The Gonzo Journalism of Brian Josepher

Talking Sex, part II

Talking Sex, part II

I’m devoting December 2008 to a new series, a sex series. I’m talking sex with a variety of volunteers, spanning age, ethnicity and nationality. It’s an international, interdenominational, multigenerational sex yak of sorts.
The idea sprung from the thoughtful mind of Dr. Ingrid Pearcenik, a licensed Los Angeles sex therapist. Pearcenik, who drops the “r” at her clinic and goes by Peacenik (if you’re on the west side of Los Angeles and you’re looking for a healing kind of sex therapy, check out Peacenik’s on Pico), originally suggested, “Why don’t you do a series about sex and how the different generations react to it? You know, the definition of sex changes according to your age. An 18-year-old’s definition is far different than a 90-year-old’s definition. You could interview individuals from different generations. I’m sure it would be fascinating.”
In part I, last week, I interviewed Michael, a 19-year-old college freshman. I ended that interview when Michael’s twin sister, Melanie, walked into the room (on Thanksgiving afternoon, with the courting smells of turkey and stuffing baking in the oven, not to mention the pumpkin pie). This week, rather than offering the interview with Melanie, I’m throwing in a monkey wrench. “What we talk about when we talk about sex” is a fiction. Dr. Pearcenik, or Peacenik if you prefer, calls the story, “A reflection on sexual discomfort, discomfort with the act, discomfort with the talk, discomfort with the ritual. And it comes with a surprise ending. Quite wonderful, actually.”

What we talk about when we talk about sex

I met Linda in a roadside diner just outside of Cheyenne. Linda approached me with a smudge of bleu cheese dressing on her upper lip. “What will you have?” she asked.
     “A coffee,” I said. I had been driving for hours, days, longer. I was just out of college and working the trucking industry. I spent my days and nights on Interstate 80. Reno to Omaha, Omaha to Reno, a never-ending cycle. Like every driver, I chose a series of rest spots, little corners of the highway that I could call my own. Truck drivers aren’t any different than stationary folk. They want familiarity, history with a place, home.
     Linda returned with the coffee. She was about to make conversation when the bell of the short order cook grabbed her attention. My attention went to my empty notebook. I wanted to write. I wanted to tell stories. I didn’t know how. I stared at empty notebook pages. I fidgeted with a pen. I drank coffee. I drove a truck. I figured, someday, the writing would flow.
     Sometime later Linda returned with the coffee pot, individual-sized containers of creamer in her other hand. She dropped a few on my table. “Are you a writer?” she asked.
     “Yes,” I said, uncomfortably. When do you become a writer? After how many stories? After how many books? When does the definition fit? When does the resisting stop?
     I noticed that the bleu cheese smudge was gone.
     “What do you write about?” she asked.
     “I don’t know,” I answered, “the usual stuff.”
     “What?” she said, “like love and death?”
     “Yes,” I answered.
     “Do you write about sex?” she asked.
     “I’m trying,” I answered.
     “What do you write when you write about sex?” she said.
     The question left me stranded. What do you write when you write about sex? Is sex a position, an emotion, a language? Is sex a craving, a hunger, a haunting? Is sex an exertion, a motion, a thought? Is sex a way of watching, a way of being watched? What do we talk about when we talk about sex?
     The late afternoon turned into the evening and a new waitress refilled my coffee cup. “What happened to Linda?” I asked.
     “Shift change,” she said.
     It was sometime later that I noticed the address written on my bill. “Lime Green Trailer Park. Just across the highway.” The penmanship matched the price of coffee and the other writing on the bill.
     A sign graced the entrance to the community. “The Lime Green Trailer Park. Welcome. Drive Slow. Children at play.” I found Linda’s trailer without much trouble. The Lime Green community consisted of a few trailers, a park bench, an open pit for barbecuing, a gravel field with a swing set. Linda’s trailer was not lime green but discolored, rusted over, blotched. Life near the highway had a corroding effect.
     Linda opened the screen door with a nod. She wasn’t surprised to see me. Clearly, she had other guests on occasions such as these.
     Her home was a simple two rooms. No hallway, a counter for a kitchen, a living room, a tiny bedroom. She used the bedroom as a dressing room. There was a desk in there with a mirror attached and all sort of products neatly arranged.
     I sat on a brown corduroy couch, a pullout bed within. We sipped vodka with lime. “Where are you from?” I asked.
     “I hate that question,” she said. “I’m here now. You’re here now. What else is there?”
     I felt uncomfortable. I made conversation. “What do you do when you’re not working?” I asked.
     “I watch the sky,” she said. Linda kept a chair behind her trailer, a plastic lounge. She attached a pillow to the seatback. “The Wyoming sky is the best in the world,” she said. “That’s why I settled here.”
     Linda refilled our drinks. She drank Skyy vodka, from a blue bottle.
     “What do you see up there?” I asked.
     “You name it,” she answered. “Clouds, the moon, dirt, air, a little of everything.” I put a hand in my pocket and fingered the condom package. “UFOs sometimes,” she continued. “Or what look like UFOs. Maybe they’re just airplanes.”
     Linda looked at me in a way that I hadn’t expected. I expected energy, fire. I guess that's what I was feeling, thinking about it now. I expected the dance of sex. Who makes the first move? What starts the affair? A touching of hands? Fingers combing hair? A lunging and lip smacking?
     Linda looked at me in a way that suggested faith. She had a secret to share. “Do you wanna watch?” she asked.
     She pulled an air mattress out from underneath the couch and inflated it and dragged it outside. She brought out sheets, pillows, blankets. We watched the sky for hours.
     Every now and then a shooting star crossed our view. She pointed it out and I followed her finger and the night grew quiet and calm. At some point I noticed that she’d stopped pointing out shooting stars. At some point I noticed the deep exhale of sleep.
     I left then. I had a long stretch of highway in front of me.

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Talking Sex: a series

Talking Sex: a series

Some six months ago, as part of my June “mailbag” column, I posed a question to my readership. I was then in the throes of a series on the presidential conventions of the latter half of the 20th century (leading up naturally to the Democratic and Republican Conventions of August and September, respectively) and I asked for suggestions on future series. The responses received were all over the board, from an exposé on Iraq (to partner with my series on Iran) to an analysis of the changing voting demographic in Colorado to a stand-up comedy dissection, comparing comedians today to those from the 1960s and 70s (great idea, Lenny. No, not that Lenny. That Lenny died in 1966.) to a full-scale investigation of the failed nation-state known as Pakistan to a compendium of the top psychics of the 20th century, like Joan Quigley, Nancy Reagan’s medium, seer, and White House staff member.
     While all of these suggestions, and others not mentioned here, are full of potential, I’ve chosen an idea submitted by a Los Angeles sex therapist. “Why don’t you do a series about sex,” Dr. Ingrid Pearcenik wrote, “and how the different generations react to it? You know, the definition of sex changes according to your age. An 18-year-old’s definition is far different than a 90-year-old’s definition. You could interview individuals from different generations. I’m sure it would be fascinating.”
     From Dr. Pearcenik’s suggestion this series springs. Over the next month or so I’m going to talk sex with a spread of volunteers. I’d call them patients, but Dr. Pearcenik thought that was too clinical. At the end of the series, I’m going to sit down with Ingrid Pearcenik and talk sexual activity in the 21st century. Dr. Pearcenik runs a clinic in Santa Monica, where sex therapists are as common as prairie dogs in Wyoming. Dr. Pearcenik, who drops the “r” in her last name and goes by Peacenik (she runs Peacenik’s on Pico: Sex Therapy for the Greater Southland), promises me that she is, in her words, “the top shrink in So Cal.” We will see.
     However, in this first of the series, I’m interviewing a 19-year-old. Michael’s in his freshman year at college. He attends Wellesley in Connecticut. He plays on the lacrosse team. He studies “occasionally.” His word. At age 19, his thoughts tend to skip over academic subjects, and even sports, and go hard in one direction. Mike and I recently sat down for a talk on sex and girls.

Q: So let's get right to it, do you have a girlfriend?

Michael: NO!

Q: Mike, there's no shame in having a girlfriend. Some people even covet one. Not you, apparently.

Michael: I have this friend, Alex, plays on the lacrosse team. Alex says having a girlfriend is like pulling a hamstring. You know, a nagging injury, tough to recover from.

(Laughter on Mike's part, and mine.)

Q: Have you ever had a serious girlfriend?

Michael: No.

Q: What about sex, Mike?

Michael: What about it?

Q: Have you had sex?

(He does not answer. He blushes. Michael has a ruddy complexion. When he blushes, the ruddy goes scarlet.)

Q: You're welcome to say, "It's none of your business."

Michael: It's not that so much. It's just that... well, you know my dad and my mom and I just don't want it getting back to them. You know?

(A disclaimer: I met Michael through his grandfather, and indeed I am friendly with his parents. As a professional, this connection did not influence my thinking in any way. Of that, the reader can be assured.)

Q: I do know. Sex is a private matter. When you think about sex, is there somebody who really gets your heart racing?

(Again, Mike blushes scarlet.)

Q: What about celebrities? You must have a crush on someone?

Michael: Jessica Simpson.

Q: Jessica Simpson, what do you like about her?

Michael: On my god, she's gorgeous. What don't I like about her? You know what I mean?

Q: Actually, I don't. I don't think Jessica Simpson is much to gawk over.

Michael: You're kidding. Why don't you like her?

Q: A lot of reasons, Mike. She projects herself in such an unflattering way. Sex appeal, to me, is confidence, intelligence, strength of character, wit. She has none of that.

(Mike smiles during my answer. There’s a hint of disbelief in his smile.)

Q: Plus she’s a celebrity.

Michael: What’s wrong with that?

Q: I think celebrities are a turn off. To be a celebrity, there's a psychological obsession with being loved. Needing to be loved. I think that need factor is really ugly.

(The smile has not left Mike’s face.)

Q: I know, she has blond hair and a beautiful body.

(Mike nods his head.)

Q: Anybody else, other than Jessica Simpson?

(He can't think of anybody.)

Q: Really? Jessica Simpson is the end all?

(He shrugs his shoulders. He's a one-woman guy, I guess.)

Q: Let's switch subjects. Did your dad have the sex talk with you?

Michael: He tried. It was so awkward.

Q: I remember. My dad took two hours to say about twenty words. And he needed two big glasses of red wine to do it.

Michael: My dad drank a couple of beers. And we watched a football game together. His attention was always on the television screen.

Q: Did you ask him any questions?

Michael: Like what?

Q: The basics, how sex works? What makes a woman aroused? I mean, I’m assuming that you think about sex a lot.

Michael: Yeah but I don’t want to talk about it with my dad. I mean, if you think I’m gonna ask him for like advice you’re crazy.

Q: Where do you go for advice?

Michael: Friends.

Q: And you realize that your friends are all in the same boat as you, sort of wondering about sex without any real experience?

Michael: Well some guys have experience.

(Mike inflates when he makes this statement. He’s a big young man, well over six feet tall with broad shoulders. In his act of inflation, he resembles a hot air balloon filling up and puffing out in a uniform way. Mike can grow right before your eyes.)

Q: Of course, Mike. That’s not what I mean (that’s exactly what I mean). But let me ask you this, if there’s something you don’t know but are curious about, and something your friends don’t know, where do you go for the answers?

(Mike stumbles around in his answer. I’m reminded of Sarah Palin back when Katie Couric asked her the ultimate softball question: Which newspapers do you read? Sarah P. couldn’t name one, though she tried by naming “every one. All of them.”)

Q: Listen, when I was your age, my friends and I used to sit around watching videos. We were curious and the skin flicks offered visual content. What did we learn? Basic female anatomy. What goes where. It was educational.

Michael: Really?

Q: Yes, really. We were not getting off, at least as I remember it.

Michael: How old do you think someone should be to have sex?

Q: Good question. I think we all start to experiment at young ages. I don't think there's a specific age for intercourse. I can tell you that I was nineteen. I wasn't ready before that. I might not have been ready at nineteen. It just kind of happened. And do you know what? I felt relieved. I went to the bathroom afterwards and looked at myself in the mirror and thought, "Well, that's over with." That was the extent of my reaction. Even today, I don’t remember if I liked the experience. I just remember being glad that it was over. No, I misspoke. Not glad. Glad implies happiness, joy. I felt relief. I was through with the anxiety of waiting, the buildup.

Michael: How do you get good at sex?

Q: Good question. Sex takes practice. It's like lacrosse. You become comfortable with the stick. You become comfortable with ball possession. As you get better at lacrosse, you're able to see the whole field. You're not just concentrating on one aspect of the game. You begin to anticipate other players' movements. There's the actual game and there's the mental imaging part of the game. Great lacrosse players are able to play the game out in their heads, and be right about it on the field. Sex is no different. Do you remember when you first began to play lacrosse?

Michael: Yes, I couldn't catch the ball.

Q: Exactly. And then you learned to catch the ball. And you learned how to keep possession. And you learned how to pass, how to defend, how to shoot. It's a process, Mike. But it all begins, I suppose, with a fantasy.

Michael: Yeah.

(He offers this one word with a big, open smile on his face.)

Q: So what do you fantasize about?

(The big, open smile suddenly turns tight-lipped. Muted.)

Q: I fantasize about hair. I love curls. I love curls that fall, sort of haphazardly, over the forehead. I like the way some women brush that curl away.

(Mike’s look reads: That’s weird. Why are you telling me that?)

Q: It’s a fantasy, Mike. You keep it in the cupboard of your mind. You bring it out when you want. We all have our cupboards.

(Mike seems like he’s had enough. He seems like he wants to eat. A disclaimer: it’s a few hours before the Thanksgiving meal and the turkey is cooking in the oven. Eating is on all of our minds.
     But then Mike does that teenager thing and surprises you with a question seemingly from left field. It’s left for you later to connect the dots.)

Michael: Why aren't you married?

Q: Marriage just isn't for me, Mike. Some people need to be married, need to be able to lean on someone. I need my freedom. Actually, it’s not freedom so much as time. I hoard time. I can’t get enough time. I don’t want outside demands on my time.

Michael: Have you ever been married?

Q: No.

Michael: Then how do you know you'd lose your freedom?

Q: Good question. I don't know the answer to that. I can tell you that there are a lot of different ways to live your life. Marriage, children, those are options. So is a life of singularity. So is a life of polygamy, as we've seen lately in the news. So is a life of celibacy. These are choices, Mike. You experiment and you find what's right for you.

(Mike nods his head. His nose suddenly catches a whiff of what’s in the oven. At the same moment Melanie walks into the room. Melanie is Mike's fraternal twin. Mike's older by ten minutes.)

Q: Well, Mike, I thank you for your time and honesty. Melanie, I have some questions for you...

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Ask B, Relationship Expert: a correspondence

Ask B, Relationship Expert: a correspondence

Over the last few weeks, while my attention has swung from the election to the interregnum – to those preposterous comparisons to Lincoln and his cabinet, more on that in a future column but aside from Doris Kearns Goodwin’s sticky sweet biography (her usual fare, perhaps a review of the Doris Kearns Goodwin collection is in order), the first Lincoln cabinet was an abject failure, except for Seward and perhaps Chase for a short period (three Treasury secretaries in Lincoln’s four years, how’s that for continuity? Sounds like Lincoln’s generals); except for Seward and Navy Secretary Gideon Welles (the best name in Cabinet history, Condoleezza is pretty good too), every member of Lincoln’s Cabinet was replaced; War Minister Simon Cameron (arguably the single most crooked of Cabinet appointments, and Lincoln knew this before making the appointment) was replaced within one year (he ran a war worse than Rumsfeld and Bob McNamara, combined) – to this pastor down in Texas preaching his flock to undertake “Seven Days of Sex,” his “Sexperiment” to strengthen marriages, and ease the anxiety of today’s economic climate, such simpleminded thinking it induces a saliva of loathing – aside from all of that, I’ve been corresponding with a woman with a broken heart.
     Dalia – not her real name, which she wants protected, and I’ve recently become a fan of Dalia Sofer, the Iranian writer whose novel of the Khomeini Revolution, The Septembers of Shiraz, is a gem, so the pseudonym of honor is for Dalia Sofer – had her 25th birthday this month. A significant birthday in and of itself, the quarter century mark. At the same time, she found a new job as a securities analyst. Not the easiest job to land in this economic climate. At the same time, she bought a condominium with her serious boyfriend of one year. Ed Young – not his real name, but Ed Young is the pastor in Dallas preaching “Seven Days of Sex,” of his “Sexperiment,” and since I think that idea plays to the lowest intelligence quotient and obfuscates the real emotional fear of the day, which we should deal with rather than pretend to orgasm away, so the pseudonym of disgust is for Ed Young – decided to break it off with Dalia. On her birthday. After the closing of the condominium sale. “Happy Birthday, now I don’t want to live with you. Have a nice life.”
     Dalia’s first letter to Ask B referred to Ed Young’s move as “dick-sucking.” (Please note the connection between Dalia’s word choice and what Pastor Ed Young is asking his flock to do down in Texas, except in Ed Young’s master plan there’s only one kind of sex, vaginal penetration, and only the married can partake. If you’re single, Pastor Ed Young advises you to “try eating chocolate cake.”)
     Dalia’s first letter to Ask B continued, “I was pretty torn up by it [the break up]. But, I have moved on.”
     I didn’t think she’d moved on. I wrote back:

Dear Dalia,
I don’t usually do this but I’ll share a little bit of my personal life here. Exactly one decade ago, I was flying back to Colorado for my father's 60th birthday. I was living in San Francisco at the time and my girlfriend and I were set to tell my family that we were getting married. This would have been a huge surprise to my family. I’m not the marrying kind. On the morning of the flight my girlfriend broke up with me. I was totally blindsided. We were already planning our wedding. And then, just like that, for reasons I couldn’t fathom, the relationship was over. Life, for my ex-girlfriend, moved in lightning strikes.
     Even ten years later, I still find the whole episode totally shocking, though fortunately I attach no emotional weight to it. But I flew to Colorado and I celebrated my dad's birthday. It was a terrible weekend.
     When I returned to California, I took my dog Isaac for a walk in the park. My suddenly ex-girlfriend owned an apartment overlooking the park. As Isaac and I were playing ball, she appeared. Like out of nowhere. Again, lightning strikes.
     I didn't know what to say. She told me that she'd made a mistake. She told me that she wanted me back. I just remember listening. I didn't know what to say.
     I think I finally told her that I'd think about it. I didn't have much to think about. You can't pull a stunt like that and expect a reunion, and the honeymoon that follows. It just doesn't work that way. The reasons for the break up better be thought out and cogent and articulated accurately and permanent. If not, why make the break in the first place?

