The A&E show summarizes itself as follows:

Hugh Hefner sold himself as a champion of free speech who created the Playboy brand to set off a sexual revolution that would liberate men and women alike, but over the years he used Playboy to manipulate women to compete for his favor and silenced whistleblowers

I frankly wouldn't normally bother to watch this show, but I did, in part because of my opinion on Hefner and in part because my wife was watching it.  Her interest was sparked because she had been a follower of the "real life" show that followed Hefner and three of his later prostitutes, and let's be blunt, that's what they are, which was a fairly popular show at one time.  Indeed, this documentary includes the last three notables of that lamentable group among those interviewed, with Holly Madison, the principal one, being a major, and very damaged, personality in the show.

Let me be start by being blunt.  Hugh Hefner is one of the worst and most despicable figures of the 20th Century.  

I know that's making quite a statement for a century that included among its notables such individuals as Stalin, Mao, Hitler and Mussolini, but it's true.  Just as those figures were dedicated enemies of Western civilization and values abroad, Hefner was at home.  In the end, the West prevailed over all of these political figures, but it didn't prevail against Hefner.  The destruction he caused is vast and ongoing.

I'm not going to give a full biography of Hefner as I don't know it, and I'm not going to bother to look it up. What I can relate is that he was from the Midwest, served stateside in the U.S. Army during World War Two, and then went to work for one of the then existing girly mags after the war.  Apparently according to his own recollection and that of his friends, he was jilted by a girl while in high school (with there being video footage of her, she was quite attractive and very intelligent looking), and then reformed his central personality into the early Playboy image as a result.^[1]  There's more than a little room to doubt that, but what seems clear is that he was a man who was essentially devoid of morals and driven principally by lust and its monetization, although what came about first is questionable.  The love of money is indeed the root of all evil, and it's possible that he loved money first and came into lust as a result.

Anyhow, in the early 1950s he went out on his own with a brilliant marketing idea that became Playboy magazine  

Dirty magazines of all sorts had existed for a while, and indeed, while I haven't published on it, it's pretty clear that there was a trend towards more and more risqué treatment of women in print starting wth the advancement of photography in the first quarter of the 20th Century.  It was still the case well into the first 1/3d of  the century that illustrations, rather than photographs, dominated magazines, but even by the 1920s black and white salacious magazines existed. By the 1930s, trends overlapping from the 1920s were such that magazines of all types were more and more willing to take risks with female figures for magazines and magazine covers.  By the late 1930s the female figure with a tight sweater was a pretty common feature on magazines of all types and one of the major magazines featured Rita Hayworth in 1940 in a pose so risqué that it rivaled anything put on the cover of Playboy early on. So the trend was on.

At the same time, this trend also started, and indeed was much advanced, in the movie industry, until the Hays Production Code put the brakes on it in 1922.

Something happened in the World War Two timeframe that's really not terribly clear to me, other than it seems to me that it was there. At one time, I would have been inclined to attribute the 1953 introduction of Playboy nearly entirely to the Second World War, but that's unfair.  Going into the war, it was already the case that pinups were around.  

During the war, however, millions of unattached young men spent years away from home at a time when that was quite uncommon, and that had some sort of accelerating impact.  Keep in mind that an unmarried man in his 20s or even 30s likely lived at home, with his parents, prior to the war, and indeed again after the war. During the war, this wasn't true at all.

As a result, during the war, the girly mag and related publications received a big unrestrained boost.  So did prostitution and other sexual vices as well.  And the seeping of sex into things in general, at least in the service, did.  Quite a few U.S. Army Air Corps crewmen flew into combat in World War Two in bombers with paintings of top heavy naked women on the fuselages of their planes, or painted on their flight jackets.  

The genie might not have been fully out of the bottle by war's end, but the cork was loosened.  At the same time, a famous study by Kinsey was conducted during the war, which ostensibly revealed that the average sexual conduct of American men was libertine.  It's now known that Kinsey himself was plagued with sexual oddities, and like a lot of people in such a position, he sought to justify them.  His study, as it turned out, largely focused on the incarcerated, hardly a representative slice of American men, and it went so far as to essentially force some minor males into sexual acts.  It's flaws, to say the least, and was perverted to say more.

That study, however, was released after the war and formed an inaccurate pseudo-scientific basis to challenge Western sexual morality.  And that's where we get back to Hefner.  Unlike the girly mags that had come before Playboy, Hefner's rag was able to claim to be mainstream.

Slickly published with high production values, Hefner took the pinup of the 1940s and published her in centerfold form, starting with purchased photos of Marilyn Monroe for the introductory issue.  It was an incredibly misogynistic publication, darned near outright hating women while celebrating an extremely exaggerated example of the female form. Like nose art on World War Two bombers, all the 1950s examples of Playboy centerfolds were hugely top-heavy. They were also all young, and portrayed as blisteringly stupid and willing and eager to engage in unmarried sex. They were also all sterile.  Playboy didn't run articles on young women getting pregnant.^[2]

In the climate of the time, just out of the Second World War, just following Kinsey's study, and in the midst of the Korean War, the magazine was an instant hit.  It began to immediately impact American culture and became accepted, if still regarded as dirty, as a publication.  It crept into male dominated settings of all types, there virtually not being a barbershop in the United States that didn't have it.  Women in popular media came to rapidly resemble, to some degree, the centerfolds who appeared in the magazines, and by the late 1950s the US was in the era of large boobed, blond haired, probably dumb (in presentation) starlets.  

Playboy had this field all to itself for quite some time and in the 1960s it really expanded.  While the early magazine was sort of weirdly conservative in away, the explosion of the counterculture and the introduction of the pill were tailor-made for its expansion.  While in the 50s, the suggestion was that the Playboy man could have all of these big breasted girls next door for himself, by the 60s it was an outright free for all.

Around that time, Hefner himself began to essentially live that way.  By the 70s it was completely open, with the Playboy Mansion   His big, and creepy, parties were a cause célèbre in the entertainment community.  It meant you were somebody to be invited, and many such celebrated figures of the era were, such as Bill Cosby. . . . 

Yeah. . . 

Well, anyhow, in the 20s, 30s, 40s and 50s being invited to the party of a pornographer wouldn't have been something a person wanting a public career would want. By the 70s, the opposite was true.

And that meant, in essence, the new sexual libertineism advocated by Playboy was essentially the American, and indeed Wester World, standard.  Even where not outright accepted, it seeped into being.  The magazine was everywhere, including in many middle class homes, sending the message to boys that lusting after big chested girls was not only normal, but desirable.

It's been a disaster.

Now we're reaping what Playboy helped sew, although the entertainment industry still hasn't quite figured that out.  Women want out of the sex object status that Playboy foisted on them but don't quite know how to get there. The "Me Too" movement is part of that.

Part of things being corrosive is that they corrode.  You can't just corrode a little bit.  That's happened to society, and as we are now being told, a little late in the day, that happened to Hefner.

As this series reveals, all things Playboy were gross. The life inside the Playboy Mansion as one of Hefner's concubines was controlled, gross and revolting, including to at least some of the subjects of his loveless attention.  One resident, whose father lived there, and who practically grew up in the mansion, not too surprisingly had turned to teenage lesbian sex with one of the female inhabitants and later tried to write a book about what she'd experienced in her early years.  It was pretty clearly suppressed, once released, by the declining Playboy empire.  Another former male employee was basically threatened if he went public with what he knew.

Suicides of Playboy models were a feature of its earliest days, with at least one of its most famous centerfolds (already a teenaged wife by the time she posed) being one example.  According to this show, however, other suicides featured among the women of Playboy with the news being hushed.  At least one well known centerfold was the victim of a murder, and a murder was referenced in the show without it being clear to me if that was the same figure or not, as I don't know the names of the characters involved.

Playboy was declining by the early 80s, a victim of its own success.  Penthouse came in, and started to erode its market share by being grosser.  Hustler came in and was grosser yet.  A race to the bottom ensued.  Then the Internet arrived, and they all rocketed into the gutter.  People weren't willing to pay for the smut they could access for free.

