BROKEN: Power is pornographic
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BROKEN: Power is pornographic

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Among the myriad ways to categorize people is one I have developed over the course of my life. It has to do with the paradigm a person subscribes to. That is, is this person about power or is he or she about freedom?

I have found that people usually fall into one of those two camps. Not always, of course, and there’s flow back and forth. Even people who believe in freedom can race into a power struggle when they feel unsafe.

As a general thing, people who seek power are looking for power over other people. They tend to develop skills for manipulation, currying favor, seduction, and insinuation, especially the sly delivery of a put down or a compliment, the aim of either being to control the other person’s feelings and achieve a desired result.

Power-mongers’ diction will be full of phrases like “squash them like a bug,” “hold them in the palm of my hand,” “grind them to dust,” “kick their ass,” “beat them to a pulp,” etc. You get the idea. This soul-less paradigm sees people as either winners or losers; other people are objects to be used, objects who either gratify or thwart the power-monger.

People who source themselves in freedom take a different approach. They look for mutuality and reciprocity, for the “win-win” solution, for everyone to feel seen and validated. Their language sounds different, you can hear it immediately. There’s reference to inclusiveness and respect, respect for both self and other people. “We’re in this together” and “let’s resolve this.” Words tend to be courteous. Praise is given out of kindness or because it’s earned, but not to sway the other person into a desired behavior. Notice that “kindness” and “respect” are the operative modes.

I think it takes a lot of inner strength to choose to seek freedom. It takes faith, perhaps even a certain amount of enlightenment. I think it’s a choice each person has to make regularly, because in the flow of life, we regularly encounter challenges and tests. Who are we going to be? It’s the question we face every moment as we choose our paradigm, our Source.

I’m deep in the next draft of this WWII novel of mine, BROKEN. It’s brought up all these reflections because the second world war perfectly embodied issues of power and freedom. That is, the Nazis sought power over other people–over just about everyone. And they were perfectly willing to take away the freedom of anyone who disagreed with them, or anyone who bore the “stigma” of Nazi projections of inferiority: Jews, gays, Gypsies, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Poles, Socialists, Communists, etc.

The Nazis believed in an embedded hierarchy that their god had established. I have come to understand that the belief in an external, hierarchical, gendered god–and by gendered I mean patriarchal–is the origin of a great deal of evil in the world.

So here’s the next draft of the cover of BROKEN.

Power is pornographic

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Identity Theft

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A blog post on Identity Theft.

Someone I know used my name to send a gift to a third party. Then my private email was posted to that transaction. All of this without my foreknowledge.

This person who committed this act is generally a good person–intelligent, well-meaning, generous, well educated.  Deleted: Subsequent actions by this person showed that this person is bat-crap psycho crazy.

But this breaching-of-my-privacy shocked the hell out of me. Not even my husband would sign my name and private email without asking my permission first. He certainly would never impersonate me.

Almost certainly, the person who did this does not know how much I am invested in privacy. That’s one of the reasons I stopped supporting Obama: his big brother NSA scanning my emails just didn’t work for me.

I’m actually shocked that so few people are complaining about Obama’s NSA tactics. HAS NO ONE READ 1984 by George Orwell?????? Here’s what Wikipedia says about that novel:

“Nineteen Eighty-Four, sometimes published as 1984, is a dystopian novel by George Orwell published in 1949.[1][2] The novel is set in Airstrip One (formerly known as Great Britain), a province of the superstate Oceania in a world of perpetual war, omnipresent government surveillance, and public manipulation, dictated by a political system euphemistically named English Socialism (or Ingsoc in the government’s invented language, Newspeak) under the control of a privileged Inner Party elite that persecutes all individualism and independent thinking as “thoughtcrimes“.[3] “

Substitute “USA” for “Airstrip One” and “racism” for “thoughtcrimes” and you’ve got a near perfect picture of the dystopia we are currently experiencing under the far left.