A few days later Dalia responded:

Dear B,
It appears I got your story a bit late. I was at a conference all day yesterday and just opened my email. . . after running into Ed Young at the conference, going out to drinks and then going home with him. I wish I would have gotten your advice yesterday, as I may have made a better decision. Now, besides feeling like I was hit by a train from the copious amounts of alcohol consumed last night, I also feel like I let him walk all over me, one of the worst feelings imaginable...
     But, I guess it's a good thing that I realize this now, so I can be honest with myself and try to protect my dignity from here forward…

In response, I wrote two emails to Dalia. My initial email was a stab at humor: “Dalia, you should be reading my emails the second they hit your inbox.” My second reaction was a treatise on dignity:

Dear Dalia,
Listen, we all make decisions. There's really nothing wrong with hooking up with someone after the break up. There's also nothing wrong with jumping back into the relationship… if there’s change. There has to be a realization of what led to the break in the first place. There has to be a total respect of one's emotional and psychological makeup and mentality. There has to be equality. It sounds like you lost your equality: I "feel like I let him walk all over me," you wrote.
     So okay, what now? Is he in a psychological place where he can understand and meet your needs, and vice versa? Do your psychologies fit? That's the big question.
     And, yes, you do need to protect yourself and your dignity. Mostly you need to protect your vulnerabilities. Dignity comes from understanding our vulnerabilities and knowing when it's right to be insecure and when it's right to self-protect.
     But nothing is irrevocable. So I wouldn't be too hard on yourself. Nor would I get into this sort of dynamic of break up sex. It becomes a cycle that's hard to break, leaves you empty, and stops you from moving forward. And that's all we can really do: consider our past, move forward.
     Oh, and that consuming “copious” amounts of alcohol with our ex’s: terrible idea.

Dalia wrote back immediately. A few lines to let me know she’d received my email and opened it immediately. She wrote these lines from Ed Young’s house. On the morning after. She promised to write more. She did a few days later:

Dear B,
After writing you, Ed Young drove me to work. After just having a great conversation for the first 30 minutes of the ride, I finally came out and told him that we have to stop talking to each other, that I need closure and that it's not fair for him to treat me like we never broke up, if we are not going to get back together. It was hard. We sat in his car in the parking lot at my office and just held each other for nearly 30 minutes…
     On Saturday, he came by my new condo to gather his things. Again, we both teared up and told each other how much we loved each other… It's all just very weird. I still can't get a grasp on what he is thinking or why he thinks we need to break up. But, I guess I just have to accept it and move on.
     Despite all that is going well in my life, I'm just really sad. I hope that this will get easier once I start my new job and as time goes on. I just hadn't really been into a relationship this much before and that's making it really hard for me to move forward. But, I think your advice is valid. I have to protect my dignity. For that, I need to just call it all off and move on and stop hoping things will go back to what they were.
     Thanks. Any other advice you have is always appreciated.

Oh, Dalia, the advice keeps coming. I wrote back:

It all sounds very painful. It sounds like his actions say one thing, his words another. How confusing. It sounds like he's holding back something in his explanation. His fear is palpable. I can feel it from 500 miles away. In his past relationship life, is there a pattern like this?
     As for you, Dalia, that closure concept is pop psychology. Nobody ever really gets closure. It's not like you have that eye-opening moment and then can walk away without emotional involvement. You have to take steps. You have to cut the lines of communication. You have to throw away the things that remind you of him. You have to delete his email from your computer, and his number from your phone, and when you get that strong urge to contact him, you have to find something else to do. Anything. I recommend a pedicure and/or kickboxing. Though if you do both, switch the order. They’re yet to develop a nail polish that can survive a series of boots to the big bag.
     Dalia, you have to put your faith in time and distance. Nothing else will ease the suffering. It also helps to talk it out, with friends and family, with a therapist, with a relationship columnist. But never with the ex. Don’t make that phone call.
     Listen, once the emotional weight fades, once you can look back, you'll realize why he's chosen this path. You'll realize his faults and his deficiencies and you'll be thankful that the relationship didn't move forward.
     I realize that’s a long way off. But at least there’s a light out there for you to work toward. In the meantime, definitely protect your dignity. That also means not seeking retribution. You don't need to win an argument with your ex, you don’t need to have the last word, you don’t need to show him up in any way. You can have the fantasy of that. But recognize it for what it is, a diversion. You just have to feel the sorrow until the feeling mellows. And it will. Hang in there.

Dalia emailed me from the nail salon. “I took your advice,” she wrote. “I threw away some photos [of Ed Young]. I deleted his contact information. I’m getting my nails done. Just one question. How did you know I like to kickbox?”

It’s a relationship columnist’s job, Dalia. It’s a relationship columnist’s job.

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Mailbag

Mailbag
(or “We’re gonna keep on moving forward”)

To celebrate the end of the election season – the end of the “silly season,” as President-Elect Barack Obama referred to it – let’s dip into the mailbag. Here’s a general sampling of what fills my inbox, with my responses directly below.

In response to my article “The Rebirth of the Three-fifths Compromise” (November 7, 2008) I was bombarded by email. Some letters were incredibly positive, and touching. Other letters turned adversarial, even nasty. I’m including a couple from each category.

Lisa in Oakland wrote:
I am writing with great sadness that we still live in a country that believes that it is acceptable to change our constitution to take rights away from a minority group of people. I feel deflated and heart-broken, not just as someone in a committed same-sex relationship, but as someone who believes in human rights, safety, justice, and equality for all people…. I will grieve. And I will continue to work for the values that we all want to manifest in our world. We are in the midst of a social change movement and I feel more committed than ever.
     A song from the 1995 World Conference on Women in Beijing keeps on going through my head and my heart: “We’re gonna keep on moving forward.”

Dear Lisa,
I understand your deflation. I understand your heartbreak. For every step taken, two steps back. That's a hard way to live. I'm not sure what it will take for this country, and this world, to recognize true human rights. I will never understand how people can believe that taking away rights is remotely tolerable, let alone justifiable. It's also hard for me to believe, and this is something I've struggled with for years and years, that minority groups beat down on other minority groups. It's hard for me to believe that the African-American community would choose to support Prop 8. It's hard for me to believe that the Latino community would support Prop 8. On the other hand, the Mormons supporting Prop 8 makes sense. This is a religious community that has made it a point of baptizing the victims of the Holocaust. Jews weren’t allowed to live in the prison created by the Third Reich. Under the “love” of the Mormons, Jews aren’t allowed to be Jews in death.
     But I digress. In this election, from California to Arizona to Arkansas to Florida, there are harsh penalties for the very act of living outside convention. And for what reason? To be gay in this country is to put yourself in danger. One never knows where the threat might come from. That’s terrifying and that kind of threat level reaches into the body of the human corpus and tears out the heart.
     So I understand your heartbreak. I share your heartbreak. I share your grief. In the elation of the election of Barack Obama there is great sadness, and anger. The historian in me preaches patience. Change is slow. Change is generational. The writer in me preaches outrage. There's a reason why I'm a curmudgeon. People make outrageous, stupid decisions on huge, fundamental issues.

Ron Prentice chose the outrageous-stupid-decisions-on-huge-fundamental-issues side. Prentice, who identified himself at the chairman of ProtectMarriage.com, wrote:
In Tuesday’s election, the people of California placed the traditional definition of marriage into the state Constitution. This victory would not have been possible without the support of our 70,000 contributors and over 100,000 dedicated volunteers. It was accomplished with the strong participation of about 80 percent of California voters, or nearly 14 million participating in this expression of the People’s Will. It is the same process that resulted in the historic election of Barack Obama as President of the United States – with about the same percentage of the national vote as received by Proposition 8 of California. Your article, “The Rebirth of the Three-fifths Compromise,” failed to address the People’s Will.
     ProtectMarriage.com also wants you to know that a strong legal defense of Proposition 8 is being prepared. We anticipated that Prop 8’s passage would result in advocates of same-sex marriage turning to the courts to attempt to overturn the People’s affirmation of traditional marriage as a societal good. We will be announcing our legal strategy this week, but rest assured that we will vigorously defend the People’s Will to enshrine traditional marriage in the state Constitution.

Along the same lines, I received a letter from Lou Engle, a minister in Missouri. In the days leading up to the vote, he traveled to San Diego and held a 12-hour prayer session to push for traditional marriage. “This is not about hate,” he wrote to me. “This is about love. Hundreds of supporters in our prayer session renewed their wedding vows. There were tears in their eyes, and in mine.”
     Minister Engle ended his letter on a political note: “California is a big dam, holding back the flood and if you take down the dam in California, it’s going to flood 49 other states.”

To Minister Engle and Ron Prentice of ProtectMarriage.com:
Your letters sent my mind racing over to a parallel history. In 1861 there was, as you both certainly know, a similar kind of election to the one just passed. Similar in the sense of dire consequences. The nation was split over the issue of slavery. After Abraham Lincoln won – and he received just 39 percent of the popular vote, and under 3 percent of the vote in the South – seven states chose disunion. The Confederate States of America was formed.
     But in the days leading up to the general election, Abraham Lincoln’s chief aide, John Nicolay, took an unofficial poll. He published his findings years later, in the biography of Abraham Lincoln he and John Hay, another Lincoln aide, co-wrote. Nicolay found that not one minister in Springfield, Illinois supported Lincoln for president. The churches of Lincoln’s town supported Douglas, who campaigned on the status quo.
     This is your history. This is your direct line. As the ministers of the antebellum 19th century chose slavery and inequality, you’ve chosen bigotry and inequality. Like the ministers of Springfield, Illinois, history will judge your vote and your politics harshly.
     There’s something else you should remember. There was once a time in the history of Europe when dissenting religious belief could get your head chopped off, or your body burned on the pyre. It’s interesting to me that the religious concerns in this country have forgotten their history, even as they preach knowing their book. The Mormon religion, just as an example, would have been eradicated in Elizabeth’s England and King Ferdinand’s Spain and Louis’s France. It reminds a mindful person of the climate facing the gay population today.

Let’s move on. Or to quote Lisa and her song from the 1995 World Conference on Women in Beijing, “We’re gonna keep on moving forward.”

Molly in Virginia wrote:
I thoroughly enjoyed your election series (the 3-part “Whom Are You Voting For?”). I was touched by the story of Chaim Kovaes. It’s deplorable that this country insisted that a Holocaust survivor go fight in another war. It’s unbelievable, really. So sad.
     On the other hand, your interview with the physician in Alabama was so funny. All the food references, and the names, and the names of Sarah Palin’s children. After talking about such delicacies as redneck caviar, chunks of croc and mudbugs on a railcar, you write that Track and Trig might be the local version of fish and chips. Very funny. And I loved one of your last lines, “Certainly Sarah and Todd Palin might name their sixth child Mudbug, judging from the other names chosen.”
     But, like the rest of your readership, I am curious as to how the undecided student in Arizona voted.

Dear Molly,
I heard from Amy, the student in Tucson, by mid-morning of Tuesday, November 4. The time surprised me. It was 10:15, East Coast Time. Amy, living in the western time zone, had already been to her polling place. She was emailing from Denny’s, while waiting for her Grand Slam breakfast. She said voting made her hungry.
     Amy voted for Barack Obama. She voted against her parent’s wishes. She voted against the general direction of her state, or to quote Ron Prentice of ProtectMarriage.com, against the People’s Will. The capitalizations are his.
     She voted for Obama because she felt in him a “reason to believe in America.” Judging from the reaction of this country in the immediate aftermath of Obama’s victory, she was not the only one.

Craig in Conyers, Colorado wrote:
I can’t believe you took last week off. I go to your column every Friday. It’s a ritual. My children even know not to bug dad before reading your column. What happened? Generally, what did you think of the election?
     On another note, I think you should do a series on the changing demographics of Colorado. This isn’t the same state you grew up in, is it? A Democratic governor, two Democratic senators, the electoral college going for Barack Obama. Colorado is the new California.

I like your line, Craig, “Colorado is the new California.” But it all goes in cycles. In the 1980s there were Democratic governors, Dick Lamm and Roy Romer. There were Democratic senators, Gary Hart and Tim Wirth. There was Pat Schroeder, who some thought would run for president.
     Colorado turned right with Reagan/Bush/Bush and now, after the right has pushed us off the edge, Colorado faces left. Toward the coast of California. But it’s a cycle. When the Democrats push us off the edge, Colorado will turn right again. As will the country.
     As for your first question, there were some amazing results in this election. Obama of course. It’s still possible to get to 60 senators. There were also some terrifying results. Prop 8 in California, as stated earlier. The vote in Arkansas. Congressman Garrett in New Jersey, a 21st century Joe McCarthy, beating exactly the kind of representative we need: the rabbi and therapist Dennis Shulman. Speaking of McCarthyites and terrifying results, Michelle Bachman in Minnesota squeaked by. Ted Stevens appeared to win too. We now know better. Enjoy your prison term, Ted. And in Georgia, Senator Saxby Chambliss, a man who cannot define the term recession, a man who in fact believes the economy is strong, has a runoff election for his seat. Saxby Chambliss adheres to the Bush doctrine. How anachronistic is that?
     I will, of course, say something here about Obama’s victory. There’s been a good deal said about Sarah Palin and, had she become vice president, her position as role model for girls. To feminists out there, myself included, that couldn’t have been any more terrifying. I’m talking heart attack terrifying. Arnold Schwarzenegger and his philandering is a better feminist than Sarah Palin. Bill Richardson and his philandering and alcoholism is a better feminist than Sarah Palin.
     But with the results of the presidential election, we received a gift: the best feminist possible. I’m not talking about Barack Obama. I think Barack Obama is too much of a politician to be a good feminist. I’m talking about Michelle Obama. America is going to get a big dose of this very smart, very clever, very thoughtful person. I’m ecstatic that Michelle will be moving to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Ecstatic.

A woman named Jeri in Castle Rock, Colorado wins the award for most charming email sent. She wrote: “Your writing this year has been remarkable, interesting, informative, just great!!! Have a wonderful birthday.”

Jeri, thank you for the birthday wishes. It’s incredibly sweet, and appreciated.

And a note to Craig, if you’re reading this week: that’s the reason why I didn’t write a column last week. It was my birthday.

And a note to Craig’s children: let Dad read the column before bugging him, or hugging him.

And finally, I heard from an old letter writing friend:
Dear Brian,
Let’s drop all the political talk and get down to the key issue of the day. On paper, the Denver Nuggets look like a dynamite basketball team. I know you’re a diehard fan. How do you like the trade?   What do you think of the team’s chances?
– Anthony and A.I. Chauncey all the way
P.S. Last year I wrote to you and you blew off my letter, after promising to respond. Please don’t blow off this email. I believe your insight is far superior to either Woody’s or Krieger’s.

Let me start with an explanation of this letter. Last October, according to my records, “Anthony and A.I. (for Allen Iverson) all the way” did write to me, asking my opinion of the Nuggets’ chances for the upcoming 2007-2008 season. I did indeed promise a column. I did not deliver.
     I apologize. Last November, according to my records, I focused on Playboy Magazine, Iran and an interview with Jennifer Aniston. Turns out, the interviewee wasn’t that Jennifer Aniston. How silly of me.
     More explanation of the above letter: two weeks ago the Denver Nuggets made a blockbuster trade with the Detroit Pistons. The Nuggets sent Allen Iverson to Detroit in exchange for Chauncey Billups and others. Essentially the trade is a straight up A.I. for Chauncey. Thus, the letter writer has a cross out.
     More explanation of the above letter: Woody is Woody Paige of the Denver Post and Krieger is Dave Krieger of the Rocky Mountain News. Both are columnists who periodically devote their attentions to the Nuggets. Woody Paige is a blowhard, a misogynist, a lousy writer. Dave Krieger, on the other hand, is an excellent sports columnist.
     As for our beloved Denver Nuggets, I admit, I kind of like the team’s chances. For the first time ever. NBA basketball comes down to the mix on the court. Do the players instinctively blend? The key word is instinctively. NBA players are great athletes, not great basketball players, not schooled in the game. The mentorship of past eras is gone. So instinct, not basketball I.Q., becomes the watchword. The last collection of Nuggets, led by Iverson, clearly did not mesh. This collection might, thanks to Chauncey. The key, as I see it, is Nene, the Nuggets’ talented but often injured center. He’s jumped out to a great start. If he continues his dominance and stays clear of injury (or further recurrence of cancer), the Nuggets can challenge for the championship. The Lakers are the cream of the crop. The Celtics will be tough. But the Nuggets belong in the next group, with the Jazz and arguably the Hornets, the Rockets, the Cavaliers, and Allen Iverson’s Pistons.
     With all of that said, I did write a NBA playoffs preview last March (“Will the Spurs repeat,” March 7, 2008) and I predicted a San Antonio Spurs – Detroit Pistons final. I was wrong on both teams.

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The Rebirth of the Three-fifths Compromise

The Rebirth of the Three-fifths Compromise

Elation and sorrow. There is an amazing photograph taken of an elderly African-American lady. It’s one a.m. or so on November 5, 2008, hours after the election of Barack Obama. This lady, in her 80s if photos can tell age, can’t keep her emotions in check. She joins the hundreds of thousands of revelers throughout the country who have taken to the streets. In this lady’s case, she lives in Washington, D.C. and she’s made her way to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.
     She’s not alone. The scene outside the President’s House is astounding. The Avenue has been blocked off, not by police or by construction, but by people. A human wave of euphoria. The revelers are chanting: “Nah nah nah nah, hey hey hey hey, goodbye.”
     This lady, judging by the photograph, is not chanting. She’s crying. It’s hard to chant and cry at the same time.
     Like most of us, she probably never thought she’d see an African-American ascend to the White House. Unlike most of us, she’s crying tears of a particular history. What lurks there, in those tears, in her past?
     I look at the photograph of this woman and her tears and I think about the Three-fifths Compromise. In 1787, during the Philadelphia Convention that would move this country from the Articles of Confederation to the Constitution, the delegations considered what to do with the existing slave population. How do you count slaves? Do slaves even count?
     The question wasn’t about voting rights. Slaves held no rights. Slaves couldn’t vote. The question was one of representation. The South, and other institutions of the slaveocracy, wanted the slaves counted in full numbers. Those totals would increase the pro-slave representatives in the congress. Those opposed to slavery didn’t want the slaves counted. Only free black men.
     Not free black women, as we all know. But that’s another story for another time.
     The Three-fifths Compromise, in which three of every five slaves would be included in the census, grew out of this impasse.
     The Three-fifths rule held sway until the end of the Civil War. The 13th Amendment ended the Three-fifths rule. In theory. Jim Crow laws gave the Three-fifths rule domineering power until the civil rights movement of the 1960s.
     As I look at the photograph of the elderly African-American woman in front of the White House, I believe she’s crying Three-fifths tears. To reduce a person to three-fifths is to cut off the knees, so the person can’t walk. Or to lop off the head, so the person can’t think, or talk, or vote. In France, they gave the lopping off of the head a name. The guillotine.
     The elation in electing Barack and Michelle Obama to the White House cannot be discounted or dismissed. But behind the euphoria lurks disease. For Barack Obama to become president – and remember that over 46 percent of the voting republic voted against him – consider what it took. An economic crisis. Two wars in two different countries, and the nation building that goes along with both. A president who has deracinated the constitution. A Republican presidential campaign that sputtered and creaked. A Democratic campaign that brought in unfathomable amounts of money and brilliantly navigated damage control.
     If any of these characteristics had gone in the other direction, this country would have elected the Republican status quo. It took a combination of crises, plus political perfection from the Democrats, and political defect from the Republicans, for voters to choose Obama. And don’t fool yourself. The election, from the perspective of the popular vote, was tight. A little over 6 percent. This should have been in the neighborhood of Nixon defeating McGovern by a smidgen over 23 percent or Johnson defeating Goldwater by a smidgen under 23 percent.
     Instead, the Obama victory over McCain ranks in between George Bush’s defeat of Michael Dukakis and Bill Clinton’s defeat of George Bush. Bill Clinton defeated George Bush by 5.3 percent.
     Flips those numbers and you get 3.5. Those numbers, or three-fifths, calls to mind another photograph. This one taken on Wednesday the 5th, midday. The photo shows the backside of a couple. The scene is a hallway in San Francisco’s city hall. This couple, two women dressed in wedding gowns, has just been told by a clerk that they don’t have the legal right to marry. A dejected Mayor Gavin Newsom has just held a press conference. “This city is no longer marrying people,” he’s just said.
     The city hall clerk has told the couple that they still have the right to a civil union. A kind of Three-fifths Compromise if ever there was one. By the way, in places like Florida and Arizona, even that has been taken away of the election of 2008.
     In the photograph, the women have their shoulders hunched. Again, the photograph is of their backside. One woman is comforting the other, with a hand on a shoulder. The other woman has a hand held up to her eyes. Why a hand to her eyes? She’s sobbing. She’s wiping away Three-fifths tears.
     November 4, 2008, with the election of Barack Obama, was an ecstatic day for everyone who has struggled for civil rights. November 4, 2008 was also a black day for everyone who has struggled for human rights. What’s clear is that the old slaveocracy has become the new theocracy. Listen to Reverend James Garlow in San Diego: “It was a great victory,” concerning the passing of Prop 8 in California. “We saw the people just rise up.”
     Listen to Reverend Joel Hunter in Florida: “There is enough of the population that is alarmed at the general breakdown of the family. What we’ve seen in this election is an attempt to take back our families.”
     Both reverends are wrong. What we’ve seen in this election – from California and Prop 8 to Arkansas and the passage of a measure intended to ban gays from adopting children to Florida and the gay marriage ban that passed by remarkable totals, 62 percent voting for it, 38 percent voting against – is the rebirth of the Three-fifths Compromise.
     As the 1787 Three-fifths Compromise cut off the feet, or the heads, of the slave population, the 2008 Three-fifths Compromise cuts off the hands of the gay population. Without fingers, there are no wedding bands.