At the same time, however, it seems like there's some effort to crawl back out of the gutter. The Me Too movement is part of that.  Its members are clear that they know that they're being treated wrongly, if they can't quite figure out how to define why they're being treated wrongly, and what the origin of the standard they are grasping for is.  And the depths of the salacious portrayal of women on magazine covers arrested in the 1970s.  At that time, the nearly bare breast of a model could appear on the cover of The Saturday Evening Post, and Farah Fawcett could be seen nearly falling out of her swimsuit on the cover of Time.  Advertisements in magazines don't feature minors in nearly pornographic poses anymore. That era is over.

What isn't over is the decline of television, however and movies, which remain sex fixated.  They may be behind the curve on this, or not. Having embraced the descent, however, they can't get out of it as easily as print can and has.  The Me Too movement might be helping it to do so, however, as now actresses are expressing regret over nude scenes they've done in conventional films, and some are clear that they outright will not do them.  

What also isn't over is the sex fixated nature of certain aspects of Americans culture, even while it is over in other areas.  It's interesting.  We see both sides at the same time, with part of the American left simply defining itself by sexual desires in a literal sense, while at the same time, posts like this have become amazingly common on Twitter.

if someone could marry me that would be great thx

That girl isn't looking for the Playboy man, and she sure isn't the Playboy "Playmate" bimbo.

So how do you undo six decades of destruction.

Well, it probably won't be easy, but if Playboy's story teaches us anything, it seems that at certain tipping points things can and do happen quickly.  Playboy wouldn't have been a success in 1943, but in 1953 it suddenly became one, and it changed views pretty quickly.  That came in the wake of two world wars, a smaller hot war in the Cold War, nearly universal male conscription, and the flooding of the universities with a massive number of young unattached people.  It also came just before a massive cultural rejection by one generation of the values of prior ones, and a massive infusion of money into society at an unheard of level.  And it followed a bogus scientific revelation followed by a genuine scientific pharmaceutical introduction.

But there was some tipping point that was reached before the wave started to crest.  Another one seemingly might be getting reached now.

We haven't fought a big war for a long time, even though we've fought some smaller ones.  Our military is at its smallest level since 1939.  A lot of the glamour of university life has worn off, and the post Boomer generations face economic realities that resemble the pre-1940 situation more than the post 1945 one.  

A seeming rediscovery of values is going on as part of that.

Cont. part 3

Part 3 of this documentary aired last night, focusing this time on the Playboy Clubs.

Other than being aware of the existence of the clubs, at one time, and the demeaning costumes the "Playboy Bunnies" wore at them, I really didn't know much about them. This episode did a good job in providing the details.

Basically, I guess, we could term these as nightclubs with the hostesses dressed in skin tight costumes featuring bunny tails and rabbit ears.   An interview with Hefner on the costumes had him note that he'd adopted the rabbit symbol as rabbits had a certain reputation at the time he did, which was a coy way of noting that rabbits engaged in the "act" constantly.  The rabbit in the symbol is portrayed as male, and of course his real world female subjects were that, female.

This may say all that you really need to say about Playboy.  The entire Hefner bullshit line about caring about women and women's right's was simply cover for their being viewed as living, dumb, objects of sex.   That's it.

The episode showed that's in fact how Playboy Bunnies ended up being viewed. Rules for members of the Playboy Clubs, and you had to pay $25.00 initially to be a member, were strict.  You couldn't touch a bunny. . .at the club.  But outside the clubs, rapes of the women who worked there were common.  A request by a "bunny mother" for security or at least male assistance for the hostesses leaving the clubs at night was for instance rejected.

That's bad enough, of course, but at the VIP level of membership the rules in practice evaporated.  One Bunny noted that she was raped by a VIP member who was in fact immediately expelled, but another woman who later worked as a "bunny mother" noted how the bunnies were frequently sodomized with it being traumatic for them not only because it occurred, but also because in that less pornified era it was a shock for them, this act being common due to a fear that the perpetrators would get the women pregnant.

Two instances of kidnapping were noted, with women being kidnapped and raped.  In one instance it can't really be blamed on Playboy, which then restricted women at that club, which was a resort, to dorms which they basically couldn't leave on their off hours, but another detailed the kidnapping by the late Don Cornelius, a VIP member who was the host of Soul Train.  In that instance two new bunnies who had spent an evening with a Cornelius entourage ended up held for a couple of days in his house, being subject to abuse there, before one was able to call out. The police were not called and Cornelius did not lose his VIP membership.  Cornelius killed himself in 2012 at age 75, apparently suffering from the onset of dementia, and therefore like Hefner escaped any earthly implications of his conduct.

This episode principally revealed, once again, the misogynistic nature of Playboy and Hefner.  Hefner portrayed himself as a lover and defender of women, but in reality, they were tools and objects to him, and he made them the same to a wider male audience.

One thing of note there, and a significant one, this third episode featured, like the prior two, interviews with Hefner that were done by some very major figures.  These include a female interviewer I somewhat recognize but can't place a name for, George F. Will, and William F. Buckley.  It may not be fair to comment on the interviews overall, as they haven't been shown, but what is obvious is that he was treated like a significant figure and at least in the questions asked, he was pretty much thrown softballs or was allowed to get away with non answers that nobody would tolerate in a serious interview now.  Essentially, society was winking at him.

Cont, part 4

This entry was posted earlier, then evaporated for some reason when I tried to post it.  For some reason updating this thread has been a bit difficult.

Episode 4 dealt with two figures who lost their lives in connection with Hefner.  One was Hefner's executive secretary who was arrested outside the mansion with cocaine on her person and later killed herself, and the other was a bunny who killed herself.  Both were mixed up with drugs, and the suggestion was that they were both "mules" who were supplying illegal drugs to the mansion.

It was clear that illegal drugs were very much a thing in the mansion, in spite of Hefner's claims to the contrary.  One of his girlfriends of the period made that very clear and confessed to being a mule herself.

A suggestion was vaguely made that both of the women featured may have come to bad ends externally, but there was no real evidence to suggest that, and the better evidence is to the contrary.

On a final note, it's hard not to notice that Hefner in this period has the appearance in interviews of a person whose suffering from drug withdrawals.  He's highly figity, jumpy and underweight.  He didn't look right during this period.

Cont, part 5

I'll make this entry relatively short, even though in some ways it may be the most telling and illustrative of the story of Hefner and the Sexual Revolution he was part of.

Part 4 of this series deals mostly with going ons in the Playboy Mansion from 1976 to 1981 and Hefner's then "girlfriend".  The girlfriend immediately before that was Barbi Benton, who left in 76.  The show deals hardly at all with Benton, so far, but the suggestion is vaguely made that even though Benton tolerated Hefner having serial sex partners, she kept the lid on things descending into outright depravity.

When she left, the next one, Sondra (Theodore?) entered the picture.  She wasn't a centerfold originally, unlike Benton, but a 19-year-old who attended a party at the mansion with a high school friend.  Hefner seduced her that night, although it seems pretty clear she allowed that to occur, and she rapidly went on to being his principal concubine.

As one of those interviewed, with Sondra Hefner was allowed to do things that he wouldn't be allowed to do with "a grown ass woman".  The house descended into complete and disgusting depravity, the likes of which I'll generally omit, with Hefner often forcing what amounted to a show of which he was the voyeur.

There's a real lesson in here.  Hefner claimed, during his lifetime, that he wanted to be part of a movement of his age redefining society's relationship with sex, but he never had anything deeper than that to say about it.  It's pretty clear he was just a self-centered egotistical weirdo, and in fact at one point was interviewed praising being self-centered.  With the rails off, which seem to have come fully off with Benton's departure, he collapsed into full scale depravity of the grossest sort.  To a very large degree, the same thing has happened with American society.

Being fascinated with a person's own lust really isn't an ethos, but a recipe for destruction.  That happened to Hefner's character, and it was inflicted on a lot of those around him.  It couldn't have happened but for independent developments in the 1960s, including pharmaceutical ones.  The central figure of this episode, his girlfriend from 76 to 81, was frank that she never recovered from her experience in those years. A larger societal recovery may be going on, but it hasn't fully occurred by any means yet.