It is clear to me that the far left and the far right meet in one place: Totalitarianism.

It’s also clear to me that the far left has created the deadlock in our political system. By insisting that anyone who disagrees with Obama’s far left agenda is racist, they’ve given the right no where to go and nothing to lose. It’s so terrible and horrific to be racist that the right is left with no options except to dig in their heels and refuse to negotiate.

I saw “All the way” on Broadway this week, and I was left in awe of LBJ’s effective use of the fine, calculated art of horse trading. He got things done, important things, because he was willing to negotiate.

I won’t talk about his coarseness and vulgarity as a human being because I have a soft spot for those sorts, anyway.

Unfortunately, the far left has prevented negotiation in our political system by insisting that anyone who does not believe as they do is a bad person (racist).

Even as recently as this week, someone asked me what I would have preferred Obama do while in office. I gave a well-thought-out and coherent answer, which included: 1, going after the Health Insurance companies instead of the states; 2, reining in the NSA and ensuring citizen privacy; 3, supporting the growth and wellbeing of American small businesses instead of foisting wealth redistribution on the struggling middle class; 4, regulating and TAXING large, multi-national corporations that function as sovereign nation-states without accountability or oversight; and 5, not bailing out Wall Street, or if he had to because he is a liar and a corporate pimp of the sleaziest variety, then sending the CEO’s of Wall Street firms like Goldman Sachs TO JAIL.

Naturally, the specter of racism came up. The far left simply can not grasp the concept that people who are NOT racists would want different policies than the appalling socialist ones Obama has instituted. And in that failure, they, the far left, have created the current deadlock.

Nothing is getting done, no horse trading is accomplishing anything, because the far left has given themselves a monopoly on the high ground. It’s a big political mistake.

Back to my personal issue. The company from whom the gift was ordered did not know, and could not know, that I was not the person ordering the gift. It’s hard to know who is who on the internet. Anyone could pretend to be me.

But to have someone I know pretend to be me? Shocking. Horrifying.

And it led me to think about people who experience far more than I do–people who are the victims of the kind of identity theft that costs them cold, hard cash and then time and energy to straighten out. My heart goes out to those people. I had a small taste of what they feel, and it’s not good.

Even the greats screw up: “The New Yorker Plagiarizes itself” by Paul Brodeur
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Even the greats screw up: “The New Yorker Plagiarizes itself” by Paul Brodeur

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My beloved, feisty friend Paul Brodeur wrote an incisive, thought-provoking article in the Huffington Post. The article concerned the failure of the fact-checking department at The New Yorker to properly attribute a quote from the late Nobel Prize-winning chemist F. Sherwood Rowland.

Paul had reason to make an issue of this failure on The New Yorker‘s part to do the right thing: the quote has been taken word-for-word from an article Paul himself wrote for The New Yorker.

Read the article here. Even the greats screw up. Looks like The New Yorker ought to do the gracious thing and acknowledge their error–and properly attribute Paul.

 

My New Post on the HuffPo: Censorship, Eros & Assplay
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My New Post on the HuffPo: Censorship, Eros & Assplay

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Censorship, Eros & Assplay

I wrote an article about my iTunes censorship experience and the HuffPo ran it.

Censorship, Eros & Assplay

by ,   Author

 

iTunesconnect ticketed my new novel The Love of My (Other) Life, denying it access to the unlimited pleasures of worldwide distribution through iTunes. The reason: the cover art was deemed “inappropriate.”

Truthfully, it is a saucy cover: a woman’s slim, sinuous back, dropping into the juicy plumpness of her ass.However, as I pointed out in an email to the iBookstore, there isn’t even real nudity, just the fleshy part of a derriere.

This cover is not explicit. It’s artful, taken from a black-and-white photo. The faceless woman’s back spirals around a bit, as if she’s turning with an unseen, but beguiling, smile. You can see more any day on the side of a city bus, or watching Jersey Shore. It’s what’s suggested that is suggestive, eg, inappropriate. This is a lush, sweet ass, begging to be fondled. By the eyes, and by whatever else.