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Whom are you voting for, part III?

Whom are you voting for, part III?

Under a week now until the presidential election. Over the last few weeks, as part of this three-part series on voting preference in the upcoming election, I’ve interviewed both an 84-year-old Holocaust survivor who supports Senator Obama and a 31-year-old physician who favors McCain. This week, I’m crisscrossing the country (latitudinally speaking) and the generations and interviewing a 19-year-old college student in Arizona. Amy lives in Tucson. This interview took place over the phone.

Q: Amy, thank you for joining me. I’m just trying to get a sense of what voters are thinking around the country. Have you decided whom you will be voting for next week?

Amy: Um, sort of.

Q: You’re undecided?

Amy: I guess.

Q: You sound insecure about being undecided. Don’t be. I just saw a series of polls taken in Arizona on pollster.com. First of all, it shows that Senator McCain only has a two-point lead which is unbelievable. In McCain’s home state! In Illinois, Obama’s home state, he’s up by over 20 points. But, according to the polls, a full ten percent of Arizona voters are undecided. Ten percent! That’s a big number. I mean, next time you’re on campus… Where do you go to school, the University of Arizona?

Amy: No. I wish. I go to Pima.

Q: Pima’s in Tucson?

Amy: Yes. It’s a community college. It has a reputation as a school for the lamebrain. I’m just hoping to get my grades up and go to the U of A next year.

Q: Amy, don’t be self-conscious about going to a community college. I take classes at a community college here in New York. One teacher in particular is the best language teacher I’ve ever had…

Amy: Yeah but so far in my life I’ve always sort of underachieved and going to a community college just reinforces that view of me. My friends call me Lamey Amy.

Silence over the phone line. The moment was ripe for a psychologist, but the (gonzo) journalistic side of me pressed for the continuation of the interview:

Q: I think your plan is a good one: going to a community college with hopes of attending the state school. But, the next time you’re on campus at Pima, take a good look around. One out of every ten people you see will be undecided.

Silence over the phone line.

Q: So you must be leaning toward one of the candidates. What are you thinking?

Amy: Well it’s kind of tough. I mean, here in Arizona. You know, like this is McCain’s state. I mean, he’s the senator. And he’s like been the senator since before I was born. So I kind of think I should be voting for him. And both my parents will vote for him for sure. So I kind of think I should be voting for him because my parents are. But then there’s this other side. I mean, Barack Obama is like the new kind of politician. He’s like the politician for my generation. Do you know what I mean? He like speaks to you.

Q: What does he say, to your generation?

Amy: I don’t know. To work hard. To hope. To dream. It’s like, he’s that great teacher back in high school. You know, the kind of teacher every student wants as his teacher. And then you get in his class and the time just goes by so quickly. Like the class is just so fascinating. He can really communicate. And he’s just so great with his words. It’s like he uplifts you.

Q: I hear you. He’s very inspirational. Let me ask you this: what issues are important to you? I think when you choose a candidate, aside from choosing one who inspires, you should be choosing someone based on policy making.

Amy: That’s a hard question. I mean, I’m not really politically involved. I don’t know. What are some important issues to you?

Q: To me? Well, foreign policy is paramount. And by foreign policy, I mean true internationalism. I mean knowledge and worldview. With John McCain, I question both. He’s had one kind of experience for most of his life. As a prisoner of war, as a politician, as a senator, he’s always a soldier. He’s never a diplomat. He’s never a conciliator. He’s a soldier through and through, a conqueror. And it shows in places like Iraq. He goes in with force, not with knowledge, not with wisdom. What we need in our next president is someone who knows something about the Arabic world, someone who speaks a little Arabic. I guarantee you, John McCain cannot say “how are you?” in Arabic. He can’t say “how are you?” in standard Arabic and he can’t say it in Baghdad dialect, even though he claims to know Iraq so intimately. I doubt he even knows that there is such a thing as Baghdad dialect. I don’t want the next president to have zero language knowledge, particularly after the last eight years. Zero language knowledge means that he hasn’t studied the country and its history. He’s only studied the reports that have come across his desk. There’s a big difference, Amy, between information and knowledge.

Amy: Do you know how to say “how are you?” in Arabic?

Q: I do. Arabic is actually one of the subjects I study at the local community college. In modern Arabic it would be izzayyak. In Baghdad dialect it would be shloonak. By the way, it’s not just John McCain who’s ignorant. How many pundits or policy makers know even the slightest bit of Arabic?

Amy: Does Barack Obama know how to say “how are you?” in Arabic?

Q: Very, very doubtful. But Barack Obama, at the very least, understands something about coalition building. America is stronger when it has allies. We don’t have allies today. That’s inexcusable. With Barack Obama, not only will we have allies but we will talk to our enemies. With John McCain, we will only threaten our enemies. McCain should take a page from his hero, Ronald Reagan. Even Reagan knew that he should talk to the Soviet Union.

Silence over the phone line.

Q: Another issue, Amy, that’s important to me is immigration, which might be important to you based on your geography. If you study American history, you find that we’re weakest when we turn nativistic. We’re strongest when we incorporate the full spectrum of internationalism into our borders. Another issue is education, which might be important to you based on your age. “No Child Left Behind” is so rigid. It’s full of cracks. It’s like Cindy McCain’s face with all of that makeup…

Silence over the phone line.

Q: Another issue is the protection of human rights. By that, I mean choice. In a democratic society, you should have the choice to get an abortion, you should have the choice to get married, whether you’re gay or straight, you should have the choice to practice any kind of religion, or no religion at all. How would you like to be a Muslim in our society?

Silence over the phone line.

Q: What do you think about what I’ve just said?

Amy: I don’t think I’d want to be a Muslim.

Q: Well, that’s the beauty of what I’m talking about. Nobody’s pressuring you to be a Muslim. In Arab societies, there’s direct pressure to practice Islam. And the big difference that separates our society from Arab society is democracy. If you take away choice, there’s lethal pressure to be one way. In Iran, you take your life in your hands if you’re Baha’i. In Egypt, same thing if you’re Coptic. Here, we’re at the point that to be a Muslim is to put yourself in danger. Is that what America is all about?

Silence over the phone line.

Q: Let’s change topics. Let me ask you a personal question. What would you do if you were Bristol?

Amy: Who?

Q: Bristol Palin, Sarah Palin’s daughter. She’s a senior in high school and she’s pregnant. Her boyfriend describes himself as a “f-ing redneck.” Bristol’s going to have the child. She’s going to marry this guy. You’re about the same age as Bristol, how would you like to be pregnant and getting married?

Amy: I would hate it. I’m so not ready.

Q: Right. Do you think Bristol has a choice in the matter?

Amy: What do you mean?

Q: Well, think about it. Her mom’s running for vice president. Her mom doesn’t believe in abortion, even in the case of rape. Her mom has to promote that agenda. She has to show she is what she says she is. She can’t preach one code of ethics in the community and practice another at home. So, Bristol has become the poster child of the Republican Party. No abortions. Get married. Raise a family. It’s so monolithic. Do you see how little choice Bristol has?

Amy: Maybe she wants to have the baby. Maybe she wants to get married.

Q: Maybe.

Silence over the phone line.

Amy: Do you think she should get an abortion?

Q: That’s not for me to say. I’m not in her shoes. I don’t usually do this but I’ll share a little bit of my personal life here. About a decade ago, I fell deeply in love. My girlfriend – actually her name was Amy, though she went by another name – got pregnant. We didn’t talk about it. She had the abortion. Almost instantaneously, we lost all forms of communication. There was so much hurt, so much misunderstanding. Our relationship disintegrated. I’m sure many other couples have similar stories.

Amy: Why didn’t you talk about it? I mean, before she had the abortion?

Q: Good question. She thought I’d try to convince her to keep the child. She thought I wanted to be a dad.

Amy: Did you?

Q: Yes, to be honest. But I would never have convinced her to keep the child. You know, a feminist mother raised me and I am very much a feminist and I’ve learned a really valuable lesson. Men need to support feminists, not rule feminists. Our role in the feminist movement is as counselor, companion. That’s what I would have done a decade ago. I would have listened. And I would have supported her choice to go ahead with the abortion.

Amy: But wouldn’t it be better to have the baby?

Q: In our case? No. If the relationship wasn’t strong enough to make it through an abortion, it certainly wouldn’t be strong enough to endure parenthood. And as for Bristol and her boyfriend, they’re teenagers. At that age, you don’t even call it a relationship. You call it what it is: a dalliance. Of course, you don’t realize that at the time. You think this is the be all to end all.

Amy: It’s interesting what you’re saying because I’m thinking about the other side: those couples that can’t conceive, those couples who have to go through in vitro fertilization.

Q: What made you think of that?

Amy: I have some experience in that area.

Q: What do you mean?

Amy: Well I’ve donated my eggs.

Q: You have?

Amy: Yeah. I mean, there’s no other way to pay for college and for my car and everything.

Q: So, did you do it for money or did you do it to help a struggling couple?

Amy: Both, I think. Although I have to tell you that at first I did it for the money.

Q: At first? How many times have you donated?

Amy: Three times.

Q: You made a lot of money.

Amy: About $12,000. I have a male friend who’s jealous. He says, “I wish they would give me that kind of money.”

Q: I remember, back in my college days and after, looking at the advertisements in the college papers and thinking about donating my sperm.

Amy: Did you ever do it?

Q: No. First of all, it didn’t pay enough. Second, I didn’t want to have to go to some clinic and do my thing into a cup. That didn’t seem so appealing to me. And finally, I thought I’d spend too much time later in life looking into the faces of random kids on the street, trying to see some of me in them.

Amy: Yeah, I know what you mean. But see, that’s where your motivations become tricky. I mean, I did it for the money. But then I realized, my motivations didn’t matter to the parents. What they wanted was a healthy egg which hopefully would become a healthy baby.

Q: I see what you’re saying. There are many perspectives to consider. There’s the perspective of the donator. There’s the perspective of the parents. There’s also the perspective of the baby. What kind of life will he or she have? What kind of things will he or she do? Who will he or she be voting for 18 years from now?

Amy: She’ll probably be undecided.

Q: That’s funny. Can I give you some advice on how to decide whom to vote for?

Amy: Sure.

Q: Don’t pick a candidate based on whom your parents vote for. You’re a self-actualized person with your own goals, dream, agendas. They might be in conflict with your parents. You need to choose a candidate who best represents your goals, dreams and agendas.

Amy: Who did you vote for in your first presidential election?

Q: Let’s see. I missed voting in 1984 by a year or so. So the first time I voted was 1988. George Bush ran against Michael Dukakis. I was a college student in Portland, Oregon. I voted for Dukakis and Dukakis won the state of Oregon.

Amy: Why did you vote for Dukakis?

Q: I didn’t vote for Dukakis. I voted against Bush. The Reagan/Bush years began the steady spin toward our current crisis. Zero regulation. Uncontrollable federal deficit. More scandals than any other administration. Unelected, rogue officials given too much power, like Oliver North, Donald Rumsfeld and Karl Rove. I think Barack Obama is a very disciplined person and I think he’ll run a disciplined White House. At least that’s my hope.

Amy: And John McCain?

Q: I think John McCain has a bipolar tendency – not quite a disorder, more of a proclivity. And he’s addicted to Ambien. That right there should exclude him from the office. But, Amy, I think you should think about this world, think about what’s important, think about the future, for yourself, for your family, for people you don’t know living in foreign lands, think about what’s best for this earth, and I think you should make your decision based on whatever you find.

Amy: Okay.

Q: I do have one favor to ask.

Amy: What?

Q: However you vote, will you tell me afterward? I like to conclude these types of series with letters from readers and I know that readers out there will be interested in who you choose.

Amy: Sure. I’ll tell you on Tuesday.

I would like to thank Amy in Arizona, Dr. Molly in Alabama and Chaim Kovaes in Montreal for participating in this series. To read those earlier interviews with Dr. Molly and Chaim Kovaes, please click on the link “More articles by Brian Josepher” below. You will see the “Whom are you voting for” articles to the right.

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Whom are you voting for, part II?

Whom are you voting for, part II?

Two weeks now until the presidential election. Last week, as part of this three-part series on voting preference in the upcoming election, I interviewed an 84-year-old Holocaust survivor who supports Senator Obama. This week, I’m crisscrossing the country (longitudinally speaking) and the generations and interviewing a 31-year-old doctor, originally from Tennessee, now living in a town called Orange Beach, on the Alabama side of the Alabama-Florida state line. I interviewed Dr. Molly in a restaurant called Tina’s Sunset Grill. Indeed, the proprietor’s name was Tina and the restaurant offered a beautiful, unimpeded view of the sun setting over the Gulf of Mexico. And the grill was out of this world delicious. Well, at least the blackened crawfish.

Q: Dr. Molly, thank you for joining me. I’m just trying to get a sense of what voters are thinking around the country. Have you decided whom you will be voting for in a couple of weeks?

Dr. Molly: I decided a long time ago, Brian. I’ll be voting for John McCain for president and Jefferson Sessions for senator [the incumbent Alabama senator running against Democrat Vivian Davis Figures].

Q: You sound very certain of your choices.

Dr. Molly: I’m not “on the fence,” let’s just put it that way. I’m not one of those undecideds.

Q: What do you see in McCain – and Senator Sessions – that makes you so confident in their abilities to run this country?

Dr. Molly: In one word, Brian: values. I think, in this country as a whole, we’re losing our core values. We’re going against our basic instinctual selves. We’re going away from our natural tendencies. We’re going toward political philosophies, toward artificialities. I think, that by voting for McCain/Palin and Jefferson Sessions, we’re moving back to our core belief system.

Q: What’s our core belief system?

Dr. Molly: Free enterprise. Entrepreneurial spirit. Patriotism. God. Family. Morals. Do you see what I’m saying? Standards. I think we’re very close to a kind of political and religious heresy…

At this point in the interview an older woman approached the table to take our order. This was Tina, the owner of the restaurant. Tina wore too much makeup. Tina’s hair was overly dyed and overly permed. Tina had a face that might crack, as if one more problem – a cook mistakenly turning a rare hamburger well done or a customer who misorders and then blames the service – and she would have kicked off her flip-flops and pounded the perpetrator into the ground. She reminded me of Cindy McCain. Of course, Cindy McCain would not have been wearing flip-flops but stilettos and the heels would have done a lot more damage than the flat, rubbery surface of flip-flops.
     Dr. Molly offered to order for the table and I, after glancing up at Tina and wondering if I’d be that customer to send her off the deep end, accepted. Dr. Molly ordered the delicacies of the Gulf Coast. Redneck caviar, chunks of croc, mudbugs on a railcar, and of course beer. Coor’s Light. Because this is the Gulf Coast, known in these parts as the Redneck Riviera, the Coor’s Light came in giant plastic containers.
     After Dr. Molly’s order, I returned to the interview:

Q: I grew up in Colorado. Coor’s Light was the beer of choice back in my high school days. I haven’t tasted it since then.

Dr. Molly: Well I’m sure it hasn’t changed much. It goes great with the crayfish. Just wait. You’ll see.

I decided to follow the doctor’s orders. In the meantime, I continued with the interview:

Q: You used a phrase, a “political and religious heresy.” What does that mean?

Dr. Molly: We have a candidate now who doesn’t believe in God. He’s not bound by the tenets of ethical thought. He’s bound by his own political philosophies. Like I said, artificialities. I think that’s very dangerous.

Q: You’re talking now about Barack Obama?

Dr. Molly: Yes. He talks about his Christian faith but it’s all just lip service. You can tell from his politics: the man is not a believer.

Q: How can you tell from his politics?

Dr. Molly: Go down the line. Abortion: a believer would not be pro-abortion. A believer should see abortion as a criminal violation. Stem cell research: a believer would reject the use of embryonic stem cells. It’s blasphemy to even consider the possibility. Gay marriage: a believer knows that marriage is a sacred bond between one man and one woman. Prayer in schools: a believer would make that a front and center issue. You’re pledging yourself to your country and to God, what could be more important?

Q: You don’t see Senator Obama supporting the pledge of allegiance?

Dr. Molly: He didn’t wear a flag pin on his lapel, at least until recently. Until voters made it an issue. What does that tell you? And he cavorts with terrorists. He has a history of cavorting with terrorists.

Q: You’re talking about Bill Ayers, when Obama was 8-years-old?

Dr. Molly: I’m talking about Bill Ayers, when Obama was an Illinois State Senator, and I’m talking about Reverend Wright. Obama listened to Wright’s trash for twenty years. Wright was his number one spiritual adviser. Isn’t that dangerous?

Q: Do you consider Reverend Wright a terrorist?

Dr. Molly: I consider Reverend Wright very dangerous.

Q: He’s very much a believer in God. And Bill Ayers, just so that you know, today is a distinguished professor of education at the University of Illinois. He’s also a Christian.

At this point in the interview Tina brought over the beers, in big plastic containers the color of crimson tide, a kind of algae common to the Gulf of Mexico. The words on the container matched the fight song of the University of Alabama: Roll Tide.
     Tina also brought the first of the delicacies: redneck caviar, a mixture of black beans, onions, peppers and seasonings served on crackers. The seasoning was somewhat spicy. The Coor’s Light superbly offset the spice. Dr. Molly was right about the beer serving as the perfect compliment.
     After a cracker and a gulp of beer, I returned to the interview:

Q: And you think John McCain is a believer?