Continued, Episodes 6, 7, 8 & 9.

I haven't updated this for some time for a variety of reasons, including that the war in Ukraine has been going on, and we're tracking it on the blog, which takes up more blogging time than a person might suspect.

Additionally, however, these episodes seemed to flow together in some ways, so I held off.  Indeed, in doing that I might have messed up as I'm losing track of the count of the episodes.  Nonetheless, what I'll note is that this series remains well worth watching.

What we've learned since the last reviewed episode is as follows.

Episode 6 dealt with corporate Playboy.  I'll confess that this seemed unlikely to interest me, but it did turn out to be interesting.  Playboy, in reaction to protests against it by feminist in the 1970s, claimed to be supportive of women as part of its propaganda, but not surprisingly, working for the company as a woman was a nightmare.

That episode particularly focused on the story of Micki Garcia, who was heavily interviewed for this episode and who appears in others.  Highly articulate and obviously very intelligent, she made a career decision to go from modeling over to Playboy as it seemed like an economically wise decision, becoming one of the first Hispanic centerfolds.  Following that, she worked into being head of Playboy productions, which sent playmates and bunnies out as rented window dressing for events.

Garcia revealed in an earlier episode that she was raped at one such event herself.  In turn, and not surprisingly, she found that her charges were continually subject to everything from heavy sexual pressure to outright rape, with one model who was featured having been kidnapped for a time.  She attempted to bring this to the attention of management and was, in turn, marked as a bit of a pariah inside the organization. She finally broke with it and testified to a Congressional committee about the true nature of the organization, and how its charges were subject to such things, as well as the drug use that went on.  She became its outright enemy, which was a subject of the following episode, number 7.

P. J. Marston was also featured in episode 6, detaining how she transferred to Playboy headquarters for a time in Chicago. She also protested in favor of her charges, Playboy bunnies, and as a result was transferred to New Jersey where she wouldn't be a problem.  She detailed how certain figures at the corporate headquarters routinely grouped and whatnot the female employees.  She also detailed being raped by a corporate employee while employed there.  In the following episode, she detailed having been drugged and raped by Bill Cosby.

Episode 7, which we've led into (if I have the numbers right) dealt principally with events inside the Playboy mansion, which were horrific.  An epicenter of drugs and perverted conduct, the show started off with the suicide of a centerfold to whom something had happened, but which effectively covered up.  She left a message directed directly at Hugh Hefner, but the story did not become known at the time.  From there,  drug use, voyeurism of Hefner, really perverted sexual conduct, and the individual abusive conduct of some guests to the mansion were discussed.  Physically abusive conduct by James Brown, the former football star, and the now well known weird conduct by Bill Cosby were discussed.  Photos of Roman Polanski showed up, and while there was nothing directed connected with him in regard to the mansion, the attitude of men towards underage girls was noted, with it being asserted that Hefner had taken advantage of a 16-year-old friend of his daughter.

The following episode dealt with a series of "mini mansions" that were satellites of the central one. These seem to have come about during a period of time during which the main mansion was under control during one of the periods of time during which Hefner was married, and accordingly his centerfold wife put a halt to the conduct at the main mansion.  At the satellites, however, the conduct carried on, with the women features at them principally being young women who were lured into them, often drugged while there, and induced with claims that they'd be given modeling contracts.  The daughter of Hefner's physician who lived in the mansion claimed in one of these that one such young woman, an Eastern European, died during one such party and her body was removed, and she was basically never heard of again, with her father showing up some time later about her whereabouts.

In this episode there was speculation, and that is what it was, that the relationship between Hefner and his physician was itself sexual.  It was all speculative in nature, but Hefner did not in an interview that was run that he had experimented with homosexuality.  The physician is still living, and married, and denies that there was any sexual relationship.

Overall, what these series of episodes demonstrated was an ongoing highly abusive view of women, with all sorts of outrages perpetrated against them.  Garcia commented in the end of this series of episodes that she thought Hefner hated women.  Playboy certainly doesn't treat them as human beings, but as objects, indeed destructible toys.

These episodes do bring up, however, a point we've noted on this blog earlier.  Garcia and Marston were willing participants for at time in the horror that they saw going on. Granted, they tried to address it, and are trying to do so now, but nonetheless to at least some degree they were facilitating the abuse that they saw occurring.  How they allowed this to occur is hard to understand. At least Marston seems to have convinced herself that she could do good within the organization and that its underlying mythology wasn't a lie.  Garcia seems to have been much less deluded and became marked within the organization as a result.  Still, it's hard to grasp.

Episode 10

Episode 10 was clearly meant to be the final installment  of this series, although there are now two additional ones. We'll deal with those as epilogues.

This episode focused on the story of Dorothy Stratton, a Playboy model who was murdered in 1980.  Her story was used to tell the story of rape at the Playboy mansion, with the rapist being Hugh Hefner.

Stratton was regarded as an exceptional beauty when she was introduced to Playboy by a boyfriend, and she was undoubtedly a very beautiful woman of a certain type.  Like many in her category who fell into this world, she ended up a resident of the Playboy mansion, where she drew the unwanted attentions of Hefner.  At the same time, she drew the attentions of Peter Bogdanovich, the direction and actor, who cast her in the film They All Laughed.  However, just shortly after it became clear that she's become a major Playboy model, if not more, she married her boyfriend, thereby setting up an odd love triangle, as Bogdanovich's interest in her quickly became romantic.  

According to Bogdanovich, who later wrote a book about her, something forced and gross happened to Stratton at the Playboy mansion.  Discounted at the time, in his book he condemned Hugh Hefner broadly, blaming him for Stratton's psychological decline and Hefner for a wider decline in American culture.  In this episode, what happened to Stratton is developed, with a former butler at the mansion detailing having witnessed her rape by Hefner and confirming that the lights just went out of her after that.  Ultimately, she was murdered by her estranged husband.

The lights going out of women and rapes were not limited.  Another former model, who discussed her experiences in earlier episodes, related in this one that she too was a resident of the mansion. Her photos were taken when she was still 17, and then run when she turned 18, at which time she became a resident of the house.  She related that at some point she was drugged and woke up with Hefner on top of her.  Telling the chief Playboy photographer at the time about what occurred, she was told it was no big deal.

That victim had been a victim of childhood rape, and her recollections were chilling.  An obviously religious woman, she described Hefner's face during the rape ad demonic, a description she meant literally and not figuratively, and related it to the same appearance her grandfather had when he had raped her.  An obviously highly intelligent woman, she appears to still be struggling with what occurred.

Yet another model who was Hefner's main girlfriend for a time, and who has also been a major focus of the documentary, recollected Hefner taking her down the hall, opening a woman's bedroom, and raping the girl while she watched.  Hefner dismissed the entire action with the comment that surely a women wouldn't stay there and not expect to have sex.

Overall, descriptions of how the mental status of young women in the mansion went from lively to burned out due to their experiences there.  And the point was made and demonstrated that Hefner had no respect for women at all.  Indeed, in reality, what Micki Garcia claimed seemed well established, in some fashion he seemed to hate women.

In the very first episode of the series, it was briefly discussed that Hefner related his founding of the magazine to having been rejected by a girl in high school for a date. While psychoanalyzing the dead is always hazardous, it seems that there may be something to it.  That, in some fashion, may have lead to a warped and hateful attitude towards women in which they were merely objects.

The magazine presented that view to the world, and unfortunately, helped the culture to accept it.

Footnotes

*It's admittedly unusual for us to start a review of any kind prior to a series being completed, but here we've done so as the points made, and the horrors revealed, are sufficient to do so.  Additionally, given schedules and what not, its very possible that we may not view the reamining parts of the series.

On this topic, it could legitimately be asked why review this documentary at all, on this site.  Actually, however, its one of the very sorts of things this blog was designed to examine.

The very first entry here claimed the purpose of the blog as follows:

Lex Anteinternet?

The Consolidated Royalty Building, where I work, back when it was new.

What the heck is this blog about?

The intent of this blog is to try to explore and learn a few things about the practice of law prior to the current era. That is, prior to the internet, prior to easy roads, and the like. How did it work, how regional was it, how did lawyers perceive their roles, and how were they perceived?