This is the invitation of eros. I think it’s still a forbidden frontier, even in our over-exposed, boringly unsubtle, 50 Shades of Grey culture. It’s all too confusing, this softness and sweetness, the playful surrender of a woman to her lover. Not because he’s spanking her and tweaking her nipple and she’s a hapless virgin at the mercy of some kinky damaged billionaire. But because sex is neither politically correct nor is it hapless.

For many women, falling off the cliff into bliss requires boneless surrender.

. …

Check it out here.

Censorship, Eros & Assplay

 

The Epoch Times: Saving the Eisenhower Monument
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The Epoch Times: Saving the Eisenhower Monument

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The Noted EPOCH TIMES published an article about the controversy surrounding architect Frank Gehry’s design for the Eisenhower monument, and my husband Sabin Howard’s classical proposal for it.

It’s a great piece that is aptly summarized by its subtitle: “While modern design is stalled, classical vision is put forward.”

“It should not be first about the artist, which it is for Gehry, as in, ‘Look there’s Gehry’s memorial.’ Most people do not know the names of the architects or sculptors of the world’s renowned monuments but they do experience those artists’ profound hopes and aims,” wrote painter Patrick Connors.

Power and Simplicity

Last week, classical sculptor Sabin Howard made public his concept for a more traditional monument that focuses, with power and simplicity, on Eisenhower.

He said he originally put forward the plan in the summer at the request of Gehry himself but was misled about it being used, and it was eventually ignored.

Raised in both Italy and New York, Howard is an accomplished sculptor of 30 years who sees himself carrying on the traditions of great masters like Michelangelo. He knew what was wrong with the current memorial design as soon as he laid eyes on it.

“When I saw the memorial models, my heart sank. The project was trying to reinvent the wheel with newness, and it was missing the point entirely. Components were stiff and compartmentalized like a natural history museum exhibit. There was no focal point, but a lot of elements that did not work together to deliver a unified visual message,” Howard wrote in his blog on Dec. 7.

Instead of having 80-foot metal tapestries dominate the work, Howard suggests the statues of Eisenhower with his troops be changed into an 18-foot-by-11-foot relief and be reworked to show a clear sense of hierarchy and narrative.

“Eisenhower would be sculpted in the foreground in high relief. … The troops would be situated farther away, smaller, and in lower relief. Eisenhower would not only stand out as more important, he would also be more luminous. He would spatially project out more and catch more light,” wrote Howard. “He would be part of the men, and he would also stand out as their leader.”

Read the article here.

 

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NO DUMP AT E 91 in NYC! STOP SPEAKER QUINN FROM DESTROYING THE AREA!

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STOP SPEAKER CHRISTINE QUINN FROM DESTROYING ASPHALT GREEN AND EAST-HARLEM-YORKVILLE! THE PROPOSED DUMP ON E 91 WILL HARM THOUSANDS OF CHILDREN, ELDERLY, AND AREA RESIDENTS AS WELL AS POLLUTE THE EAST RIVER! IT IS HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS OF DOLLARS OVER-BUDGET!
http://sanetrash.org/

Garbage dumps don’t belong in residential neighborhoods

PLEASE email or call Speaker Christine Quinn today at 212 564 7757 and tell her that we are holding her, as city council speaker, directly responsible for this proposed atrocity, which is a substantial threat to the health and safety of thousands of children and area residents, and will significantly compromise the public’s use of asphalt green and our parklands.

Christine Quinn  (Speaker)
Staff: (212) 564-7757
Legislative office: 212 788 7210
speakerquinn@council.nyc.ny.us

NO OTHER TRANSFER STATION ANYWHERE IN New York City poses such a direct threat to the health and safety of thousands of children and area residents.

The proposed dump will cost the city over $554.3 million of taxpayer money– $335.4 million more than the current cost!

Residents for Sane Trash Solutions