Dr. Molly: Yes I do. I read an article of McCain in Time Magazine. I don’t particularly like Time but it was in my waiting room. You know, for the patients. In the article he says, and I quote, “that the most important thing is that I’m a Christian.” That really got me. I mean, that’s why I voted for George Bush. And like President Bush, McCain wasn’t grandstanding when he said it. He was sincere. Now contrast that to Barack Obama. He’s a Christian because it’s politically expedient. I mean, there’s some question as to whether he’s a Christian at all. Some suggest he’s a Muslim. An Arab.

Q: Dr. Molly, you just said yourself that Obama went to Reverend Wright’s church for twenty years. So how can he be a Muslim? And, just so that you know, there’s a big population of Arab Christians. In fact, the majority of Palestinians living outside of Palestine is not Muslim but Christian.

Dr. Molly (with a big frown on her face): I don’t believe that. Arabs aren’t Christians, particularly Palestinians. If they were, there wouldn’t be this feud with the Jews. A good Christian loves the Jews. We come from Jews.

Q: If only Christianity practiced that. Have you ever heard of Jews kidnapping Christian children and using their blood to make the Passover matzah?

Dr. Molly: No. I don’t believe that. That’s ridiculous.

Q: It is ridiculous. But the legend of it happening spurred on pogroms throughout the ages. It’s part of a long history of blood libel.

Silence followed my statement. Dr. Molly ate a cracker. She chewed on peppers. I stared at the plastic container of beer. The crimson red reminded me of blood libel. Fortunately Tina appeared with more delicacies. The chunks of croc – alligator tail blackened – tasted too tough. Maybe Tina’s cook should have beaten it with a mallet (though I wasn’t going to be the customer to suggest that to Tina). On the other hand, the mudbugs on a railcar – crawfish on a po’-boy bun – tasted divine. With the beer and the sunset, it made for a strange kind of trinity.
     Speaking of the Trinity, Dr. Molly’s thoughts returned to the John McCain interview in Time Magazine:

Dr. Molly: McCain goes on to talk about believing in a loving God, in a personal God. He says his life is about redemption. That’s what I believe in. Like John McCain, I don’t believe in a vengeful God. I believe in the God of love. That’s why I became a doctor.

Q: What do you mean?

Dr. Molly: Well what is the medical profession? It’s about healing. It’s about administering to the sick. Of course it’s a business. Of course there are layers of bureaucracy now built into it. But that’s the business side. The medical side is a very personal relationship with the patient. One on one. You look your patient in the eye. You ask very personal questions. You patience answers in very personal ways. Why? Because he trusts you. He believes in you. That’s the God of love right there.

Q: What kind of medicine do you specialize in?

Dr. Molly: I’m a family practitioner, one of only a few here in Orange Beach. The town knows me by my first name, Molly. I doubt anyone knows my last name.

Q: In our phone conversation when we were setting up this interview you told me that you were from Tennessee. Why did you settle here? Did you go to the University of Alabama medical school?

Dr. Molly: No, I went to med school down in the Caribbean. I couldn’t get in to med school here in America and I didn’t want to wait around, applying every year and watching my life slip away. I went to St. George School of Medicine in Grenada. Down there, I fell in love with the ocean. So after my residency, I decided to settle in an ocean beach community. Orange Beach was hiring.

Q: Where did you do your residency?

Dr. Molly: Loch Ewe in Scotland. It’s a fishing village up in the north.

Q: Sounds cold for a southern girl.

Dr. Molly: Yes, I was very happy to come home.

Dr. Molly smiled at me. She has a very tender smile (the opposite in fact of the chunks of croc). I bet she’s good with the families at her clinic. I decided to return to the interview:

Q: Do you think George W. Bush believes in the God of love? His politics seem to be about vengeance.

Dr. Molly: Yes, he believes in the God of love. Listen, I voted for President Bush twice. I just think that he got sidetracked. That’s what happened to him.

Q: What sidetracked him?

Dr. Molly: I think he was led astray by his advisers. I think he received rotten advice and false information. I think President Bush is a man of great conviction and I believe, in his heart, he acts out of love. But what can you do when you don’t have proper information? What can you do when you have disloyalty around you? I think that’s what happened to President Bush.

Q: George Bush, when he was first running for president, chose a very experienced running mate, Dick Cheney. He then chose a very experienced cabinet, including Colin Powell and Donald Rumsfeld. John McCain has gone in a different direction, at least with his running mate. What do you think of Sarah Palin?

Dr. Molly: What’s not to love about Sarah? The girl has it all: family life, loving husband, beauty, style, smarts. She’s a great leader.

Q: If Sarah Palin had run for governor of Alabama in 2006, rather than Alaska, would you have voted for her?

Dr. Molly: In a heartbeat. You know, there will be a whole generation of girls who will grow up with Sarah as a role model, if she becomes vice president. I can’t think of a better role model. I pray it happens.

Q: Do you have children?

Dr. Molly: Not yet. My husband and I have decided to wait a few years.

Q: When you do have children, what do you think of the names Bristol, Piper, Track, Willow and Trig? Would you choose any of those names for your children?

Dr. Molly: I like the name Bristol.

Q: You do? What about Track and Trig?

Dr. Molly: Track’s in the Army, fighting for this country, and Trig has Down syndrome. I don’t think you should be making fun of them.

Q: I’m not making fun of them. I’m making fun of parents who would choose those names.

Dr. Molly: What are the names of your children?

Q: I don’t have children.

Dr. Molly: I see. Are you married?

Q: No.

Dr. Molly: I see. Are you gay?

Q: Would you find that offensive?

No answer.

Q: Do you have gays and lesbians in your practice?

Dr. Molly: There aren’t a lot of gays here in Orange Beach. Most of them live down in Key West.

Q: I like Key West.

No answer. The interview arrived at that strange place: how to end it. While Dr. Molly finished her beer, I glanced through my notes. What struck me were the names, the connections. In the Alabama senate race, a Jefferson (Sessions) is running against a Davis (Vivian Davis Figures). St. George School of medicine and George Bush. Orange Beach and crimson tide. Of course, the names of Sarah Palin’s brood and the names of Gulf Coast delicacies. There seems to be a link. Track and Trig might be the local version of fish and chips. Certainly Sarah and Todd Palin might name their sixth child Mudbug, judging from the other names chosen.
     Tina brought over the bill and though we fought over it, I won. It was only fair. I was using her time. We then shook hands and Dr. Molly walked away.
     I walked over to the gift shop part of the restaurant. There were two items for sale that interested me: a “Redneck Riviera” T-shirt and a confederate flag beach towel. I only had enough cash in hand for one. I was torn. I doubted I’d be back this way again. I bought the confederate flag towel because the T-shirt would have been too flamboyant for me in New York City, garnering too much attention. The towel, on the other hand, would never make it out of the closet.

(In the run-up to the presidential election, I am interviewing voters across the country. To read earlier parts of this series, please click on the link “More articles by Brian Josepher” below. You will see the “Whom are you voting for” articles to the right.)

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Whom are you voting for, part I?

Whom are you voting for, part I?

Three weeks now until the presidential election. It seems that every reporter out there has a two-part question for every voter. Whom are you voting for? And why?
I’m no different. In this pre-election series, I’m sitting down with three very different people. Each comes from a different geographical area, a different generation, a different worldview. Yet, each has a very pronounced perspective on the current political climate.
In this first segment I’m sitting down with Chaim Kovaes. Chaim lives in Montreal. This interview took place over the phone.

Q: Chaim, thank you for joining me. I’m just trying to get a sense of what voters are thinking around the country, and in Canada too. Do you have dual citizenship?

Chaim: I do.

Q: So whom will you be voting for in November?

Chaim: Barack Obama.

Q: He’s your guy, definitely?

Chaim: Can I be honest?

Q: I would like that.

Chaim: I wanted to vote for Hillary. I met the Clintons, got to know them a little bit. This was back in the 1990s. He, I didn’t much care for. But she, I found quite formidable.

Q: What were the circumstances that led to your meeting the Clintons?

Chaim: I was doing some work for the Holocaust Museum in Washington. I served on the curriculum committee. Our job was to write a curriculum that the schools could use to teach the Holocaust. Both President Clinton and the First Lady were very interested in our project.

Q: From the sounds of your voice, you sound like you’re in your 50s. What brought you to the Holocaust Museum? Are you the son of a survivor?

Chaim (laughing): In my 50s? What a thing to say. I am 84-years-old. I am a Holocaust survivor.

Q: Incredible, Chaim. You sound very young. Can I ask you a few questions about your history?

Chaim: Of course.

Q: You’re 84-years-old. So you were born in 1924. Where were you born?

Chaim: Lodz.

Q: So you must have gone into the ghetto? 1940, I believe.

Chaim: You are right. The winter of 1940. I survived in the ghetto for four years. In the early spring of 1944, when the Nazis liquidated the ghetto, I went to Auschwitz.

Q: The early spring of 1944? You arrived just before the Hungarian deportation.

Chaim: Yes. I was lucky, I suppose. Had I gone earlier, in 1942 say, I would have gone up the chimney. Same thing had I arrived with the Hungarian Jews in May and June of 1944. But in spring of ’44 the Nazis needed labor. So I was sent to Babitz…

Q: Sorry to interrupt. “Up the chimney?” That means into the crematoria?

Chaim: Yes, that’s Auschwitz slang. There were other terms too.

Q: Such as?

Chaim: "He has gone to the wire" meant when a prisoner committed suicide by running into the electrical wiring surrounding the camp. In Auschwitz, we didn’t steal. We "organized." The SS who sprinkled the Zyklon B into the gas chambers were called "disinfecting operators." There was also such a thing as "Auschwitz fashion." In order to make themselves more like human beings, prisoners imitated their torturers by imitating their way of dress.

Q: Interesting. I guess heroin chic is the more modern version of Auschwitz fashion. What was Babitz?

Chaim: A work farm near the town of Babice, near Auschwitz. It was at Babitz that much of the food that fed the camps was produced.

Q: Was that considered a good job? I mean, I’m assuming you were able to organize some extra rations of food. A potato or a turnip.

Chaim: We were slaves, Brian. He couldn’t eat. We had to steal from the cows, from the dogs. You know, back in the ghetto an order went out. Jews weren’t allowed to have pets. We had to surrender our dogs, our cats. As the years went by, this ended up being a good thing. How could we have fed our family dog? We didn’t have enough bread to feed ourselves. At Babitz, though, we were lower than the dogs.

Q: I’m looking now at my dog, Chaim, who’s sleeping at my feet. I can’t imagine having to surrender him by State decree.

Chaim: It was just the beginning, Brian. Surrendering your dog, wearing the yellow star, that led directly to extermination.

Q: This is supposed to be an interview about the presidential election but let me ask you one more question. You must have been evacuated during the death march of January 1945.

Chaim: Yes, the Russians were coming. I was among the 60,000 Jews who ran back to Germany. I ended up in Buchenwald.

Q: Buchenwald? You were then liberated by the Americans?

Chaim: Yes. They came in on their Jeeps and they handed out Hershey’s chocolate bars. I spent two weeks in the hospital. Imagine eating chocolate after not eating for five years.

Q: Did you go back to Poland after the war?

Chaim: I’ve never been back to Poland. I went to France. Then I found a relative in New York and I went there.

Q: You didn’t like New York?

Chaim: I loved New York.

Q: Why did you move to Canada?

Chaim: I was drafted into the Army to serve in Korea. I went to the draft board and I explained that I was a Holocaust survivor, an Auschwitz survivor, a Buchenwald survivor. I’d seen enough war. Nobody listened.

Q: You fled America? That’s an incredible story. I’ve never heard that before.

Chaim: I told the draft board that I would even serve in Germany. I speak five languages: Polish, German, French, English and Yiddish. I could have been helpful in Germany. But the Army recruiter just shrugged his shoulders.

Q: Your story’s amazing. You were willing to return to Germany in 1950, only five years after being a prisoner of Nazi Germany?

Chaim: You must understand, Brian. I couldn’t fight in a war. Going to Germany – and they desperately needed interpreters then – seemed tolerable, in comparison to going into battle.

Q: In a way, Chaim, you and John McCain have something in common. You were both prisoners. You were both tortured. I understand that your torturers were intent on genocide and his torture was more a function of war but do you feel any kinship to McCain and his captivity?

Chaim: I think anyone who’s been a prisoner, who’s been tortured… I think we all feel kinship to one another. But that’s no reason to vote for him.

Q: Why wouldn’t you vote for John McCain?

Chaim: In my opinion he’s simply not qualified. He doesn’t have the temperament. He doesn’t have the intelligence. He was raised to believe in the military option first. He has the same training as Westmoreland, the same training as Rumsfeld. He doesn’t believe his side can lose. America needs to show humility in the world and John McCain has never demonstrated any ability to show humility in his own life. He’s just the wrong choice.

Q: Is Obama the right choice?

Chaim: Obama offers the chance for reconciliation. There’s a tremendous division in the world. America vs. nearly everybody else. With Obama, there’s might be some movement toward the center, toward rapprochement… I’ll give you an example. Jimmy Carter, when he was president, pardoned all the Americans who had gone to Canada rather than serve in Vietnam, and Korea too by the way. We were called deserters. President Carter called us exactly what we were: objectors. He humanized us. Can you imagine John McCain pardoning Americans who had gone to Canada instead of fighting in Vietnam? No way. They will always be deserters to McCain. This is his mentality. It permeates his thinking. It transcends every issue. Like I said, he’s a military first man. Now, consider the same issue with Obama. I think he would act like Carter and offer exoneration. That’s why I’m voting for him. He’s a man who understands that, yes, there’s power in force, but there’s also power in mercy. McCain’s like Bush. Mercy to him is a show of weakness, categorically.

Q: Chaim, have you ever written your memoirs? Not only is your history fascinating and important but your way of explanation is lucid, cogent.

Chaim: For many years, Brian, I did not speak about my past. My children, they didn’t even know. How do you tell your children that you had to steal from dogs to survive? You want their pleasure, and their respect, and you know your stories will have the opposite effect. If my children, and now my grandchildren, read my memoirs, they would be disgusted with how I survived.

Q: And yet you’re speaking to me now. You clearly feel comfortable now with telling your story.

Chaim: Yes. Out of necessity. There was a professor up here at the University of Montreal. He was a Holocaust denier and he published a history supposedly proving that there weren’t gas chambers. This was in the early 1990s, maybe the late 1980s. Anyway he published his history and there were those who believed him. A growing number, I thought. So I decided that I had to tell my story. I decided that I had to go into the schools. That’s how I became associated with the Holocaust Museum, and eventually the Clintons. I started to tell my story to schoolchildren.

Q: Have you ever encountered resistance to your story amongst your listeners?

Chaim: There was only once. A boy interrupted my talk. He started to spout off: “There were no gas chambers! There were no gas chambers!” He was screaming. I was so angry. I wanted to strangle him. Instead, I calmly walked over to him. “Do you have a brother?” I asked him. “Yes,” he responded. “Do you have a father?” I asked him. “Yes,” he responded. “What about a mother?” I asked him. “Yes, I have a mother,” he responded. I nodded my head. “All of mine died,” I answered. “All of my friends. All of my neighbors. My parents died in the gas chambers.” I asked this child, “What would you do if your parents died?” I didn’t say “murdered.” I didn’t want to scare him. I just said “died.” He answered, “I would cry.” “Yes,” I answered.

I would like to thank Chaim Kovaes for participating in this interview. Please visit this site next Friday for part II in this series, when I will sit down with a 31-year-old doctor in Tennessee. She’s voting for the McCain/Palin ticket.

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What the Psychic Saw, part II

What the Psychic Saw, part II

There’s a tradition on Sundays in New York City: the street fair. As spring becomes summer, the street fair begins on lower Broadway. With each passing Sunday the fair advances uptown, twenty blocks or so at a time. By early October, the fair reaches the Upper West Side. On the first Sunday of October, the fair takes over the blocks of Broadway, from 86th street to 90th street. The material sold doesn’t change from week to week, month to month, year to year. Junk jewelry, ordinary earrings, corn on the cob, pseudo-artistic renderings of the Malibu or Cape Cod seashore, fried foods, lots and lots of socks. The pungent smell of fried foods lingers for days afterwards. It’s like living in a McDonalds for a week.
     This past Sunday I raced out to the street fair. Normally, I stay inside, lock my windows, hope for torrential rain. This past Sunday I anticipated the fair. I admit, I hungered for the fair.
     I was on the street at half past seven in the morning. I watched the city’s tow trucks drag the parked cars away. I watched the organizers of the fair make Broadway into a map, drawing the proportions of each stall in chalk on the street. I then watched the vendors build their makeshift stalls. Aluminum polls, white tent-like tops. The food vendors began their barbecue preparations.
     I went looking for a specific vendor. Last year, for the first time, I noticed a psychic amongst the rabble (or rubble). I noticed how she set up her stall. She didn’t have much to set up. A table, a couple of chairs. She didn’t use tarot cards. She didn’t display a crystal ball. She wore a Burmese ruby on her finger. The color of pigeon’s blood. The fluorescence of the ring made it difficult to ignore. The ring had nothing to do with her psychic readings. She put out a sign on her table: “The Broadway Psychic’s Psychic Readings.”
     Last year, I watched the psychic from a distance. She sat alone. Nobody approached her stall. Customers ate corn on the periphery of her stall. Customers looked at Salvation Army-like furniture. Customers bought socks. Nobody purchased a reading.
     I approached. Cautiously, at first. Timid perhaps. When I reached her table, I saw the identifying mark. A mole on the psychic’s cheek. Bigger than a beauty mark. Various shades of black. The closer to the center, the darker the mole became.
     I sat for a reading. I wrote about the experience in a column a year ago, entitled “What the Psychic Saw.” I wrote that the psychic asked for your hand. Not as a palm-reader might. Not with the expectation of seeing a timeline etched into skin. The psychic wasn’t interested in looking at your palm. The psychic was interested in a handshake. The psychic wanted to touch skin.
     Last year, as I offered my hand, I felt a rather pronounced fear. What would she find in my future? What would she see? How accurate would she be? I was blinded by the fluorescence of the Burmese ruby on her finger. The color of pigeon’s blood.
     We shook hands. She faded in and out. She seemed to disappear inwardly. One moment: crystal clear, occupying space. The next moment: a blind spot. Like staring at the sun. Retinas fried.
     In her eyelids, she saw events. She saw, for instance, the Colorado Rockies winning the World Series. The Rockies then were on quite a run, winning 20 of 21 games. That run ended in the World Series. The Rockies were swept by the Boston Red Sox.
     The psychic was inaccurate. Also, she let my appearance cloud her judgment. Last year, I wore my purple Colorado Rockies baseball cap.
     That was not her only inaccuracy. She described another event seen in her eyelids: “A woman in pink. A nation watching. A cold, gray sky. She’s giving a speech. She’s talking about the future. She says there’s work to do. She says that her job, as she sees it, is to mend fences. She wants her presidency, she says, to be about healing.”
     Last year, I interrupted her reading. “You’re talking about Hillary Clinton?” I said. “I don’t think she can win. I don’t think the Electoral College map works in her favor. Or any Democrat’s, for that matter.” I didn’t question then whether she could win the Democratic nomination. I took that for granted.
     “You’re talking about an old map,” the psychic responded, her eyes still closed, her hand still gripping mine. “You’re talking about red and blue states. The new color is pink. Women want a female president.”
     Apparently not, or at least that female for president. We all know how the last year played out. We also know, from the most recent polls, that women don’t want a female for vice president either. Or at least this female running for vice president.
     Of course, polls change quickly.
     When I found my vendor, this past Sunday, I did not hesitate as I previously had. I didn’t watch from a distance. I didn’t approach cautiously. I ran, in fact, to her table. I was greeted by her identifying mark. A mole on the psychic’s cheek. Bigger than a beauty mark. Various shades of black. The closer to the center, the darker the mole became.
     She held out her hand. I was blinded by the fluorescence of the Burmese ruby on her finger. The color of pigeon’s blood.
     We shook hands. In her eyelids, she saw events. She saw “a wedding. Vows under the chuppah. The stomping of the glass. The sun setting, lots of photographs, lots of wine, lots of toasts, including, as always, some inappropriate words chosen.”
     I was amazed by her information. My father’s wedding took place two months ago. Under a chuppah. He stomped on the glass, not quite breaking it on his first attempt. There were lots of photographs as the sun set. There were lots of toasts, including my father’s new brother-in-law who inexplicably cursed during his toast.
     The psychic’s eyelids stayed still, focused. She wasn’t finished with her vision. “You will fumble with the ring,” she said. “You will nearly drop it. You will then slip it on to your bride’s finger…”
     My bellow interrupted her reading. “I’m getting married?” I said in shock, and horror. “I don’t think so. I will never say, ‘I do.’”
     The psychic didn’t hear me. Her eyelids jumped. “There will be a national grieving,” she continued. “There will be a funeral carried by all the TV news stations, and sports and entertainment stations too. There will be a grieving widow with her tears turning her face of makeup into watercolor blotches. There will be a madam president.”
     I reacted, “McCain’s going to win the election? My God. Palin’s going to be president?”
     “Women want a female president,” she responded.
     I didn’t know what to say. What do you say to a catastrophe (McCain winning the election) compounded by another catastrophe (Palin becoming president)?
     Her eyelids jumped. “A packed car,” she continued. “Books and clothes and chairs and a lamp sticking out of the window. You will be moving.”
     “To where?” I interrupted. I flashed to some possible destinations: Northern California, New Mexico, Portland, Oregon.
     “Toronto,” she answered.
     “Canada?” I responded in surprise. But then the surprise quickly faded. In the aftermath of a McCain/Palin victory, Canada becomes quite alluring.
     “You like the cold,” the psychic added, as if adding reinforcement to her vision.
     “I do,” I said.
     I noticed our surroundings then. Vendors selling corn on the cob. Vendors selling junk jewelry. Vendors selling socks. The overriding smell of fried foods. I also noticed the line of customers behind me. When did that form?
     I paid for my reading and walked away, hoping for inaccuracies. Although I do like the cold.