Part of the reason for this, quite frankly, has something to do with minor research for a very slow moving book I've been pondering. And part of it is just because I'm curious. Hopefully it'll generate enough minor interest so that anyone who stops by might find something of interest, once it begins to develop a bit.

How does this to comport?

Well, the blog has clearly gone beyond "the practice of law prior to the current era" and, as noted before, it theoretically is a sort of blog based research for a very slow moving novel I'm theoretically writing. 

Part of that research has been to take a close look at how life really was in the 1910s, and that's expanded out to how life really was in prior eras. And part of that is social history. 

That's why this topic is very relevant.

All too often, portrayals of the past are based on our concepts of values and outlooks of today, which are very often wildly off base.  For this reason, particularly for badly based historical depictions, social views are expressed from a fully current. . . I wouldn't call them modern, point of view.  As modern in the Western world are blisteringly fascinated by sex, and frankly a pornographic concept of sex, this sort of view is extremely common in works that are ostensibly works of historical fiction.  It isn't limited to this, however.  This also tends to be the case with other common aspects of society, ranging from the roles of women in society, the attitudes towards that, and frequently matters of religion as well.

As somewhat minor examples, just recently I was flipping through the channels and one of the more modern Westerns was on, complete with a female gunfighter wearing trousers.  Well, not very likely.  When women started to actually wear trousers, right around 1900 or so, it was somewhat of a controversial matter, and it required, to put it delicately, an evolution of undergarments.

To give another example, there is a popular television show on Vikings where they are the celebrated protagonists.  To the extremely limited extent I've seen it, which is extremely limited, it not only is completely historically inaccurate, but it's also somewhat hostile to religion, by which would have to mean Catholicism as there was only one Christian Church at the time, divided into east and west though it was.  In reality, the Viking era was heroically Christian and obviously so, so much so that the Vikings themselves, by the end of the Viking age, were Latin Rite Catholics.

On the topic at hand, television and Hollywood have really endorsed a sort of combined Cosmopolitan/Playboy view of women in recent historical dramas, or tend to.  The women tend to libertine and more often than not sterile, in an era when neither was anywhere near true.  Indeed, the irony is that many of our ancestors would regard our current conduct in this arena as not only shocking, but appalling.  The further irony is that in large part the Me Too movement seeks to reach back into this prior era, where the standards they're reaching for were the social standard, even if widely ignored.

1.  It's interesting that to be a "playboy" was originally a type of insult, and remained so to some degree when I was young.  In its original sense it meant a superficial male who played women.  It was sort of a nicer and more superficial way of saying that somebody was a womanizer.

2.  Prior magazines were pretty clearly depictions of prostitutes, with all the nasty vice and lack of personal knowledge that goes with that, or of what were essentially burlesque models, whom the vieweres knew that they could look at, but never touch.

Related Threads:

Lex Anteinternet: De mortuis nihil nisi bonum. M'eh. Throwing rocks at Hugh Hefner . . . I'm not alone in that.

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Cliffnotes of the Zeitgeist Part XXIV. The Female Edition.

Bringing the photographer to heel

Chinese fashion photographer Chen Man has issued an apology to the Red Menace, ummm. . .  rather the Chinese government.

For what, you might ask?

Well, the real reason is likely twofold.

I don't follow fashion photography whatsoever, and I certainly don't associate it with Red China.  But the fact that the Chinese government feels it has to bring the boot heel down on a Chinese fashion photographer, and that there even is such a thing, really says something.

I had to look the photographer up.  Most of her work is extremely Western looking, as in scantily clad women in improbable outfits at improbable locations. But the subjects are Chinese.  That says something about Western culture intruding, even eroding, the Chinese Communist culture which, not all that long ago, only tolerated uniform clothing for men and women.  A woman wearing a Mao suit says one thing.  One posing in lingerie in a restaurant, something else.

Beyond that, however, part of her work is frankly outright subversive.  It's no wonder she's in trouble.  There's a bunch featuring women in traditional Chinese attire who look like they've been beat up, and that they're now deranged and mad.  That's some sort of slam on Chinese culture in regard to women. And she recently did a photo set for Dior entitled "Young Pioneers", riffing off of the Communist youth organization of that name, which features scantily clad women in front of Chinese cultural icons, and which are a little salacious and frankly a bit weird.

It's the ones that showed what one Chinese daily called "spooky" and I agree with the comment depictions of female Chinese that really drew the flak, however.  While none of the brief commentary I saw on it mentioned it, it was impossible not to conclude that many of the women depicted had makeup on which made it looked like they'd been hit in the eyes.  Some of the women looked fit to kill.  Some had freckles, which is also apparently also upsetting to the Chinese as it doesn't fit with their "standards of beauty", which probably misses the point that generally freckles are a Caucasian thing, and if you are Chinese and have them, you probably have some European heritage.

And so the erosion of a heterogeneous, pure Chinese Communism begins.

Brave fashion.

On the above, Christian Dior dropped an image that was "pandering to the West". 

Does Dior do anything that can't be defined as pandering?

This does present an opportunity, however, for social justice. With their big season coming up, boycott Christian Dior. . . forever.

Old exhibitionist

While China was busy suppressing a young fashion photographer, an old American exhibitionist was being photographed topless once again.

This would be long passé chanteuse "Madonna", who came up in music not so much through her pipes but her appearance, which when she was young was sort of Marilyn Monroe like.  She got famous appearing, really, as sort of a dirty version of Monroe, an image aided when it was revealed that she she in fact shared something of Monroe's history in that she'd been photographed nude before she was well known.  Society, however, didn't display the degree of modesty it had with Monroe's failings.

Marilyn Monroe was a beautiful, and tragic, figure.  Madonna has now lived well beyond the years allotted to Monroe, and now has the appearance of a well-kept woman in early old age, which is what she is.  A person could grow into that with dignity, rather than repeat the sins of your youth publically.

Or not, I guess.

The Swedish Short Goodbye

Magdalena Andersson became Sweden's first female prime minister on November 24, and then resigned on November 24.

There was a reason for that, which was that her party's budget failed to pass, and instead a budget advanced by an opposition party that included anti-immigrant aspects passed instead. She resigned as a matter of conscience.  The government was a coalition government.

She's a 54-year-old Social Democrat and avid outdoorsman and mother of two.  By profession, she's an academic economist.  Hopefully she'll be remembered as more than a peculiar political footnote.

No babies

The British Parliament has instructed Stella Creasy to quit bringing her infant with her to the House of Commons.

This is interesting in multiple ways but most of all, perhaps, in that the evolution of the industrial society took men out of their homestead, in the ancient sense of the word, first but starting in the 70s, women.  Feminist celebrated that but at the same time came to regard tiny humans, which we'll call babies here, as the enemies of that development, which they regarded as one that would lead to "fulfillment".

It didn't lead to fulfillment but has meant that most women must now work.  The industrial solution has been to warehouse infants, but a lot of women find that upsetting, and who can blame them?  It's completely contrary to people's natural instincts.  Therefore, the logical step is to bring the infant into work, which in turn causes, as we can see here, a certain element of horror.

But why? 

Well, that's probably not even going to be thought out.  To do so would require a certain acknowledgment that we've built a pretty inhumane world.

Turkeys

Lara Trump claimed on Fox News that the rise in the price of turkeys is a Democratic plot to wipe out shared traditions.

Lucky

Eleven-year-old Liel Krutokop , a volunteer archaeologist in Israel found a coin of pure silver minted in the Second Temple period.  It would date to the year 67 or 68 or so, during the First Jewish-Roman War.

Gender Blind Music

The BRIT Awards, which honor British musicians, have dropped their best male and best female performers awards in favor of just one best.

Lots of people are unhappy about this.

Cliffnotes of the Zeitgist Part 14. The Industrial Revolution and Child Care and other musings.

Children and Forced Industrialization

You've seen them here before, and yes, here they are again.  Migrant farm couples, 1938.

I've come to be simply amazed by the degree to which Americans are now acclimated to the concept that the government ought to pay for things, well, related to sex in some way or another.