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Josephus’s Jumble, the 21st Century Edition: October 2008

Josephus’s Jumble, the 21st Century Edition: October 2008

As my loyal readers probably know, I am a direct descendant of the historian Flavius Josephus. Aside from writing such seminal works as War of the Jews (c. 75), Josephus wrote a column for The Titus Times. He called his column, “Josephus’s Jumble.” In the first column of every month, Josephus reviewed the past month. It is my honor and privilege – and some might argue, my birthright – to resurrect Josephus’s Jumble, the 21st century edition. In this particular edition, I’m reviewing some stories missed during the onslaughts known as the economic crisis and election 2008.
     Are You Ready to Jumble?

ADVERTISING GENOCIDE AT $27 A POP
In early September a Parisian store in the Belleville district began to sell a unique line of T-shirts. What made the T-shirts unique wasn’t their color (gray) or their cut (sleeveless) but the words written in both German and Polish. “Juden,” the T-shirts read in German, “eintritt in die parkanlaren verboten.” “Zydzi,” the T-shirt read in Polish, “niedozwolony z wej cie ten park.”
     The T-shirts sold for 18 euros ($27) each. “We can’t keep them in stock,” the sales assistant at the store reported, according to the BBC. “They’re our best selling product.”
     One of the purchasers was questioned outside the store. “Do you know what the words mean?” she was asked. She admitted that she couldn’t read either German or Polish. The words mean: Jews forbidden from entering the park.
     The T-shirts were reproduced from Nazi signs in Lodz, 1940. On February 8 1940, the Nazis announced the order to establish the Lodz ghetto. All of Lodz’s 230,000 Jews were moved into an area a little under three square miles. The resettlement was supposed to take one day. It took weeks. In the early summer of 1944 the Nazis ordered the liquidation of the ghetto. Of the 230,000 Lodz Jews, and some 25,000 Jews transported in from nearby areas, under 1,000 survived.
     The T-shirts didn’t have any wording on the back. But considering what was written on the front, the words “Je crois dans le genocide” might have been appropriate. I believe in genocide.

IS THE CHURCH MORE PROGRESSIVE THAN THE STATE?
The Belleville district in eastern Paris is a mixed area of Jews and Muslims, and of course the ubiquitous Catholics. Aside from the T-shirts, there’s another phenomenon occurring there (and elsewhere in France). “There’s a migration of Muslims to private Catholic schools,” Jean Chamoux, the headmaster of a school in Belleville, claimed. “In the entirety of France – known for liberté, égalité, fraternité – there are four Muslim schools. Four. There are almost 9,000 Roman Catholic schools. It’s ironic but today the Catholic Church is more tolerant of – and knowledgeable about – Islam than the French state.”
     There are no national statistics but according to the office of France’s minister of national education, Xavier Darcos, Muslim students now make up more than 10 percent of the 2 million students in Catholic schools.
     Headmaster Jean Chamoux explained the Muslim exodus to Catholic schools. He began with the argument of curriculum, “We practice religious freedom. The public schools do not. We teach the national program. Religious activities are entirely optional.” He then offered a secular argument, “Public schools don’t prepare students in the same way. A Catholic education is the best way to lay the foundation for a brighter future. Fifteen of the top 20 high schools in France are Catholic schools.” He offered a theistic reason, “We share the same God.” Then he turned to perhaps the core reason. “In one word,” Chamoux responded, “respect. Take the veil as an example. In the public school system, Muslims would not be allowed to wear a veil [due to a 2004 ban on headscarves]. If I banned the headscarf, half the girls wouldn’t go to school at all. I prefer to have them here, talk to them and tell them that they have a choice.”
     A spokesman for Minister Xavier Darcos disagreed vehemently. “The headscarf is a sexist sign, and discrimination between the sexes has no place in our schools, public, private or otherwise. This is the fundamental reason why we are against it.”
     Jean Chamoux did not disagree but he chose a different tactic. Again he used the word respect. “My goal is that by the time the girls graduate they have made a conscious choice, one way or the other. But the choice is theirs, not the state’s. That’s something that we must respect.”

WHAT IS THE FUTURE OF THE BANKING SYSTEM?
On the morning of September 25, a millionaire financier in London breakfasted with his wife and their young son. He then drove his car to the rail station. Rather than wait for his train into the city and his office, he leapt in front of a 100 mph express train.
     The suicide of Kirk Stephenson offered perhaps a glimpse of the future, and a reminder of the past. Although Stephenson’s finances are not known at the time of this writing, he is believed to have “succumbed” to the stresses of his position, according to Lindsey Cole, head of public relations at Stephenson’s place of employment, Olivant Advisers. Stephenson was chief operating officer at Olivant. In June, Olivant secured a 2.5 percent stake in Swiss banking giant UBS. Over the previous year UBS had written off billions in bad debt, a product of the United States mortgage market.
     Since June, UBS’s value has fallen 20 percent, costing Olivant 200 million pounds. The decision to buy into UBS, according to Lindsey Cole, was led by Mr. Stephenson.
     Lindsey Cole expressed great shock and sorrow on behalf of Olivant. “He was very hard working. He did a 24-hour-a-day job. The pressure apparently was too much.”
     That explanation, as incomplete as it is, harkens back to another time when financiers killed themselves in droves. During the Great Depression, suicide was not an anomaly. “I remember my father’s best friend losing his entire fortune,” begins the essay “The Kind of Man Roosevelt Hired.” “Before the Depression, he’d had a thriving business, a beautiful apartment. He’d invested heavily on margin in the market. Suddenly he had nothing. He jumped from his 16th story apartment. His apartment looked out at Central Park, or Hooverville as it was known then. The flowerbeds and manicured lawns had been turned into a sea of flimsy shanties made of anything available, aluminum mainly but also newspaper and cardboard and trash and tree branches. Inhabitants of the shanties tore down low-hanging limbs in hopes of strengthening their structures. Trees in Central Park lost their reachable branches. That was an effect of the Great Depression.”

OTHER NOTABLE DEATHS
One actor’s death dominated the obituaries but the world of scholarship and literature lost two eminent men. William Woodruff, born in Blackburn, England, died on September 23. Woodruff was as much a chronicler as a historian. In addition to his brilliant “Concise History of the World” (a book that would not be written in our century of specialization), he wrote two memoirs. They might be the kind of books Frank McCourt would have written, had McCourt not engaged in hyperbole and, some argue, fiction.
     In addition to his non-fiction, Woodruff wrote “The Vessel of Sadness,” an autobiographical novel of his experiences fighting for the British in Italy during the Second World War, and “Paradise Galore,” an Orwellian barnyard allegory. Woodruff’s narrator is a wild boar in search of Happy Land, where pigs go after leaving the farm. The moral of the story is that true happiness lies in coming to terms with the stages of life.
     William Woodruff was 92-years-old.
     Three days earlier, this country’s top Russian scholar, Marc Raeff (pronounced rie-uff), passed away. Professor Raeff was a very prolific writer, specializing in imperial Russia. It can be argued that our knowledge of Peter the Great comes directly from the scholarship of Professor Raeff.
     Marc Raeff was born in Moscow in 1923. His father, an engineer who worked for the Soviet government, was sent to Berlin. When the Nazis ascended to power, the Raeff family moved west, to Paris. They left imprisoned Europe at the last moment, 1941.
     Marc Raeff studied at the City College of New York, as many immigrants did. He spent most of his professional life at Columbia University. His book, “Russia Abroad: A Cultural History of the Russian Emigration, 1919-1939,” follows the migration of Russians during the early Soviet period. It is a book of both sorrow and hope and it speaks to a century of refuge and expatriation.
     Marc Raeff was 85-years-old. He died of Lou Gehrig’s disease.

EHUD OLMERT MAKES A STATEMENT
While his friend George Bush hides in the White House bunker, hoping for the day he can take Air Force One back to Texas and retirement, Ehud Olmert has decided to go out loudly. “What I am saying to you has not been said by any Israeli leader before me,” the lame duck prime minister told the newspaper Yediot Aharonot. He then listed the conditions necessary for a peace between Israel and Palestine.
     “The time has come to say these things,” Olmert continued. On the West Bank: “We have to reach an agreement with the Palestinians, the meaning of which is that in practice he will withdraw from almost all the territories, if not all the territories.”
     On East Jerusalem: “A decision has to be made. This decision is difficult, terrible, a decision that contradicts our natural instincts, our innermost desires, our collective memories, the prayers of the Jewish people for 2,000 years.” Olmert then argued that Israel must cede East Jerusalem to the Palestinians.
     On the Golan Heights: Olmert proposed using the land as a carrot of sorts. In exchange for the Golan, Damascus would alter its Greater Syria policies, altering its ties to Hezbollah and Iran.
     On Iran: Olmert proposed acting within the international system. “Part of our megalomania and our loss of proportions is the things that are said here about Iran. We are a country that has lost a sense of proportion about itself.”
     Perhaps this last statement is the epitaph of our age. We live in dimensions imagined by imperial motivations. We attach a “Greater” notion to our nationalism: Greater Israel, Greater Iran, Greater United States. We become flag-waving fumigators. We attempt to rid the world of self-identified vermin. But we don’t have the introspection to recognize our own motivations: greed, conceit, “megalomania,” to quote Olmert.
     Our age cries out for introspection. Our leaders respond with threats and taunts and trumped up confidences. Ehud Olmert, you should have given this speech after your election victory in 2006. Tzipi Livni, you should learn from your predecessor’s example. Is anyone paying attention in Washington?

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The Anniversary Edition

The Anniversary Edition

One year ago, September 28, 2007, I tried something new. A type of journalism rarely seen in these parts, or this century. I named my column, “The View from the 13th Floor.” In that first column, I set my sights on George W. Bush, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Isiah Thomas and the chronicler of the 20th century, Lenny Bruce. That column created quite a rumpus on the blogosphere. I received my first fan email for journalistic pursuits: “You rock,” a guy with the username of Rocky X wrote.
     One year later, here we are celebrating an anniversary. So much has changed: “The View from the 13th Floor” morphed into “The Gonzo Journalism of Brian Josepher.” George W. Bush was then in the news everyday. Today, even during the economic crisis of the past ten days, he hides. Hillary Clinton looked like she’d be the next president of the United States. John McCain looked like he’d bow out of the Republican primary season.
     At the same time, so little has changed: One year ago, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was in New York to address the United Nations. Guess who rolled into New York this past week? John McCain, who appeared senile last year, appears just as senile this year. Or how else do you explain his red cape to rescue Washington act this week? Last year, nobody wanted to talk about the senility of John McCain, in honor of his so-called patriotism. This year nobody wants to talk about the senility of John McCain.
     But let’s not go negative. This is a celebration: the One Year Anniversary of the Column. Yeah!
     In honor of that momentous occasion, I’ve compiled an index of this last year for your reading pleasure. Enjoy. And thanks for reading along.

Number of columns written since September 28, 2007: 50.
Number of computer pages used to write those 50 columns: 456.
Number of paragraphs: 2,846.
Number of words: 109,109. I kid you not. What would the numerologists say?

Number of references to George W. Bush: 68.
Most interesting policy decision made by President Bush as uncovered in this column: Operation Abdullah. King Abdullah, of course, is the leader of Saudi Arabia. George Bush made a stop in Riyadh in late May 2008. Most American pundits thought Bush went to press for increased oil production. The American pundits, no surprise, were wrong. According to my source (who must remain anonymous, unfortunately), Bush asked Abdullah to bomb Iran. Using American-made jets, of course. And American-made bombs.

Number of references to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad: 90.
Most interesting detail uncovered by this column on Ahmadinejad: The Iranian president participated in the takeover of the American embassy back in 1979. He was one of the original student-organizers. During that takeover, the American diplomats shredded as much documentation as time permitted. The Iranians, when they found the shredded documentation, brought in a large receptacle to crate out the trash. One man stopped that activity. He began to tape the strips of paper back together. He gained a nickname from that activity: Scotch. His real name was Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Number of “Ask B, Relationship Expert” columns: 4.
Favorite letter received for the “Ask B” column: “Dear B, I love your advice column. Trouble is, I now think of you all the time. What can stop this infatuation?” The letter writer signed off as “Confounded in Colorado.” I have a lot of haters in my readership. I don’t have a lot of lovers. It’s nice to hear from the lovers – occasionally, I wouldn’t want to hear from the few everyday.

Favorite emailer: Tie. Madison, in Madison, Wisconsin, and Paige from imnotobsessed.com, a fan website dedicated to the actress Jennifer Aniston.
Honorable Mention: S.
Reason why S did not make the top tier: As a relative – and in fact, my mother – she was disqualified from top tier status.
Favorite emails from Paige: “What do you think of the new boy?” she wrote, with a smiley face :) after the question mark. “Personally, I’m so excited. I’ve already bought all of John Mayer’s CDs. Yeah, Jennifer! We love you, girl! We want your happiness!”
     A few months later she wrote: “Thank God she broke up with that LOSER. I dumped all of his CDs in the trash.” The capitalization and the exclamation points belonged to Paige.

Speaking of Jennifer Aniston, number of times I heard from her publicist, Stephen Huvane: 1.
Number of times Publicist Huvane threatened to sue me: 1.
Number of time Publicist Huvane’s boyfriend, Steven Janssen, emailed me: 1.
Number of times Steven Janssen expressed his “love” for my column: 1. “I laughed and laughed and laughed,” he wrote. “Please don’t mention it to Stephen [Huvane]. He didn’t really get it.” I didn’t mention it to Stephen Huvane.

Number of “Josephus’s Jumble” columns (a wrap up of the previous month): 3.
Reason for such a small output: I forgot about the Jumble.
Favorite scene captured by the Jumble: First daughter Jenna Bush at the Annapolis Borders, in support of her book “Jenna’s Story”… Excuse me, “Ana’s Story.” The questions thrown at Jenna Bush covered a wide range of topics. What do you think of the war in Iraq, she was asked. “It’s a complicated subject,” she answered. What do you think of your father’s presidency, she was asked. “He’s doing a great job, and he’s hanging in there,” she said, as if Bush/Cheney resigning and leaving the job to Nancy Pelosi was a viable option. Can we see your wedding ring, she was asked. “Of course,” she responded, showing her hand to the crowd. “It’s a diamond surrounded by blue sapphires,” she said. The sapphires matched her eye color.
     Near the end of the question-and-answer period, a reporter in the crowd asked, “Whom do you most admire among presidential children?”
     “Chelsea Clinton,” Jenna answered, without much hesitation. “I always thought she had poise.”
     Something about that answer set off my internal skepticism mechanism. Remember, this is Jenna Bush. What does she know about Patti Reagan or Amy Carter or Patricia Nixon or Lynda Bird Johnson or Caroline Kennedy? This is the Paris Hilton of the First Daughters set.

Top five columns picked up by and published by the news service Reuters, in descending order: 5) Who Killed Benazir Bhutto, 4) “We Believe in Dick”: A History of Conventions, 1968, 3) An Interview with Bill James, America’s Foremost Iranian Expert, 2) Barack Obama and the History of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard. And Number One: A History of Playboy(s). Clearly, the skin of Playboy Magazine sells more copy than politics, history, and assassination -– combined.

Worst prognostications by this columnist, top two in descending order (because I only made two predictions the whole year): 2) Hillary Clinton would become president. In my defense I wrote that prediction in early October 2007. In early October 2007, everyone was predicting Clinton for the presidency. 1) In my NBA playoff preview I predicted the San Antonio Spurs would beat the Detroit Pistons in the final. In the semifinals, the Lakers beat the Spurs and the Celtics beat the Pistons. Neither of my teams made it to the finals. I was doubly wrong. Live and learn.

Best series covered by this column: The nine-part History of Conventions.
Second place: The five-part tragedy of American-Iranian relations.
Third place: Not applicable. There were only two series written.
Best proposed series by an emailer: A guy named Phil wrote, “I get most of my in-depth analysis from you (and Lou Dobbs). I really enjoyed your series on Iran. I propose a similar series on Iraq. Any chance?” Do you mean Lou Dobbs, the latte-drinking, arugula-eating, xenophobe elitist? Thanks, Phil. I’m flattered to be in such bigoted company.

Speaking of Lou Dobbs, worst pundits on cable, according to this column: Tie. Sean Hannity and Lou Dobbs. Two jingoists with the intellect (and some might argue, senility) of John McCain. Not a good combination to be speaking to this country.
Honorable mention in bad punditry: Chris Matthews. I live in New York, some 40 blocks from the studios of MSNBC. Even with the volume of my television turned all the way down and the windows closed, I can still hear Matthews. I speak for all New Yorkers: Shut up, Chris. You’re jacking up the traffic noise.

Best pundit: Stephen Colbert.
Best pundit to suck up to: Stephen Colbert.
Pundit who offers the best bump in popularity (or how else do you explain Mike Huckabee?): Stephen Colbert.

Some names you read in this past year that you won’t be reading in the next year (hopefully): Isiah Thomas, Rudy Giuliani, Sally Field, Katie Couric, Floyd Landis, Mitt Romney.

Favorite title given to a politician: Tie. The Mahmoud Ahmadinejad Publicity Tour and the Mitt Romney Pathological Liar Portfolio.

Speaking of the Mitt Romney Pathological Liar Portfolio: At a campaign stop in South Carolina during the Republican primary, Mitt Romney was in the midst of criticizing the Democrats in their “battle in the global war on terror. Just look at what Osama – uh – Obama said yesterday. Barack Obama calling on radicals, jihadists of all different types, to come together in Iraq. That is the battlefield. That is the central place, he said. Come join us under one banner.”
     Mitt Romney might have said “Osama – uh – Obama” but in fact he wasn’t talking about anything candidate Barack Obama had ever said. Mitt Romney was talking about the new audiotape released by Osama bin Laden, calling on insurgents in Iraq to unite.
     After the event, the Romney camp tried to backpedal. “Governor Romney misspoke,” the campaign announced. “He was referring to the recently released audiotape of Osama bin Laden and misspoke when referencing his name. It was just a brief mix-up.”
     A brief mix-up? Can’t wait until 2012 and the Republican primary campaign between Romney and Sarah Palin. Now there’s one for the pathological liars club.

Speaking of the Sarah Palin Pathological Liar Portfolio (a new document), some names you may be reading quite a lot of in the coming year in this column: Asif Ali Zardari, Tzipi Livni, Lance Armstrong, Sarah Palin.

Major sports question of 2009: How will Lance Armstrong do without all of those illegal drugs pumping through his system?

Major sports question of 2009, part II: Will Lance Armstrong continue his doping methodology and find another masking agent to keep those illegal drugs pumping through his system a so-called secret?

Major political question of 2009: Who’s going to bail out the U.S. government when the dollar becomes as worthless as the Botswana pula?

Major political question of 2009, part II: Will the tenure of John McCain, if elected president, become the shortest in presidential history? William Henry Harrison lived a month into office. John McCain doesn’t look like he’ll see February.

First question of February 1, 2009: “Good morning, Madam President, how was your first night in the White House?”

The Gonzo Journalism of Brian Josepher promises another investigatory, irreverent, though-provoking, naughty, astute, and always entertaining year of columns. Check back every Friday. There’s nothing like a good column to end the week.

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Ask B, Relationship Expert

Ask B, Relationship Expert

Dear B,
There is this older lady I work with, we flirt way too much for it to be work. She is married. I say she is older because I’m 20 and she is 34. Recently, the flirting moved to the next level. There was an office party. On the way home me and her shared a cab. We also shared a couple of extremely passionate kisses, which she made the move for. I don’t know how to read into this. Just need some advice
– Kiss and Tell

Dear Kiss and Tell,
How should you read into this? This woman’s in a bad marriage and/or she’s lonely and/or she’s desperate. She has you in the crosshairs. It’s a rather simple equation. So you have to ask yourself a question: Is the adventure worth it? Will the physicality, and the erotica, compensate for what comes next?
     What comes next? Number one, there’s no such thing as free sex. There are always attachments involved, deliberations, portends, feelings. Given your ages, she’s a little more emotionally developed to handle these kinds of episodes. Perhaps. Do you really want to become emotionally involved with a married woman who’s 14 years older? You’re 20-years-old; what does she have to offer, except interest in you, that you can’t find from someone more your age? Are you certain you’re attracted to her, and not to the stimulation of an older, sensual woman showing interest in you?
     Number two, there’s going to be a jealous, angry husband. In my mind, he’s a muscular, goatee-wearing electrician with a tattoo of a skull and crossbones on his forearm. Do you want to be stalked by a man who knows how to use currents to fry your body?
     The choice is yours.

Dear B,
I seem to have a unique problem with men – to the point I feel that I may as well give up on a relationship, because it isn’t going to happen for me. What I want is an ordinary guy, who wants to get to know me, who I find interesting as well – a more intellectual type – someone with similar interests, who could be my best friend. I don’t think those expectations are unreasonable.
     Here is the problem. The only guys I seem to attract are either unavailable men – gay guys seem to be easily fascinated with me. And they don’t even make good friends, because they are so capricious – here today, gone tomorrow. The other type I seem to attract are the guys who have something about them or their lifestyle that is a total and complete turnoff. So different from me, and my life, I have to wonder what makes them think I would even be interested. (I am educated, and not interested in anyone who isn’t.)
     Can you tell me what men are looking for? What makes a girl relationship material, and what makes her a great friend and buddy, but not a romantic interest? I really want to know.
– High and Dry

Dear High and Dry,
Do you know what’s interesting about your “ordinary guy?” He’s extraordinary. He’s intelligent. He’s intuitive. He’s patient. He’s curious. He’s a good listener. He’s stable. He’s highly educated. You use the word “ordinary” and yet you’re looking for the antithetical. You’ve constructed the perfect man to fit your needs. But rather than call him Superman you call him Ordinaryman.
     You’re playing a little game with yourself. It’s far easier to complain that there are no good men around than to find someone decent and begin the long training period. Doing the complaining is easier than committing to the work of a relationship.
     I think the issue of your singularity lies in your worldview, not in the field of available men out there. You’re also not unique, despite your introduction. I could show you hundreds of Dear B letters coming from exactly your angle of viewership.
     Finally, I would back away from stereotyping gay guys. What’s “capricious” to you might be stable to another. And perhaps you attract the fickle. I wonder why.

Dear B,
Help! I just got in a major argument with my girlfriend. I lost my cool. I fired back a low blow, commenting on the size of her posterior. She was speechless for a moment, and then she slapped me in the face and walked away. I tried to apologize but she gave me the silent treatment.
     In reality, she’s not heavy at all. She’s quite fit, in much better shape than me, in fact. She has a lovely figure, 34-24-38, but just has a full, shapely derriere, like Jennifer Lopez. However, she can be self-conscious about it, often looking in the mirror and asking me if she looks fat. I know it’s a cardinal sin to make insulting comments about a woman’s body, so I hope I haven’t done irreparable harm here. However, I do think I really hurt her feelings. How should I go about apologizing to her?
– Low Blow Bob

Dear Low Blow Bob,
Nobody in the long history of this relationship column has ever quoted a woman’s measurements to me. It’s so belittling; I’m actually shell-shocked. It’s like we live in Sarah Palin’s paradigm of feminist theory. I’m so shell-shocked that I’m going to let the Jennifer Lopez derriere reference go. You’ll have to give me a moment…
     Okay, now that I’ve recovered from my post-traumatic stress disorder, let me just play shadken. There’s a woman I think you should meet. Judging from your lack of emotional intelligence, I think you might want to meet Ms. High and Dry (from the letter above). The two of you share an unattainable image of what your partner could and should be. Maybe that’s enough of a foundation to build a marriage.
     And if this shiddach works out, maybe I should get into the matchmaking business.

Dear B,
Did you hear the story about the young woman auctioning off her virginity to pay for her college education? She calls it empowering. I call it prostitution. I think this story shows the moral decrepitude of our age. What do you think?

Thank you for your letter. I had not heard the story. I did, after reading your letter, make some phone calls. I did, through an extensive network of colleagues, locate a phone number. The number had a 619 area code. San Diego.
     Our young woman answered. I introduced myself. She’d never heard of my advice column. I asked if she might agree to an interview, for “investigatory purposes,” as I put it. Our young woman was more than happy to answer my questions. She just asked to go by a pseudonym, for “safety reasons,” as she put it.
     “What are you afraid of?” I asked.
     “There are a lot of freaks out there,” Natalie Dylan answered. “Stalkers, sickos, perverts. I just want to protect myself.”
     “Some of those freaks have money,” I replied. “Aren’t you afraid that one of them might win your virginity auction?”
     “Yes,” she responded, very matter-of-factly.
     Her candidness surprised me. I hesitated. A long continental moment ensued. “So,” I finally continued, “let’s start with the basics. What’s your motivation for making this offer?”
     “I’m in big debt,” Natalie answered. “I just graduated from college. I want to go to graduate school. How am I going to afford that?”
     “Good question,” I answered. “What did you study in college?”
     “Women’s studies.”
     “Really?”
     “Yes, really. Why?”
     “Well, there’s some good irony here,” I answered. “You’re offering up your insides to the patriarchal hegemony and yet, you’ve just spent the last four years delving into the powers and processes of that hegemony. Doesn’t that strike you as ironic?”
     “No,” Natalie replied. “It strikes me as a sound business decision.”
     “A business decision?” I replied. “I guess this is the very definition of business becoming personal. How much are you in debt, ball park figure?”
     “Fifty thousand dollars or so.”
     “Yeah, that’s a big number.”
     “There’s no other way to pay it off,” Natalie responded. “I don’t have rich parents. My mother’s a 4th grade teacher.”
     “What does your mom think about this auction?” I asked.
     “She doesn’t agree with me at all,” Natalie said. “She thinks I’m giving away my identity for money. She asks me, ‘How can you put a monetary value on yourself?’”
     “How do you respond?” I asked.
     “I don’t see it that way,” Natalie responded. “Yes, I’m giving away something personal but it’s not my identity. It’s just an overrated fascination. I’m not fascinated by my virginity. Why should I care how I lose it?”
     “Good question,” I reacted. “It certainly is yours to lose however you choose. In the old world, of course, virginity was a ticket to upward mobility, education, an easier life…”
     Natalie interrupted, “We don’t live in that world anymore.”
     “No, you’re right there,” I said. “But my point is, your decision in a way reflects back on the old world view of virginity, as something to be bartered. So, you’re still a virgin, right?”
     “Yes, of course. I can’t believe you’d ask that.”
     “Are you really bothered by my question?”
     “Yeah, I’m not a liar.”
     “Listen,” I replied, “in our day and age girls lose their virginity early. Actually, in the old world girls lost their virginity early too. They married at early ages. What are you, about twenty-two? That’s on the older side to be losing your virginity in both the old world and today’s world.”
     “It is what it is,” she responded.
     “You didn’t fall for some cute boy during high school and lose it in a moment of passion?”
     “No.”
     “You didn’t have a one-nighter in college? You know, after a drink too many?”
     “No.”
     “Have you protected your virginity up to this point?” I asked.
     “I don’t know what you mean by protecting,” Natalie answered. “I didn’t want to sleep around.”
     “But you’re going to sleep around in this instance,” I replied.
     “It’s a one time thing,” Natalie answered. “I wouldn’t call that sleeping around.”
     “Are you straight?”
     “Yes, why do you ask?”
     “I’m just wondering how you can let some guy enter you,” I responded. “You must be able to divorce it in some way, to disassociate. If you are attracted to women, that might help in this case.”
     “I’m not attracted to women sexually,” Natalie answered.
     “How much do you hope to make from this auction?” I asked.
     “Honestly? I’m hoping for a million dollars.”
     “A million dollars? Are you kidding me? That’s a lot of green for a little blood.”
      I thought she would react to this statement. She did not. Another long continental moment followed. Finally I continued, “I’m wondering if your logic adds up. You said so yourself, we don’t live in the old world anymore. Virginity isn’t what it used to be. Why would someone write you a million dollar check?”
     “Because men are men,” Natalie responded. “There’s a fascination with f-ing [Natalie used the full word] a virgin. What do you call it, deflowering? A lot of men have this fantasy about taking away a girl’s virginity. Like they can keep it or something. Like it’s gold.”
     “I can’t argue with you there,” I replied. “Will you use protection, a condom?”
     “Of course.”
     “Well you might run into some problems,” I said. “Many guys aren’t into condoms and someone paying a million dollars, or whatever the sum is, might want a little more… freedom. You know the old saying, ‘You get what you pay for.’”
     “I don’t want to get pregnant,” Natalie replied. “I don’t want to catch a disease.”
     “No you don’t,” I said. “I’m not saying you should have unprotected sex. I’m just saying you might get an argument. Let’s move on. What do you want to study in graduate school?”
     “Counseling. I want to be a marriage and family therapist.”
     “Really?” I said
     “Yes, really,” she replied.
     “And you don’t see the conflict in selling your virginity and wanting to be a marriage and family counselor?”
     “No, what’s the conflict?” she asked.
     “Well, let’s say a decade from now some girl comes to you seeking advice. She wants to sell her virginity for a million bucks. How would you counsel her?”
     “I would counsel her to find her own happiness,” Natalie responded, “as long as she’s not doing harm to herself or others.”
     “Some people would argue that in this case she’s doing harm to herself,” I said.
     “I think people are taking it the wrong way. Why are we so serious about the issue of virginity?”
     “Have you thought about the actual act?” I asked. “You’re going to have some guy, a stranger, on top of you. You could be totally repulsed by the guy. Even if he’s okay, he’s going to be entering you. A stranger! Doesn’t that just make you queasy?”
     “I really don’t have that kind of problem with it. And I don’t think I will on the day of the event.”
     “But if you do you’ll call it off?” I asked.
     “Sure, I guess,” she responded. “I won’t call it off though.”
     “There will be guys reading this who might be interested. Where can they find this auction, on eBay?”
     “No, eBay turned me down,” Natalie replied. “The auction will take place at the Moonlite Bunny Ranch.”
     “The Moonlite Bunny Ranch?” I laughed. “What’s that?”
     “It’s a brothel in Nevada.”
     “How did you get in touch with them?”
     “My sister works there.”
     “Really?”
     “Yes, really. She’s trying to pay off her school loans.”
     “Whatever happened to working two decent jobs to pay off your school loans?” I reacted.
     “Do you know how long it would take to pay off $50 thousand at ten dollars an hour?” she responded. “And then what about paying for grad school? Or paying for an apartment? Or having a life? I don’t want to spend all of my life at work.”
     This last sentence struck me as the essence of her argument. I touched on another argument that I’d read on the Internet. “Some say that there’s an entertainment component here. That you’re doing this for your 15 minutes of fame.”
     Natalie’s answer was resolute: “I’m doing this to pay off my school loans and to pay for graduate school. If there is money left over, that would be terrific.”
     I continued, “There’s a rumor out there on the Internet that you’re going to film the act. That you’re going to make this a reality show of sorts.”
     “That’s not true,” Natalie responded. “That just sounds like Internet hype to me.”
     “It’s credited to the owner of the Moonlite Bunny Ranch, Dennis Hof. He’s made a few sex tapes in his time, you know.”
     “Well, I don’t know anything about that,” Natalie responded. “You’d have to ask him.”
     I did. Dennis Hof didn’t want to talk about the filming aspect. He did want to talk about Natalie Dylan’s ingenuity. “I think it’s a tremendous idea,” he said. “Why lose your virginity to some guy in the backseat of a Toyota when you can pay for your education?”
     I scoffed. There was something about Hof’s tone that sounded so artificial. He followed up his Toyota comment with an offer: “Are you interested in the auction? I could get you a reduced rate, say somewhere around half a million.”
     The interview petered out from there.

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Mailbag

Mailbag

To celebrate the end of the glam rock, and the God talk, known as the Democratic and Republican Conventions, let’s dip into the mailbag. Here’s a general sampling of what fills my inbox, with my responses directly below.

1) Brenda from Abilene wrote, “Thank you, Mr. Josepher, for your series on the conventions. I lived through all the conventions you wrote about (except 1944), and I just don’t remember the details and nuances you provided. Plus, your characterizations made me laugh. Dan Quayle circling his boss George Bush like “a young warrior doing a war dance around his chief.” That’s funny. Thanks again.”

Brenda, my pleasure. But in the name of accuracy, the Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Elisabeth Drue characterized Dan Quayle’s reaction to being nominated for the vice presidency. I merely repeated Ms. Drue’s description, and I gave her credit.
     I offer this answer in light of the next question.

2) A fellow named Hank Holdsclaw took umbrage with my expert, Elisabeth Drue, and my “huge oversight,” in his words. Hank wrote, “It’s apropos. Today we have a senator running for president who was accused of plagiarism not too long ago. We have another senator running for vice president who admitted to plagiarism a few decades back. And you’ve put your faith in a journalist who won her Pulitzer Prize by plagiarizing the most famous investigative journalist of our day. Did she really think she could get away with it? Your huge oversight makes your entire convention series null and void.”

The backstory. Bob Woodward wrote a book called Veil: The Secret Wars of the CIA, 1981-1987. In that book, among the tales of attempted murders, payoffs to foreign leaders, covert aid to both the Contras of Nicaragua and the British in their “war” in the Falkland Islands, Woodward presents a deathbed interview with the director of the CIA from the 1980s, Bill Casey.
     In Elisabeth Drue’s Pulitzer Prize-winning book, Reagan’s World: The Unmasking of the 1980s, published after Woodward’s book, Drue presents certain comments supposedly made by Bill Casey on his deathbed. Drue did not credit Woodward. Only one journalist interviewed Casey on his deathbed, Bob Woodward. And so, when Drue’s book came out, the plagiarism charges picked up steam. The reading republic loves sordid tales (and Bob Woodward only writes sordid tales), which is what made the accusations of plagiarism so alluring.
     To be accurate, however, Elisabeth Drue did not give credit to Bob Woodward in her book because she didn’t need to. Elisabeth Drue never claimed to have interviewed the bedridden Bill Casey. She did, however, interview Casey’s wife, Sophia.
     Not only did Sophia Casey give Elisabeth Drue inside information, as best she knew it (Bill Casey apparently talked in his sleep), but according to Sophia Casey, Bill Casey never gave Bob Woodward a deathbed confessional. Woodward, according to Sophia Casey, invented the whole deathbed scenario scene.
     So there you have it, Hank Holdsclaw. As far as I can ascertain, Elisabeth Drue based her information on Sophia Casey, not Bob Woodward’s supposed interview of Bill Casey.
     It should also be noted. Elisabeth Drue has never admitted to plagiarism and the Pulitzer Prize committee, when rewarding the award, dismissed the charges.
     It should also be noted. Bob Woodward did not respond to my emails seeking his side of the story.

3) Continuing on with the convention series, S from Santa Monica commented on the last column in the series (“Don’t turn the delegates into robots,” September 5, 2008). S wrote, “That thing on Alexander Hamilton and the fungus—where do you get this stuff? Very funny! And John Davis? Who the hell was he—now I know. We certainly could have done without Coolidge—too bad. I just loved her [Elisabeth Drue’s] insights and historic comparisons—playboy Kennedy for example. I don’t think she was tough enough on McCain and Mrs. Moosehead—that’s got to be the most cynical, outright pandering bullshit choice anyone has made—ever! I’m ready to move to Denmark! But first I’ll send money to the Obama campaign—what else to do? CA is already for Obama—and NY for sure. I’m worried....”