Joe Biden's economic "relief" bill, which really addresses a topic that no longer really needs addressing, includes a big boost for pre K childcare.

Why?

To make my surprise, if that's what it is, more plain, what that means is that money will come from taxes (and loans) to help pay for the childcare of people so that they don't have to pay for it, directly, themselves.  

More bluntly, this will make it easier, which is part of what is being boosted as a reason to do it, for those with low incomes to have two working parents, as the thesis is that otherwise they'll have to make economic choices that will be difficult.

First of all, while it makes me sound like a Marxist saying it, isn't it clear that what this amounts to is the forced industrial employment of women?  What hte goal really is, is to make it easier for working mothers to work, which rapidly equates into forcing them to work, which is essentially what our economy had done over the past 70 years.  That is, we've converted from the early industrial revolution economy of forcing men out of their homes to work from eight to twelve hours per day to one t hat now requires women to do the same.  In order to do that we've subsidized all sorts of things to the benefit, essentially, of industry, and now we propose to go one step further.

Indeed, the irony of this is that this is where Marxist and Capitalist come back around and meet.  Early Marxists sought the dissolution of marriage and the collectivization of child care.  That has been regarded s horrific, but that's exactly what industrial economies have done over the past seventy years and the Biden Administration proposes to knock it up a notch.

This isn't just.

It isn't just to force women to leave their children in order to work.  It likewise wasn't just to do that in the case of men, but the level of subsidization evolved into force was lower in that case, although still very real.

It also isn't just to tax people in order to pay for the children of others, except in dire emergency.  People like me who have paid for and raised our own children are now being asked to pay for the care of children we don't remotely know, including children who are raised in circumstances which we wouldn't approve of.  If, for example, we can be taxed to pay for childcare for these children, can we also justly require that they be raised with basic sets fo values, including the value of a two parent home, which quite a few won't have?  No, certainly not, we won't be allowed to suggest that.

I feel this way, I'd note, on a lot of programs in this area, the long lasting ones which provide examples of why going down this path is a bad idea.  I've mentioned the "free and reduced" lunch and breakfast programs before, which directly transfers the duty of feeding children from parent to government.  I know that it had good intentions, all of these things have unthinking good intentions.  The proposals to wipe out student debt or provide free college education also have good intentions, and also are all massively subject to the law of unintended consequences.  What they also are, without it really being thought out, are subsidies for industry in varying degrees.

I know that the ship has sailed on many of these things, the strong evidence against doing them notwithstanding.  It's almost impossible to go back, once these steps are taken.  Americans may imagine themselves in some quarters as being rugged individualist, but even people who imagine themselves to be real libertarians acclimate themselves to such things pretty quickly.  But it is interesting to wonder what would happen if things went the other way.  I.e., if, save for K through 12 education itself, the government simply got out of this area entirely.  Feed your own children, provide for you own children, no subsidies for childcare of any kind, and not even any governmental bodies that seek to enforce child support orders.  Leave it up to the individual.

It'd be really rough for some at first, but I suspect pretty quickly a lot of the old rules would rebound once the burdens returned to the individual.  It might even do more economically than proposals to raise minimum wages would, as lots of families would be back to one breadwinner.

But no, we're just going to keep in marrying the government and making it the big parent.

I should note that probably right away, if anyone reads this, there will be a claim that this is radically traditionalist or something, or maybe anti feminist.  Feminism, I'd note, is a term that's now so broad to pracitically not have a meanning without further refining, but in any event, none of that is intended.

Indeed, I'd note that its already the case that the public sector has, in some instances, taken care of this much the same way that it took care of health insurance during the 1940s.  It's a recruiting incentive.  Some big firms of various kinds have in house daycares so their female employees don't have to worry about finding one and still being able to get to work.

In addition to that, at least by my observation, it's also the case that workplaces have becoming much more child friendly over the years, particularly in recent years.  I never observed children in working spaces when I was  younger.  Never.  Only farms and ranches were the exception.  Now I see them all the time.  Its not unusual at all for female employees to bring children into the office for one reason or another, often for long hours, and for that to result in very little notice.   Therefore, I really don't think that the claim "women will have to choose to go childless" is true, although that no doubt has an economic aspect to it. The poorer you are, the fewer the options.  It's one thing to bring your child into a business office. It's quite another to your job at the bar or restaurant.

I also don't think that this would ipso facto mean an increase in abortions.  Indeed, the current legal trends are towards increasing restrictions in this area as both men and women support increasing restrictions.  And social trends seem to suggest that younger people are less interested in acting like their grandparents who came of age in the 60s and 70s in this area in general.

What I do think, however, is that it forces choices up front and therefore vest "moral hazard" where it ought to be vested, at the individual level.  That probably reemphasizes some old values while combing them with the new economy, which should be done.

It probably won't be, however.

QAnon, Russia and China.

A new report conforms that Russia and China have had a significant role in QAnon's conspiracy theories.

D'oh!

Yup:

A Conspiracy Thesis about Conspiracy Theorist. Qanon is the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service.

Sending Signals

Yes, you've seen this young lady here before as well.

The Natrona County Commission signaled its support by making the county a "Second Amendment Sanctuary County", which actually doesn't do that, and which actually wouldn't mean anything if they did.  

The actual resolution simply states they support the Second Amendment, which we already knew.

There are a lot of such bills circulating nationwide.  None of them have been tested yet, but as the U.S. Supreme Court has taken up a case involving New York's restrictions on carrying outside the home, they effectively will be soon, which may be in the category of people needing to be careful what they wish for.

It should be obvious, fwiw, that local governments opting out of Federal laws, whether they be on firearms or immigration or whatever, can't really be done. The NatCo one doesn't attempt to do that, however.  It's more in the nature of a resolution.

Chow

1918 Trailmobile field kitchen.

I'd really like to try this:

Bear Bomb Burrito.

And this:

Chorizo Burger

And this:

Chili No Beans

Automated shuttle busses in Yellowstone

Electric shuttles are coming to Yellowstone.

Electric transportation is going to be everywhere really soon. This is obvious, even though skeptics still assert it can't happen quickly and that it won't be soon.  It's hear now.

Indeed, this has reached the peculiar point at which skeptics have gone from "won't happen" to "wont' happen soon", which is always the shark jumping moment in a debate.  Now, basically, the skeptics have agreed it will in fact happen, but not soon.

The most recent "not soon" argument comes about in the form of asserting that there are so many petroleum fueled vehicles on the road they can't be replaced soon.  And there's something to that.  Cars last a lot longer than they used to, but people still buy new ones.  Indeed, I'm about the only person I know who doesn't buy new ones.  The electric ones are going to come on quickly, quicker than skeptics would allow, and that process will accelerate as it comes on.

Put another way, lots of people today who have no plans to get an electric vehicle, and maybe even hold the opposite as their view, will begin to change their minds once a one shows up on a neighbor's driveway.  Once two electric vehicles show up, it really begins to change quickly.

Good and bad news from the census

People, and the press, get so used to viewing something one way that to do so in any other fashion is almost impossible, a fact amplified by the reality that the press rarely has a very good grasp on anything as reporters are generalists, not specialists.

The recent census reports that the US population grew at the lowest rate since the Great Depression.  That's really good news, even though the press seems to think it's bad news.

The country is at a point where its current population is probably higher than it ought to be for a host of economic and environmental reasons, but that would require accepting that adding population is bad for the environment, which it is, and that adding population tends to be bad for workers in an advanced economy.  In neither instance are too many willing ot admit that, even though it is true.

Indeed, the population of the US would now be probably declining, like that of much of Western Europe's is, but for our insanely high rate of immigration.  People don't like to admit that either.

As evidence of some of this the local entities that lament a lack of population growth are lamenting it.  Locals from here, however, with more of a grasp on things, are glad of it.

But not for the region. Colorado and Utah are both continuing to see insanely high growth which will convert them, over time, to Ohio. That's not really good.

"The Ethnic Parish"

The hard to photograph St. Joseph's Polish Catholic Church in Denver.

Last weekend, with both of us now fully vaccinated here, and all the kids vaccinated, even though they aren't living here but in the University Town, I went back to Mass and was glad to do so.

A speaker was there, which puts me in the odd situation of hearing a speaker on my first time back for awhile, due to the COVID dispensation.  He spoke on the annual Bishop's appeal.

Later that week I saw a Catholic Twitter feed in which the writer was celebrating the end of the "Ethnic Parish".

Which caused me to recall the Bishop's Appeal.

For modern Catholics in many areas who have never been to an "Ethnic Parish", which would include me to some degree, some explanation may be needed. What is meant by that is the situation which once was very common in which a parish was "Polish", or "Irish", or "German".  That is, most of the people there were from ethnic communities and their faith was part of their overall culture, supposedly.

I'm frankly, I'd note, slightly skeptical on that to a degree, or rather skeptical on the way that is so often presented.  These parishes were never as uniform as may be imagined, although there's certainly something to it.  Indeed, in various places, to include Wyoming, parishes were set up very near existing ones in order to accommodate the ethnic backgrounds of the parishioners.

In spite of what angry Rad Trads may imagine, there was never an intent, as far as I can tell, to wipe out the ethnic parish.  Parishes simply evolved.  And indeed the ethnic parish deep inside a happy Catholic Ghetto that Rad Trads imagine and want to go back to is often still there, it's just moved on ethnically.  Irish neighborhoods became Puerto Rican ones, and so on.  And that process continues on.  If you've been to a Byzantine Catholic church for example you'll find that they're now multiethnic.  Indeed, if you want a real effort to de-ethnicize parishes, the Eastern Orthodox provide a better example as in many places, both following fleeing parishioners from "main line" protestant churches, as well as in accommodating them, and also in simply recognizing they need to be less ethnic as "X-Americans" become "Americans with X heritage", they're making an intentional effort to remain Orthodox while not being tied to an ethnicity.

Still, like most myths, there's an inkling of truth here to a very slight degree, and what that is, is that over the past thirty years or so some have somewhat rejoiced in the decline in what they thought were ethnic parishes, which was also accompanied by the "we're all one family" type of atmosphere.  

Indeed, "Catholic" means "universal", and therefore we are all one family.  The Catholic Church may have had ethnic parishes, but overall, its the most diverse organization on earth by some huge measure.  So, for the historically minded, the recent push here to essentially create an ethnic parish is a bit surprising.  Effectively, its the recreation of ethnic parishes.

This has been going on for some time, in all fairness.  It just hasn't happened here for a really long time.  I frankly don't knw the last time it occurred, and in thinking about it the only really ethnic parishes I can think of are those in Rock Springs and Cheyenne.  A book published about the earliest parish here would have you believe that it was 100% Irish when it was founded, but that's simply incorrect.

Its that which drew my attention, really, to this matter.  It's pretty clear that the Bishop has decided that my old parish will be a Hispanic one.  I get what he's attempting to do and I'm not opposing it, but it does leave those of us who have deep roots there sort of homeless, although I probably only think that now as I've gotten sort of oddly sentimental as I've aged. Truth be known, while I was baptized in that parish, and both my parents had their funerals there, and our wedding was there, our second kid was baptized at the across town parish and when our kids were young, we went there as it was more convenient.  Even when I was growing up we often went to the nearby neighborhood parish due to its Mass times.

Indeed, as a kid our house was closer to that parish than the downtown parish, although vehicle wise it was more of a chore to get to.  They were effectively equidistant.  Where I live now they all are equidistant.  Anyhow, I find myself in the position of being hypocritical in commenting here, and both understanding and lamenting the change.  Having said that, I've already gone over to the across town parish as it has the earliest Mass and because I don't speak Spanish, which is increasingly becoming the utilized language downtown.

Artist Evolution and Blond Bombshells

Marylyn Monroe, who never went out of style, fairly obviously.

One of  the really interesting things about things about youthful musical acts, particularly female ones, is that, at some point, they must reinvent themselves or they cease to be.  "Madonna" can't be a nearly nude pop tart flirting with the profane forever.  Miley Cyrus has to evolve away from being "Hanna Montana".  Katie Perry couldn't apparently be a limited venue Christian singer.  Taylor Swift can't be a cute childish country star her entire career.  You get the picture.

Sometimes, I'm pretty convinced, a careful handler manages the evolution. Sometimes the artists do it on their own.  It's hard to know whether there's a Col. Tom Parker in the background all the time or not.

Billie Eilish is very clearly undergoing this.

I don't like her music at all, so I don't follow her much, but her visage is on my Twitter feed today and the pattern is now clear.

Eilish got started as a pouty seemingly semi distressed teenager who wore way too much clothing.  About a year ago, she started stripping herself of her clothing, and now she's let her hair go blond, if it is blond, or dyed it blond if not.  Anyhow, she's good looking in the 1950s Marilyn Monroe sort of way, which is to say full figured and good looking.  Her music not be changing, but she's plastered on the cover, apparently of the British edition of Vogue pretty much falling out.

I'm frankly of the view that her original persona was irritating.  I don't know what to think of this, however.  It'd be nice to think that a female pop artist could be out there without being, no matter what her songs may represent, sex.  That day, however, doesn't seem to have arrived.  At least she's clothed, however, and moving towards a highly glamourous persona.  Chances are some handler is purposely recalling Monroe, Loren and the early Cardinale in order to try to send the message that she's an adult.

One message she is sending is that there's a lot of "sexual misconduct" in the entertainment industry. This isn't news, but at least she's saying something.  Her comment to British Vogue basically read as an entitlement of sexual immorality, which would actually be a species of real progress coming from that quarter.  Perhaps its not entirely surprising, however, given that her generation has pretty much had it with things Boomer, of which the Sexual Revolution is part.

It's also interesting to see how the more classic concept of the female form has seemingly returned. Eilish isn't thin  and isn't fat, and is just nice looking.  If she can pull off not sounding and appearing like a Woke Siren, maybe that will be progress.  If so, she'll join some other recent female media figures who are making some shift uncomfortably in their seats, such as Keira Knightly.

Cliffnotes of the Zeitgist Part 13. Nature and Homo Sapien Sapien

It ain't your Disney Nature

Okay, this isn't relevant, but I have posted a lot on the Punitive Expedition, and I hadn't seen this cartoon before.

Headline:

'Mad Men' star January Jones 'forced to bludgeon' a rattlesnake after one bit her dog. 

Good for her.

I don't know who January Jones is, and I've never seen Mad Men.  I'm probably the only person on earth who has not.  I'm not going to either as the concept of a drama based on advertising executives bores me.  I think it was probably popular in the first place as people who are young enough that the 50s and 60s seems like ancient times are fascinated by the second half of the 1950s and the first half of the 1960s, wich are "the 50s" in our imagination.

Indeed, while that diverts from this, its interesting how nobody thinks of the first half of the 1950s in this fashion.  The Korean War, for example, wasn't fun.  Or glamorous.  And American Graffiti is set in 1962, even though everyone seems to think it was set in the 50s.  It wasn't.  Indeed, it was filmed in 1973, which is really remarkable, as it was nostalgic about a prior era that was clearly separated from the one it was filmed in, and that era was only a decade prior.

Anyhow, rattlesnakes kill and they're snakes.  You need to watch out for them. That a member of the Hollywood set would beat one to death is a good sign.

I'm sure she'll get complaints.

The guy who tossed a bobcat out from under his wife's car probably will get complaints too. He shouldn't, but he was pretty lucky that worked out for him really.  I like cats, but I wouldn't want to tangle with one.

Will somebody turn off the microphones please?

Headline:

Trump goes after McConnell, Fauci in off-script Mar-a-Lago speech

Somehow Donald Trump, after driving the GOP into the ground following his defeat in the election, has managed to retain a following.  What the crud?  It's truly amazing.

The Republicans ought to be irate right now with Trump.  He ruined their changes of keeping the Senate.  Somehow, he still gets air time.  This is a bit like some somewhat inebriated guy who was offered to give a toast failing to get off the stage after starting to tell embarrassing stories about the bride and her family.

Turn off the mike already before things get worse.

Of course, this may be because there's nobody who can seemingly carrying the populist standard.  There are some populist candidates right now, but either they're politically unattractive in some ways, or just get more or less ignored.  It's interesting.