You’re not alone in your worry, S. I’ve received numerous letters, mostly from women, expressing concern. But before we get ahead of ourselves, S., let’s take a moment and look at your history. Back in 1976, on the eve of the election, you paced through the house – or “brisked,” to use your word – uttering, “If Gerald Ford wins the election, we’re moving to Canada.”
     Jimmy Carter won the election. In hindsight, Gerald Ford was a far superior choice. He was the last president who knew how to work with congress. He also was the last Republican to serve the center. Thanks to the next Republican, the Christian right hijacked the party and now we live in the age of Christian fundamentalism. Which is a heck of a lot scarier than Muslim fundamentalism.
     But I digress. Let’s get back to your history, S. In 1980, on the eve of the elections, you told anyone who would listen, “If Ronald Reagan wins the election, we’re moving to Canada.”
     Ronald Reagan did win the election. We did not move to Canada.
     As the Reagan years ended you seemed to suffer from Ronny fatigue. You didn’t, for instance, threaten to move if George H.W. Bush won the election. Which he did. And then lost his reelection bid.
     In 2000, you were back however. “If George W. Bush wins the election,” you threatened, “we’re moving to Canada.”
     George W. Bush, of course, did win the election. We didn’t move to Canada.
     So now we have another threat. This time though you’ve given up on Canada. Why? What does Denmark offer that Canada cannot touch? And before answering, remember that Canada is just a drive away.

4) Let’s move on from the convention series. I received another email from one of my most favorite emailers. Madison, in Madison, wrote, “Dear Mr. Josepher, more than a month ago I wrote to you with a complaint and you even included it in your last mailbag column. My complaint, if you remember, is that you’d become too political. At that time, you were writing an Iran series. These past few weeks you’ve only written this convention series. What about the entertainment side of your column? I think you’ve neglected the fun of the column, particularly the ‘Ask B, Relationship Expert’ advice column.”

You win, Madison. Not only am I including an “Ask B” question here – although I’m warning you, my answer isn’t fun – but I promise to devote an entire column to “Ask B” this month.

Dear B,
I have been married for 14 years and have two wonderful boys, but my wife stopped loving me more than 10 years ago and has been romantically involved with another man for the last four years.
      I’ve accepted this state of affairs for the sake of my children’s happiness and because my wife and I, despite the lack of physical affection, still enjoy a friendly and stable relationship.
     But now, perhaps inevitably, I have met another woman. The closeness of this new friendship has, however, only served to illustrate the distance that exists in my marriage. My emotional life is suddenly in turmoil and I would welcome some advice on how I should deal with the situation.

These are the sorts of scenarios that drive a relationship columnist to drink, or tear out his/her hair, or to give up the relationship columnist game altogether. Let’s go back 14 years. It’s your wedding day. You’re out for a walk, trying to calm the nerves before the big event. A stranger comes up to you. He’s a little disheveled, peculiar, a bit grotesque even. He proceeds to prophesize. He predicts two children, boys. He predicts a 14-year marriage. He predicts ten loveless years of marriage. He predicts that you’ll stay in the relationship for the children. He predicts a long, long affair by your wife.
     What would your reaction be 14 years ago? To scoff at this soothsayer? To quickly walk away? Probably. But then as you walk away, you might say to yourself, “Well, I won’t let that happen. That sounds like a very unhappy life.”
     There’s a great word. It’s a word you know, judging from your writing style and obvious education. The word is cuckold. It means the husband of an adulteress, often regarded as an object of derision. It derives from the cuckoo’s habit of laying its egg in another bird’s nest.
     Of course you’ve now found a new friend. How predictable is that? My question would be: What took you so long? My second question would be: Do you often degrade yourself for the sake of your children? Do you think that’s a healthy image for your children to witness? Where’s your dignity?
     This emotional turmoil you’re now embroiled in; it’s your fault. You’ve created such a rigid entrapment for yourself. My advice? I don’t think you’re emotionally capable of leaving this marriage. I think there’s something in the family unit, something in your loveless relationship to your wife, that speaks to your greater psychology. You enjoy your cuckoldry. In fact, your new relationship will only encroach upon your enjoyment of your cuckoldry. Your new relationship will only bring unhappiness. So why are you injecting unhappiness into your life?
     Oh wait, that’s what you do. Unhappiness is your happiness.

5) Let’s move on to more sanguine subjects. I received an email from Lou, who happens to live in a place called Longmont, Colorado. He wrote, “We love you in Colorado. For a New York liberal, you’re okay. Now let’s drop all the political talk and get down to the key issue of the day. On paper, the Denver Broncos appear a little shaky, particularly coming off of last year’s debacle. I know you’re a diehard fan. What do you think of the team’s chances?”

That’s a tough one, Lou. As a diehard Bronco fan, I want to believe that a new season brings new promise of glory. As we all know, it’s been ten years since the glory of winning Super Bowls. It feels longer.
     I love the young talent on offense, and I think Shanahan should be praised for assembling it. I think the young talent also comes with a sense of veteran experience. Jay Cutler plays older than his years. On the field, Brandon Marshal seems older than his years (off the field is another story). Eddie Royal plays older than his years. The offensive line, with the addition of two young tackles, hopefully will play older than chronological age.
     The defense scares me, and I think Shanahan should be criticized for assembling the lack of talent. The NFL these days is all about pass rush. Can the Broncos pressure the opposing quarterback? That’s the big question.
     Also, you have to totally discount Monday night’s shellacking of the Raiders. That’s a bad team.
     So my prediction? The offense will be terrific, barring a Tom Brady-like injury. The defense will struggle. Can the offense outscore other teams? Can the defense somehow create enough turnovers to make up for its deficiencies?
     The optimist in me hopes for a 10-6 season, and a playoff birth. The realist? I think we’ll barely miss the playoffs.

One addendum to Question #3. S., it should be noted, is my mother.

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“Don’t turn the delegates into robots”: A History of Conventions

“Don’t turn the delegates into robots”: A History of Conventions

In this final segment to my History of Conventions series, I sit down with journalist Elisabeth Drue. Ms. Drue is known affectionately as the “Dean” of election reporting. She has spent the last 40 years documenting the many swerves and u-turns of the campaign trail.

Q: Let’s start in the beginning. There weren’t political parties in the early days of the Republic, correct? So, no political conventions. What did the founding fathers think of political parties?

Elisabeth Drue: George Washington opposed political parties. Thomas Jefferson opposed political parties. There was this overwhelming feeling among the founding fathers that political parties would lead to division and factionalism. Guess what? They were right. Alexander Hamilton – I kid you not – Alexander Hamilton thought that political parties were “akin to yeast infections.”

Q: Yeast infections? What did Alexander Hamilton know about yeast infections?

Elisabeth Drue: Some say he picked one up from Maria Reynolds, his mistress. Not only did the Hamilton/Reynolds affair become the first sex scandal in American history, with Reynolds’ husband blackmailing Hamilton, but Alexander Hamilton caught the fungus.

Q: And fungi are akin to political parties?

Elisabeth Drue: In Hamilton’s estimation.

Q: When was the first convention and why did the idea catch on?

Elisabeth Drue: You have to go back to 1832. There was a movement known as the freemasons, still around today of course. Many citizens accused the freemasons of being a secret society that acted as a shadow government. There actually was some truth to the accusation. Henry Clay, for instance, the great senator from Kentucky, led the freemasons. Secretly, of course. The freemasons of the 19th century were like the Bohemian Grove of modern day America.
Anyway, the anti-Masons formed a political party to counter the freemasons. They held a convention. Why did the idea catch on? There was democracy at the convention. On the floor of the convention you had delegates from all over the country, from the West – Illinois and Kentucky in those days – from Congress, from the East. It was very much a representation of the overall distribution of power in America. The anti-Mason convention illustrated the electoral topography of the growing and expanding United States.

Q: Interesting. No wonder why the convention system caught on. It actually gave democracy a more blue-collar feel than the caucus system. What happened to the anti-Masons?

Elisabeth Drue: The anti-Masons convened a convention for the 1940 presidential elections. The anti-Masons elected William Henry Harrison for president. The Whig Party then came along and nominated the same man. The anti-Masons couldn’t compete with the Whigs, so rather than nominating another candidate the party folded into the Whigs. The Whigs of course would fold into the Republicans.

Q: And William Henry Harrison would die a month into his administration.

Elisabeth Drue: Yes, but here’s where things get interesting from a historical perspective. The anti-Masons nominated Daniel Webster to be Harrison’s vice president. The Whigs nominated John Tyler. John Tyler was from Virginia and supported the slaveocracy. Daniel Webster was from New England and had abolitionist leanings. Had Webster become president following Harrison’s untimely death, who knows how events would have swung. Webster might be the name we venerate today, rather than Lincoln.

Q: Fascinating. Let’s get back to something you touched on. The convention system in your estimation offered greater democracy. That’s not the image we have of party leaders meeting in smoke-filled back rooms to decide nominees.

Elisabeth Drue: True. And there’s no doubt, party leaders did indeed meet in smoke-filled back rooms. Major decisions were made there. At the Republican Convention of 1920, for instance, the delegates were deadlocked. Party leaders then retreated to a back room, smoke-filled. The leaders compromised and threw their votes to a senator from Ohio. He’d been a dark horse in the days leading up to the convention. But that’s how Warren Harding got his party’s nomination.

Q: Is that more democratic than the caucus system?

Elisabeth Drue: I would argue yes. In the caucus system party leaders – mainly congressmen and the monied elite – would gather and appoint the nominee. In the convention system there were floor votes. Yes, there were back room dealings. But, concurrently, there were ballot votes, sometimes hundreds of them. So there was simultaneous democracy and oligarchy, and that is what defines American democracy.

Q: But what about meritocracy? Shouldn’t the definition of American democracy include quality of candidate? Sarah Palin is the most recent example of our lack of meritocracy, but what about Warren Harding? He looked the part of the president. His portrait suggested presidentiality. Is that enough?

Elisabeth Drue: He also ran on a promise of normalcy, which after the First World War was exactly what the country wanted.

Q: How many ballots did it take for the Republican Convention of 1920 to elect Harding?

Elisabeth Drue: Ten. But that’s nothing. It took 49 ballots to elect Franklin Pierce in 1852. It took a stunning 103 ballots for the Democrats to elect John Davis in 1924.

Q: Who?

Elisabeth Drue: John W. Davis. He was a congressman right before World War I and President Wilson’s ambassador to England during the war. An important diplomatic post. He might have been America’s best diplomat. In the 1924 presidential election he lost to the incumbent Calvin Coolidge, who took over from the deceased – perhaps poisoned – Warren Harding.

Q: All I know about Calvin Coolidge is that he was Ronald Reagan’s favorite president.

Elisabeth Drue (laughing): Let me tell you a little known Ronald Reagan/convention story. In 1976, President Gerald Ford went to the Republican Convention in Kansas City not sure who would be his vice president. The main reason for this was that the Republicans hadn’t definitely decided that Gerald Ford would be their presidential nominee. Ronald Reagan was very much in the mix. In fact, when the Republicans gathered on the floor for the ballot, they elected Ford by less than 100 votes. To unify the party Ford went to Reagan to help him select his vice president. Reagan chose John Wayne.

Q: Really?

Elisabeth Drue: Yes, and Ford chose Bob Dole. Maybe John Wayne would have helped Ford win the election.

Q: I’ve read that Ford lost the general election not because of Jimmy Carter but because of Ronald Reagan.

Elisabeth Drue: Reagan exposed Gerald Ford during the primary season. But Ford didn’t lose because of Reagan. Ford lost because he pardoned Nixon.

Q: That’s not what Gerald Ford believed. Gerald Ford blamed the Reagan challenge.

Elisabeth Drue: Well, certainly a case can be made. But if that’s the case, we might blame Ted Kennedy for challenging and exposing Jimmy Carter. In 1980, there was a movement by Kennedy to release the Carter delegates from their pledge to vote for Carter. At the convention in New York there were delegates who wore buttons. The buttons had a picture of a robot with a slash through it. “Don’t turn the delegates into robots,” the buttons read.

Q: “Don’t turn the delegates into robots,” that’s terrific. I don’t remember that.

Elisabeth Drue: You’re too young to remember. But Americans like yourself have become very skeptical of conventions, of delegates, of politicians. With good reason, of course. But before the skepticism, the convention system acted as a screening process, what today we call the vetting process. In the 18th and first half of the 19th centuries delegates were mainly party leaders, party workers, officeholders. That meant that they worked with the candidates. They knew the candidates. Their likes and dislikes, their personalities, their loyalties. Today, we don’t know the candidates. We know commercials. In the old system, the delegates screened the candidates for the electorate. There was public trust in that relationship. There’s no public trust in the relationship today.

Q: Can you pinpoint when the change actually took place? When did the system begin to put forth candidates who shouldn’t qualify for the presidency?

Elisabeth Drue: Well, that’s a tough question. Remember, Harry Truman entered the White House with little experience, a senator in his second term, a vice president in his second month in office. And look how that turned out. Truman became a top-notch president. What we wouldn’t do for another Truman today. But, to answer your question, I think you have to take a look at 1960. You had a very popular candidate in John Kennedy. Popular among the American electorate, I should say. Delegates however distrusted Kennedy. These were the old school delegates, party leaders, officeholders. Kennedy served in congress for a total of 14 years and he was basically an absentee congressman. He didn’t take his job seriously. His legislative record was abysmal….
1960 saw one of the first influential primary seasons. John Kennedy ran in seven Democratic primaries. That’s it. He won them all. And that’s how he made his case to the Democratic Party. But, you had these competing forces: the old school delegates from the old convention system meeting the new system, the electorate participating in the primaries. Kennedy wouldn’t have won in the old convention system. The delegates who knew Kennedy from working with him in the congress would have put forth Lyndon Johnson. But in the new system, the primary system, the electorate went Kennedy.

Q: I wonder if Bill Clinton would have fallen into the same category. Would he have won in the old convention system?

Elisabeth Drue: No way. In 1992, the old school delegates had no interest in Clinton. An Arkansas governor with a reputation as a playboy? He was very much in the mold of Kennedy, very much an affectation of the primary system. If the old convention system reigned in 1992, the Democrats would have put forth another name. Al Gore. He was by far the most respected man among the old school delegates.

Q: And today? What would the old convention system do with Barack Obama?

Elisabeth Drue: I think Hillary would have made her case. Much like Kennedy in 1960, Hillary won the major primaries. Both Kennedy and Hillary won California, New York, Massachusetts, Ohio, Pennsylvania, the states needed in November. The old convention system would have elevated Hillary based on that compelling record.

Q: Isn’t the Democratic Party’s conception of superdelegates a throwback to the convention system?

Elisabeth Drue: Yes it is. But the superdelegates are there to support the primary system, to enforce the primary system. It’s not like the old days.

Q: Did you support Hillary during the primary?

Elisabeth Drue: I did. Vociferously.

Q: Will you vote for Barack Obama in November?

Elisabeth Drue: You know, up until last week I hadn’t decided. I wouldn’t vote for McCain but I thought I might leave my ballot blank. Now, I’ll vote for Obama.

Q: What happened last week?

Elisabeth Drue: McCain named his running mate. Sarah Palin is to politics what Katie Couric is to journalism. It’s fine to have her on an early morning talk show, or stashed away up there as governor of Alaska, but you don’t want her running the evening news…

Q: Or the nation’s business.

Elisabeth Drue: Or the nation’s business. The appointment of Palin is an embarrassment to women. Women should be nauseated by the Republicans’ obvious tokenism. It’s paternalism all over again. What was the feminist revolution about with this sort of gut rot?

Q: You sound like a voter, not an objective journalist.

Elisabeth Drue: Journalism has changed, Brian. Just look at the anchor on the CBS evening news. It’s all about lights, camera, sensuality. Who will smile wider for the camera when Katie Couric interviews Sarah Palin?

Elisabeth Drue is an award-winning reporter and author. She has covered every election for the Washington News from 1968 to the present. She has written books on many of the elections, including 1968: Hubert Horatio Humphrey and the Losing of the White House and There You Go Again: the Coming of Ronald Reagan. She also is the author of books on two presidents, Reagan’s World: The Unmasking of the 1980s and Bill and Hillary: Turbulence and Zeal, and one vice president, Dick: the Life and Lust of a Vice President. All of her books are available at amazon.com and many of her articles are available in the archives of the Washington News.

(To celebrate the summer of 2008, a summer of conventions after all, I am writing a series on the presidential conventions of the latter half of the 20th century. To read earlier parts of this series, please click on the link “More articles by Brian Josepher” below. You will see the “History of Conventions” articles to the right.)

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“How do you ask a man to be the last man to die for a mistake?": A History of Conventions, 2004

“How do you ask a man to be the last man to die for a mistake?": A History of Conventions, 2004

Senator John Kerry stood on the raised podium. The date was Thursday, July 29, 2004. Below Kerry, on the floor of the Fleet Center in Boston, the Democratic delegates went exuberant. “Kerry, Kerry, Kerry,” the delegates chanted.
     The exuberance lasted. Senator Kerry had to put up his hands, asking for quiet, once, twice, three separate times.
     The exuberance lasted. Senator Kerry had to say “thank you,” in another attempt to quiet the crowd, once, twice, thrice – actually 17 consecutive times.
     When the delegates quieted, finally, Senator Kerry lifted his right hand to his forehead as a salute. Behind him, on the huge video screen, Kerry’s behavior could be viewed in quadruple size.
     “I’m John Kerry,” the Senator began his nominating speech, “and I’m reporting for duty.”
     The delegates went exuberant. “Kerry, Kerry, Kerry,” the delegates chanted. But right there, according to Elisabeth Drue, a journalist known affectionately as “Dean Drue” for her books on many of the national conventions of the 20th and 21st centuries, John Kerry “lost the election.”
     Drue continued, “The Vietnamization of the 2004 Democratic Convention made Kerry into a hypocrite. It didn’t take George Bush to do that. It didn’t take Karl Rove and his swiftboat reeducation. John Kerry did it all on his own. And his surrogates didn’t help matters, either.”
     In fact, every major speechmaker at the Convention (with one exception, Ron Reagan and his plea for stem cell research) – from President Carter to the Clintons to Al Gore to Ted Kennedy – mentioned Kerry in terms of Vietnam.
     In his speech Bill Clinton said, “When they sent those swiftboats up the river in Vietnam and they told them their job was to draw hostile fire, to wave the American flag and bait the enemy to come out and fight, John Kerry said: Send me.”
     In his vice presidential nominating speech John Edwards said, “When John Kerry graduated college, he volunteered for military service, volunteered to go to Vietnam, volunteered to captain a swiftboat, one of the most dangerous duties in Vietnam that you could have. As a result, he was wounded, honored for his valor… They saw him reach into the river and pull one of his men to safety and save his life. They saw him in the heat of the battle make a decision in a split second to turn his boat around, drive it through an enemy position, and chase down the enemy to save his crew. Decisive, strong: Is this not what we need in a commander in chief?”
     “YES!” the delegates screamed.
     However, Elisabeth Drue argued, that message didn’t jive with John Kerry’s overriding theme on Vietnam. “In 1971 John Kerry went in front of a Congressional committee,” she explained. “By then, he’d returned from the war and become an invaluable voice in the Vietnam protests. He called for cut and run. His message to the congressional committee was clear: wrong war in the wrong place at the wrong time. Kerry railed at the president of the United States, Richard Nixon. In 1968, Nixon had campaigned on a platform called Vietnamization: the slow withdrawal of troops, with the last soldier coming home by the end of Nixon’s first term in office. ‘How do you ask a man to be the last man to die for a mistake?’ Kerry asked the congressional committee. His question took their breath away. His question exposed the Vietnamization policy for what it was: a façade, a fraud. Covertly, quietly, Nixon wanted to keep the war going. He believed in the policies of containment.”
     Flash forward to 2004. In his nominating speech at the Convention, Kerry called Iraq, “The wrong war in the wrong place at the wrong time.” His plan for Iraq, however, mirrored Nixon’s stated plan in Vietnam: the slow withdrawal of troops, with the last soldier returning home by the end of Kerry’s first term in office.
     “What John Kerry did is the Vietnamization of Iraq, or Iraqization,” Elisabeth Drue argued. “What John Kerry did is Vietnam, part II. Never mind the almost daily suicide attacks in Iraq in 2004, including a pick-up truck laden with 500 kilograms of explosives crashing into the main gate at the U.S. headquarters. Never mind Condoleezza Rice admitting that the intelligence used to identify weapons of mass destruction in Saddam’s Iraq may have been wrong. John Kerry did not argue for cut and run, as he did in 1971. That might have been politically effective and ethically consistent. It might have showed his moral compass – something he spoke a great deal about at the Convention. Instead he offered the Vietnamization version, the Iraqization. It didn’t take Bush and Rove long to realize that Kerry had morphed into Richard Nixon.”
     “How do you ask a man to be the last man to die for a mistake?” Such a salient question. Someone in the Kerry camp should have asked the candidate that question before the Democratic Convention of 2004. Nobody did and one of the most vigorous voices of the Vietnam protest of the early 1970s began to sound a lot like Tricky Dick. By the end of the campaign the Bush camp had taken the magnetism out of Kerry’s moral compass. And John Kerry, the most self-congratulatory of senators, was forced to congratulate George Bush on his reelection.