On this topic, Trump was interfering with Wyoming politics this past week as well.  He announced that he was assessing the candidates who will run against Elizabeth Cheney and will endorse one of them, but he's not sure which.  It won't matter, that candidate is going down in defeat.  He also endorsed the head of  the state's GOP in that role, which isn't too surprising as that person has been such a big backer of his.

All this while the GOP in D.C. is trying to distance itself from Trump, with Biden opening up some doors for them in that regard.  They'd get further if Trump wasn't in the news.

Burn Notice

Matt Gaetz, not Michael Weston

A Trumpite and Cheney opponent who has been getting a lot of air time, first welcome, and now not, is asserting that the "Deep State" is after him.

The Deep State is a hard right concept that bureaucrats deeply entrenched in office operate to keep themselves in office from administration to administration as they're primary goal and that they basically function to override democracy.  

As with most better myths, there's an element of truth to this as bureaucrats really are deeply invested in their own jobs and tend to, at some point, value them above everything else. And many do indeed ride out careers over multiple administrations.  Making it that way was a goal of reform in the early 20th Century when Civil Service rules were put in place such that entire groups of bureaucrats didn't loose their jobs when high offices went from one party to the other.  Before that, they were all subject to patronage, which still exist to some degree, but not anywhere near to the degree which it once did.  None of that is particularly sinister however.

A bit beyond that it can be the case that career civil service people will dislike an administration. That's pretty common as well.  But the conspiratorial assumptions that get attributed to this are largely unmerited.  Not only that, but they fed into a Q Anon belief that everything was in control of some sinister forces, which simply isn't true.

Anyhow, Matt Gaetz says that he "may be a cancelled man", and, moreover he may even be cancelled by the "Deep State".  This really feeds into that conspiratorial nonsense.  

It's also part of the times now in a way that was trailblazed first by Donald Trump  but more perfectly by Governor Cuomo.  During the recent "Me Too" episode it was pretty clear that an accusation alone, unless it was flat out false or flat out unprovable, was the end of a public person's career.  Trump just ignored such accusations against him, however, and they didn't stick.  Cuomo denied them but has flat out refused to resign.  Gaetz is following the Cuomo playbook but ramping it up.

Did Gaetz do the icky things he's accused of?  I have no idea, but we'll probably all get to find out.  At any rate, a man who is so modelesque as himself really ought not to be trusted, in my view, as there's something wrong with that, and it has nothing to do with the "Deep State".

Dignified Schadenfreude

Somebody who has a right to really gloat right now is Liz Cheney.  Gaetz went after her in a major way after her vote to impeach Cheney. Now, as noted above, Gaetz isn't fairing so well.  

Cheney was asked about Gaetz and Trump on this weekends Face the Nation, which I don't normally watch.  She was first asked about Trump and pretty much, in as dignified way as possible, and very effectively, seated him next to Jefferson Davis in the nation's list of people whom you wouldn't find seating for even if they slipped you a $50.  Her dissing of Gaetz, however, was simply beautiful.

The hose of Face the Nation is Margaret Brennan, who is pregnant and obviously showing.  Cheney congratulated her right off the bat and Brennan very genuinely thanked her. When Gaetz came up, Cheney noted that the allegations were "disgusting", noting her own role as a mother of daughters, and then basically dumped Gaetz in the category of people you wouldn't want your daughter to be associated with.  It was masterful.

Really not gasping the wiring

The way we'd probably like to remember Marilyn Monroe, if we could. We really can't, however, as she built her career on her figure in a more revealing way than still rather obvious here (with a nice Yaschaflex camera by the way).  From this earlier thread here.  Playboy's co-opting of her body, sold several years earlier to a calendar photographer when she was unknown and desperate, nearly ruined her career, which was saved only by Life magazine determining to beat Playboy to the punch and publishing it first.  Life's parry saved her from an immediate ruined career, but the overall publicity launched Playboy.  In the end, of course, she'd be only one of the lives effectively ruined by Playboy, although her own selling of her image in less graphic form, combined with an early tragic history, played a larger measure in that.

On a somewhat related item to the last couple, a female photographer in town has taken a photo of a group of women in town topless on one of the main streets.  It's supposed to highlight "rape culture".

It won't, and that's an incredibly stupid assumption.

I haven't see it, so I'm unable to answer the question, and I'm not going to look for it out of a sense of decency and also, should I see it, I might know somebody and I don't want that image in my mind.  But here's a news flash for the photographer.

Men like boobs.

And the like them, um that way.

Entire magazine empires generating billions of dollars have been based on nothing but boobs.  Some outrageous percentage of the Internet is basically devoted to boobs, according to people who track such things.  Probably more of the Internet is devoted to boobs, and viewed by males, than any other single subject that may rival it in any sense.

Men, everywhere, like boobs.  Even women tend to be more than a little fascinated by boobs.

Human beings are mammals and mammals.  Of the mammals, primates have the highest sexual dimorphism by quite some measure.  Members of the Homo genus, moreover have the highest sexual dimorphism of the primates.  It's basically off the charts in the animal kingdom.  If you were a space alien and popped down on this planet with no prior knowledge of our species, you'd assume it was two different species the way that you'd note that cattle and sheep are two different species, and one of the things you'd probably note is that one of the species had quite a different body from from the other, and that other was fascinated with it the way that cats are with catnip mice.  The dimorphism extends to our physical bodies in an off the chart fashion, and it also, like it or not, extends to our psychological makeup.

Part of that is that human beings, our species, Homo Sapien Sapien, has the highest sex drive of any member of the primates. So we are the pinnacle, for good or ill, in this category. We're extremely unusual in terms of a mammal, including a primate, in that both males and females are attracted to sexual intercourse outside of the females reproductive receptivity.  Men are, moreover, off the charts on this, and interested pretty much at any time, if the conditions arise.

One of the ways that condition arises, and indeed the primary one for males of our species, is visual. This goes clean across cultures, beliefs and ages.  Basically, men are "turned on" by female bodies.  For this reason vast amounts of time and effort are generated across the globe photographing women without their shirts, without their pants, and without their shirts and pants.

Women, on the other hand, are "turned on" in a different, and perhaps we should say more sophisticated, manner, although its one that students of the topic say is messed with by pharmaceutical birth control.  Women are more receptive "in season" and their minds automatically figure in a bunch of things about men they meet in regard to their suitability for a lifelong, and that's how it is figured, mate.  In other words, when on a  hot summer day a single man is met with a woman in a t-shirt that's revealing, his mind goes through something like "woo wee. . . she's hot. . . look at those. . . , is she nice, do I have anything in common. . woo wee. . . she's hot", where as a female's mind goes through something like "is he nice, is he decent, does he look healthy. . . "  Etc.

Obviously there's more to it than that, but a lot of first encounters are basically of that nature.

Which gets to the photos.

Sure, some female photographer, or even a male photographer, may feel "this highlights rape culture", but that's complete and total BS.  The half of the population you're trying to direct that attention to is going to, no matter, what, think something like "wow, tits. . . now I'll pretend that I'm thinking about oppression. . . look at those tits".

Want to address rape culture?  Show a photo of somebody beat up, somebody in poverty, or somebody in the morgue.

A biology class make help too.

I'm not, please note, saying this is great.  We live in a fallen world.  Providence has made us this way and we have fallen, which means that we need structure in a major way here least we be destructive or miserable.  None of which means that this is not so.

And none of which, by the way, means we don't know that. It's easy to pretend we're stripping for art, or a cause, or whatever.  In the modern era it happens quite a bit. But when those female shirts come off for what we deem a cause, we haven't really forgotten our existential self. We're just suppressing it.

Obsessed.

The Casper Star Tribune is obsessed with the unproven allegations against retired Wyoming Bishop Joseph Hart.

The obsession no doubt stems from his being a Catholic cleric. This doesn't excuse the scandal in the Church that was so much in the news a few years ago and which the Church has now largely addressed.  Indeed, nobody has really been willing to look at the larger issues involved in that which tend to run directly counter to cherished liberal sensibilities on society, and would argue for going in a direction that they don't want to go.

Like a lot of places, Wyoming had a little bit of this story in its field, although like every other place, scandals associated with other religions and institutions of the same nature didn't get that much press here.  It's odd how that occurred, and indeed while its been largely ignored, the evidence remains that these scandals, considered loosely (i.e., with their specifics, which do vary from religion to religion) are just as prevalent in other faiths.  Beyond that, they occurred in other institutions, with the one that plagued the Boy Scouts being the most analogous to the one that struck the Catholic Church.  Overall, it still remains the case that the person by far most likely to be be involved in something inappropriate in this area is a school teacher, not a cleric.  The fact that school teachers, as a body, are by far the biggest danger is given net to not attention at all even though its the biggest risk. That risk probably largely has a different origin, but it's exceeding odd that you'll have instances of school teachers, including female school teachers, who engage in multiple sexual relationship with their students and its always regarded as an individual, not an institutional failing.  Always.

It's actually a societal one.

Anyhow, Bishop Hart has always denied the accusations against him and after multiple investigations he's never been charged.  At some point, people need to move on from this as a story, but neither the local press or Diocese of Cheyenne are, even though in the last instances a legal inquiry from Rome also did not find Bishop Hart guilty of the accusations levied against him.

The practical truth is that once such an accusation is levied, it's impossible to ever restore your reputation.  Its' just ruined.  For that reason, such accusations really ought to always be approached exceedingly cautiously.  False accusations of sexual misconduct are not as uncommon as a person might wish to believe, and even accusations of rape, one of the worst crimes imaginable, have been shown to be completely false over time.  Recently there was an example of a man released from prison here who had served years and years on a false accusation of rape. Whey a person would make such an accusation, I don't know, but it occurred, and later DNA evidence proved it false.  In terms of a religious example, St. Padre Pio, now a very venerated saint, suffered such accusations during his lifetime that proved to be false.

No matter, the Tribune is now basically accusing the local district attorney of dropping the ball on the last attempt to prosecute and the Cheyenne police are complicate in the effort.  The Trib is throwing rocks at both institutions and basically asserting that the Bishop is guilty, even though multiple district attorneys have passed on a prosecution.  

People who aren't in the law aren't really aware how inclined prosecutors are to charge in general.  They aren't hesitant.  When they actually don't, there's a good reason they aren't.  

No matter, the Trib has decided guilt here and that's enough for them, and probably most of their readers.

The Diocese of Cheyenne cant' seem to give this  up either, which sort of oddly places them on the same train as the Trib.  I've written about that before, but during this era of pandemic, the Diocese has done a very poor job in reaching out to their current parishioners, while doing a really good job of keeping everyone apprised of its current views on Bishop Hart.  What is seemingly missing here is that most Catholics here weren't here when Bishop Hart was the Bishop. Quite a few of them weren't alive, and many of those who were, were either very young or living in a different Diocese.  Bishop Hart has almost no relevance to any Wyoming Catholic today.

Coronavirus and the Diocese failing to reach out to its flock do.

On a slightly related matter, news has broken that Boston's PD may have covered up multiple allegations of sexual molestation by one of its members, who was also a union rep, back in the 1990s.

You haven't heard of that?  It's funny what scandal related stories get lots of press and those which don't.  Police departments have certainly been in the news a lot recently, but not for this sort of stuff, and they more or less still are not.

One heck of a towing bill

The Ever Given is being held by Egyptian authorities until the price tag for the recent Suez Canal incident can be worked out.  It's a huge bill, something like $1B.

It reminds me in a weird sort of way of what happens when cars are towed off.

This was on my mind anyhow as somebody parked in my parking spot for two days running.  It miffs me when somebody parks there as I have to park in somebody else's spot when that happens and I have to guess which one is actually free to park in.  One day is bad, but two days?

This isn't a good sign as usually when this starts to occur its somebody who is living downtown and is under the assumption that a private parking lot is public, or is just flat out ignoring it, so it tends to repeat.

New Mexico opts for stupefaction

Joining the North American rush to make the general populace stupefied, New Mexico has become the latest state to legalize marijuana.  

There's no good evidence that we need to numb the population any more than it already is, or at least none to suggest that this produces a positive result.  It's distressing that moving in this direction is becoming an overwhelming trend.  The entire culture seems intent on self medicating itself.

Calculating risk

On medications, the Johnson and Johnson vaccine was pulled due to a risk of blood clots that's way below that of being struck by lightening.  

I guess the medicos must do what they do, but there's already a fair number of Americans who aren't getting the vaccinations even though almost all of them have been vaccinated for something else in the past.  Indeed, its heavily concentrated, oddly enough, by region and political party, even though the leaders of both parties have endorsed vaccination.  

I had a conversation with somebody on this who is up in the age group that ought to get vaccinated but is "going to wait".  I never could get a clear explanation on what they were waiting for, but what this caused me to recall is that there are pharmaceuticals out there with really demonstrated risks that people freely accept the risk for without a second thought.  Birth control drugs are one.  They actually have pretty significant risks of all sorts, but nobody really bothers to ponder that as we don't want to.  COVID 19 vaccinations, on the other hand, have low risks that people are over weighing.

We can't shovel snow?

The recent snowstorm before the last series of storms cost Casper $500,000.  It's thinking of asking for help from FEMA.

It seems weird to ask the Federal Government for emergency funds for something like this.

The Famous

The Gibson Girl.

 

The other day one of my partners noted that his assistant had reported that she "had seen Jeffree Star".  I paused as that means nothing to me.

Then one of the local news outlets reported that one Jeffree Star and his close friend had been an automobile wreck the other day.  This is not surprising as the weather had been crappy and the roads bad.  Lots of people had wrecks.  Most of them didn't make the news however.  

As far as I can tell, Star is famous for being famous.  Without bothering to research him, he's apparently a media personality who combines being a transvestite with outrageous and reportedly racist opinions. At some point during the later period of the Trump Administration he moved here out of the misimpression that Wyomingites harbor views similar to his.

In reality at least the natives do not, but those of us who are natives or who are regional natives are admittedly getting very tired of being told what we think by those who have moved in here in recent years and harbor similar misimpressions.  It's getting pretty silly.  Just a few weeks ago a politician here insulted Elizabeth Cheney for not living here when the same person moved in here and isn't a native either.  

There's no doubt however that something strange is in the air now days.  The primary weltanschauug of the region and particularly the state used to be "I don't care what the crap you do, just leave me the heck alone.".  This is quite a bit different from the populist view that's been circulating in recent years.  Indeed, I can recall back in the late 1980s when I was finishing law school (it seems amazing to realize that it was that long ago) that some group tried to move into a Wyoming community in the northern part of the state that espoused racist ideas and met with a huge protest that basically drove them out of town.

We're rednecks, basically, not racists.

I don't know about Star as I'm disinterested in him, and I'm amazed that people are interested in him, but I note that as he apparently says some awful things.  But I also don't get the entire class of people who are famous just for that.

Not that this is a new thing, really.  Just a couple of months ago on a daily update regarding 1921 I  noted a person who was basically famous for being famous.  In another sort of way the entire character represented by Holly Golightly, whom I also mentioned in a recent thread, also was that sort of person, albeit in fiction but apparently at least somewhat based on reality.

Social media and Youtube, combined with television, has really unleashed the floodgates on this however.  Early media took the vulgar and made some of its participants famous, as when Barbee Benton transitioned from being one of Playboy's big boob models to being Hugh Hefner's girlfriend to being some sort of actress, something that wouldn't have happened quite so seamlessly, or at least openly, in an earlier era.  But now those steps are really skipped.  

To add a bit, this reminds of a natural view of the world.  Some women who has a vlog on fashion has one, that's really well done, on female beauty in the first half of the 20th Century that tracks media images, such as the Gibson Girl and the movie starlets, against the actual times.  It's pretty though provoking, starting off with the fact that in 1900 when the Gibson Girl was the standard, 40% of women were employed in rough menial work.  We've noted this before in regards to the evolution of women's employment.  So there's the image, and theirs the reality.

Reality for good or ill is reality, and we ought to be real.