(To celebrate the summer of 2008, a summer of conventions after all, I am writing a series on the presidential conventions of the latter half of the 20th century. This is the penultimate column. To read earlier parts of this series, please click on the link “More articles by Brian Josepher” below. You will see the “History of Conventions” articles to the right.)

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Roosevelt the Byzantine: A History of Conventions, 1944

Roosevelt the Byzantine: A History of Conventions, 1944

In this convention series I’ve purposefully tried to stay modern. The definition for the modern convention has to do with the encroachment of the primary system. Various states held primaries throughout the first two hundred years of our democracy but the system took hold in 1968. The tug-of-war between Hubert Humphrey and Eugene McCarthy, with some delegates remaining loyal to the deceased Bobby Kennedy, turned the tide from convention system to primary system.
     That tug-of-war is a story for another day. In today’s column I’m breaking my own rules. I’m going back to an earlier time before the primary system governed. With both Senators McCain and Obama certain to appoint their running mates any day now (I've published this column early, on Wednesday, August 20, apparently hours before Obama makes his choice known), I thought it would be useful to look back on how the greatest president of the 20th century chose his running mate, who would become the second greatest president of the 20th century.
     In today’s column, I’m going back to 1944.
     President Franklin Delano Roosevelt was a man who couldn’t say no to anyone and that led, in the words of the great Roosevelt historian, James McGregor Burns, to “a Byzantine course” in selecting the man who would be his third and final running mate.
     As the savage success of June and D-Day turned into July and the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, Roosevelt encouraged a number of candidates to politic for the vice president position. The President encouraged the candidacy of the sitting Vice President, Henry Wallace. The Vice President was an ardent New Dealer and his support emanated from the essential Roosevelt coalition. Northern urban liberals, blacks, organized labor. Wallace however brought with him the baggage of the liberal idealist. In the conservative South, his candidacy was viewed as a liability. The Bronx’s Ed Flynn, arguably the most powerful political boss in the country, cautioned Roosevelt that renominating Wallace might mean a loss of two to three million votes.
     Simultaneously, the President encouraged the candidacy of James Byrnes. Byrnes, a former Senator from South Carolina, a former Supreme Court Justice and the Coordinator of War Mobilization, was known as the “Assistant President.” His résumé overshadowed Vice President Wallace and marked him as the front-runner. Of that status, Byrnes remarked, “Now, partner, let’s not get too excited on this vice president business. I know that man [FDR] more than anybody else.”
     Byrnes himself didn’t know how true his words were. While publicly encouraging Byrnes, Roosevelt received a report from political boss Ed Flynn. Byrnes satisfied the conservative southern requirement. Byrnes however came with racial undertones. In 1938, he led the fight against proposed federal anti-lynching legislation (championed by Eleanor Roosevelt). On the senate floor he’d said, “The Negro has not only come into the Democratic Party, but the Negro has come into control of the Democratic Party.”
     Ed Flynn cautioned Roosevelt that nominating Byrnes might mean a loss of “200,000 Negro voters in New York alone.” Perhaps even more injurious to the candidacy of James Byrnes, labor found him unacceptable.
     Simultaneously the President encouraged the candidacy of House Speaker Sam Rayburn of Texas, the candidacy of Illinois Senator Scott Lucas, the candidacy of Senate Majority Leader Alben Barkley of Kentucky, the candidacy of Paul McNutt, the High Commissioner to the Philippines.
     All of these men wanted the job. The reason was readable on the face of Roosevelt. “He was a dying man,” according to the great Roosevelt biographer, Frank Freidel. “In March of 1944 the President consulted with a cardiologist. After a thorough investigation, the cardiologist reported that given proper care Roosevelt might live another year.”
     That didn’t stop Roosevelt from encouraging all candidates. He claimed Vice President Wallace was indispensable because of his knowledge of international affairs. Simultaneously, he told Byrnes, you are “the best qualified man in the whole outfit” and “you must not get out of the race. If you stay in, you are sure to win.”
     Simultaneously, he encouraged the candidacy of Supreme Court Justice William Douglas. Douglas however believed that campaigning for a political seat was beneath the stature of a sitting justice. In addition, his backers were aiming at a presidential run in 1948. Secretly, Douglas wanted to be drafted at the 1944 Convention.
     All of this commotion came to a head when Vice President Wallace confronted Roosevelt. On July 12, while out campaigning for Roosevelt, he called the President. “I am looking ahead with pleasure to the result of next week and the Convention,” Wallace said.
     Roosevelt replied, “While I cannot put it just that way in public, I hope it will be the same old team.”
     Roosevelt received another phone call. James Byrnes heard a rumor that Roosevelt favored Justice William Douglas. To Byrnes, Roosevelt responded, “That is all wrong. Will you go on and run? After all, Jimmy, you are close to me personally…”
     A few days before the Convention, Roosevelt endorsed Douglas. Simultaneously, a Gallup poll asked Democratic voters for their choice. Sixty-five percent favored Vice President Wallace. Seventeen percent favored Senator Barkley. Three percent favored Byrnes. Two percent favored Justice Douglas.
     Of all the candidates up for vice president, only one man had taken his name out of the running. His name was Harry Truman. “The Vice President,” Truman said, “simply presides over the senate and sits around hoping for a funeral. It is a very high office which consists entirely of honor and I don’t have any ambition to hold an office like that.”
     Told of Truman’s ambivalence, James Byrnes phoned the Senator and asked if Truman would give his nominating speech. Truman immediately accepted. Not more than five minutes later, Alben Barkley phoned the Senator and asked if Truman would give his nominating speech. Truman declined.
     Then came the note. Roosevelt wrote to Bob Hannegan, an ardent Truman supporter and the chairman of the Democratic Party, “Dear Bob, You have written me about Harry Truman and Bill Douglas. I should, of course, be very glad to run with either of them and believe that either one of them would bring real strength to the ticket.”
     As the Democratic Convention began on July 19, the note was leaked to the press. So was a story, perhaps apocryphal. Historian James McGregor Burns wrote, “In the original note, according to the rumors, Roosevelt had mentioned Douglas’s name before Truman’s and only after some fervent convincing by Hannegan had the names been switched.”
     To view the note, located at the Roosevelt Library in Hyde Park, is to see a rather clean piece of paper. No cross outs and additions. No eraser marks.
     Truman seemed to be the model candidate. He came from a border state and he enjoyed good relations with Southern Democratic Senators. He was the favorite of Party bosses. In the past, he’d supported many of Roosevelt’s New Deal measures. He was attractive to labor. And for a physically enervated president like Roosevelt, Truman’s reputation as an energetic campaigner carried great weight. Perhaps best of all in Roosevelt’s mind, Truman was the least bothersome. Roosevelt wasn’t looking for the best man to succeed him; he wanted the least amount of trouble.
     While the delegates on the first night of the Convention overwhelmingly nominated Franklin Roosevelt for president, the real politics occurred in a hotel room. Harry Truman sat on one bed. Bob Hannegan, speaking by phone to Roosevelt in Hyde Park, sat on the other. “Whenever Roosevelt used the telephone,” Truman later said, “he always talked in such a strong voice that it was necessary for the listener to hold the receiver away from his ear to avoid being deafened, so I found it possible to hear both ends of the conversation.”
     “Have you got that fellow lined up?” Roosevelt roared.
     “No,” Hannegan replied. “He is the contrariest goddamn mule from Missouri I ever dealt with.”
     “Tell the Senator,” Roosevelt said, “that if he wants to break up the Democratic Party by staying out, he can. But he knows as well as I what that might mean at this dangerous time in the world.” Roosevelt then hung up the phone.
     Privately to Hannegan, Truman exclaimed, “Jesus Christ! But why the hell didn’t he tell me in the first place.”
     Good question. Roosevelt’s tactics put a lid on the ability of any one person to rise. In that way, nobody could oppose him. His tactics, biographer Frank Freidel wrote, “incited charges that he had been a treacherous, aged tyrant lopping off the heads of those who might dare challenge him.”
     In the end, though, Roosevelt made the right choice. Roosevelt died nine months after the Democratic Convention of 1944, and thirteen months after a cardiologist predicted he would live another year. Truman went on to a presidency that redefined America, both internally and abroad.
     Of course, Truman’s presidency ended in talk of impeachment and the lowest approval rating in the history of presidents, thanks to Korea and the firing of General MacArthur, and a president forced to abandon his reelection campaign after losing to a fellow Democrat in the New Hampshire primary. But that’s a story for another day.

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“Duty, Honor, Country”: A History of Conventions, 1988

“Duty, Honor, Country”: A History of Conventions, 1988

Late morning. Tuesday, August 16, 1988. Two men met at the Belle Chasse Naval Air Station twenty miles south of downtown New Orleans. Their meeting took place in the air condition, to avoid the aluminum foil-like grip of Louisiana humidity.
     The meeting couldn’t have been any more scripted. Ronald Reagan, in a dark suit with an American flag pin stuck to his lapel, grinned for the many cameras present. His deputy for the last eight years, George H.W. Bush, waved in Bush fashion. He stretched out an arm. He aimed the arm in the direction of the crowd. He held his hand there for a moment. The Bush wave was a study in stop sign stiltedness.
     The many television cameras and the many print journalists didn’t pay attention to Bush. This was President Reagan’s last moment on the world stage. The evening before, on the first night of the Republican Convention, Reagan gave the crowd more of what they wanted: Reagan Teflon. After eight years in office, he stated, it was “time for a change. Well, ladies and gentlemen, we are the change.” Rather than explaining that leap of judgment, Reagan, being Reagan, then told the crowd to “go out and win one for the Gipper!”
     His speech to the convention was more than just affectation. According to Elisabeth Drue, author of Reagan’s World: The Unmasking of the 1980s, Reagan “was in the throes of the dementia that accompanied Alzheimer’s. He thought he was the Gipper. Of course, most of America thought Reagan was the Gipper too.”
     At the Belle Chasse Naval Air Station President Reagan and Vice President Bush shook hands. The television cameras caught the Vice President, and Republican nominee for president, whispering into his boss’s ear. “George Bush whispered the name of his running mate into Reagan’s ear,” revealed Elisabeth Drue, an eyewitness at the air station and a journalist known affectionately as “Dean Drue” for her books on many of the national conventions of the latter half of the 20th century. “Bush hadn’t told anybody yet, including the running mate. The look on Reagan’s face was priceless. It can be summed up with one word: Who?”
     Another eyewitness, James A. Baker, a loyal cadre of both Presidents Reagan and Bush, disagreed with Dean Drue’s assessment. He asserted, “Ronald Reagan smiled, patted his friend George on the shoulder and said, ‘Good choice.’”
     The video of the moment has been forever preserved. A copy exists at the Museum of Broadcast Communications. According to the video, Reagan did not smile. Reagan did not pat his friend on the shoulder. Reagan did not offer any words. Reagan, to judge from the tape, had never heard of the man just whispered.
     Elisabeth Drue explained, “Vice President Bush whispered the full name into the President’s ear: James Danforth Quayle. The name threw Reagan for a loop.”
     Dan Quayle, as of the summer of 1988, had been in the House of Representative for two terms (1977-1981) and the senate for eight years (1981-1989). In those twelve years, Quayle had not attached his name to a single piece of legislation. Ronald Reagan knew only the most visible and distinguished legislators. Quayle wouldn’t have entered his lexicon.
     Reagan of course had a unique ability to cover for his ignorance. He did what he normally did in the given situation. He smiled broader. He created a smile that could light up the Mississippi River from Natchez, Mississippi to New Orleans.
     As Reagan boarded Air Force One for the ride back to the capital, Vice President Bush took a steamboat called the Natchez down the Mississippi. The 90-minute cruise would arrive at Spanish Plaza, the gateway to downtown New Orleans.
     James Baker, then simultaneously Reagan’s Treasury Secretary and Bush’s campaign chairman, was on the Natchez. “George told his inner circle of his desire to nominate Dan,” Baker wrote in his memoirs. “I remember being impressed by Quayle’s positives. He was young, handsome, and conservative, and he came from the heartland.”
     While these characteristics of Quayle certainly sound accurate, they were “banal,” to quote Elisabeth Drue, “and unremarkable. Why did George Bush nominate the jejune Dan Quayle? The reasons were purely instinctual. Dan Quayle reminded George Bush of himself at an earlier age. Like Bush, Quayle came from a prominent family, and yet he’d gone on to make a name for himself. Like Bush, Quayle was a competitive fighter. He’d taken on an incumbent senator, the liberal icon Birch Bayh, and knocked him out. Bush was impressed. He thought he could groom Quayle to be the new Bush, the legacy. At that time of course he didn’t know that his son George would amount to anything other than a failed oilman. James Baker, it should be noted, completely disagreed with Bush on Quayle. And he voiced his displeasure on the Natchez.”
     According to Dean Drue, Baker thought Quayle was too green, politically. “He argued for another name on the short list,” Drue stated. “Bob Dole.”
     For explanation’s sake, I emailed James Baker through the James Baker Institute for Public Policy at Rice University. I received an anonymous response, from a “James Baker spokesman.” “The Secretary has nothing to say,” the spokesman wrote, “except what’s in his books.”
     Baker wrote two books, the tedious The Politics of Diplomacy and the insensate Work Hard, Study… and Keep Out Of Politics! (Not only does the second book lack reason and insight but consider the awkward title. What was the publisher thinking? I emailed this question to G.P. Putnam’s Sons. I received an anonymous response, from “the editors.” “James Baker’s a powerful man and what James Baker wants, James Baker gets,” the editors wrote. Then the editors went a little catty. “Personally, I think it’s an unwieldy, extremely amateurish title that essentially killed sales. If a reader doesn’t have the time to pronounce the title, how can you expect the reader to buy the book?” Good question.)
     In the book with the “unwieldy, extremely amateurish” title, James Baker recalled Bush’s actions after announcing his running mate to his inner circle: “George soon called Dan and told him that he was his first and only choice… Our schedule that day called for us to take the Natchez down the Mississippi to the Spanish Plaza... Quayle was instructed to meet us at the dock.”
     Senator Quayle was not the only person waiting at the dock. Spanish Plaza, according to eyewitness Elisabeth Drue, was “overflowing with reveling Republicans. They were led by one guy who carried a sign. The sign was for the Vice President’s eyes and it concerned his vice presidential running mate.”
     “Dad,” the sign read, “you can tell me!” George W. Bush held the sign.
     James Baker described George W.’s behavior as “ever-playful.”
     Elisabeth Drue described George W.’s behavior as “puerile… for a teenager. And W. was 42-years-old.”
     According to Drue, the Quayles – Dan and his wife Marilyn – had to push through the crowd to get to the stage. “Catastrophe was averted only because the Secret Service parted the crowd like the Red Sea,” she explained.
     Dan Quayle described his feelings that day. According to his autobiography, Standing Firm: A Vice-Presidential Memoir, he felt “absolutely giddy with happiness” and “a load of adrenaline.” That mixture apparently accounted for his behavior.
     Eyewitness Elisabeth Drue described the scene in the Washington Post the next day. Quayle “jumped up on the stage. He circled the Vice President like a young warrior doing a war dance around his chief. He then grabbed his benefactor by the shoulder and repeatedly hugged his arm, gamboling around the platform like the jackpot winner on a television game show. Bush looked on a bit thunderstruck at the display of juvenile enthusiasm he had unleashed.”
     Another eyewitness to the event, James Baker, wrote, “I was surprised by, but only mildly concerned about, Dan’s excess exuberance. Would that Quayle’s enthusiasm had been our only problem.”
     Within hours a story came out on Quayle. Did he use his family connections to join Indiana’s National Guard and thus avoid possible combat service in Vietnam? Quayle himself fanned the flames. Asked why he had opted for the Guard, Quayle innocently answered that he wanted to get married and go to law school. He then added, “I did not know in 1969 that I would be asked this question today.”
     Dan Quayle made this statement in the late afternoon. A few hours later, a Vietnam veteran addressed the Republican Convention. “I was born into a family with a long military tradition,” he began his speech. “My grandfather attended the United States Naval Academy. My father attended the Naval Academy. And I attended the Naval Academy. Even as a Navy man, I will never forget my first visit to West Point and how impressed I was at its beauty, especially the Chapel. I vividly remember seeing a plague on the wall of the Chapel inscribed with 156 names. These are the names of the young men who graduated from West Point in 1950. That year, North Korea attacked South Korea, and these young men gave their lives in combat, in the defense of someone else’s freedom. At the bottom of that plague is the West Point motto: ‘Duty, Honor, Country.’ ‘Duty, Honor, Country,’ let’s reflect on those words and how they apply to us…”
     The man’s name was John McCain. In 1988, McCain was a senator two years into his first term. He was also on George Bush’s short list for the vice presidential nomination. According to Scott Selly, a McCain aide at the time, “Before Dan Quayle came popping out on the dock in New Orleans, the last name eliminated for consideration by the AP wire was John McCain.”
     Further, according to Selly and revealed here for the first time, the Bush campaign made an emergency phone call to the McCain camp as the senator spoke to the convention. Scott Selly recalled the gist of the phone call: “Would McCain accept the vice presidential nomination if Bush dropped Quayle. Well, I didn’t have to interrupt the Senator’s convention speech to ask his opinion. ‘Yes,’ I cried. ‘Of course.’”
     Scott Selly never notified his boss of the phone call. According to John McCain, he clearly made the AP wire’s short list, but the Bush campaign never contacted him about the running mate job.
     When asked who in the Bush campaign made the emergency call to the McCain camp, Scott Selly responded with one name, “Baker.”
     Is Selly credible? Soon after the Republican Convention of 1988, Selly lost his position within the McCain camp. It seems that Scott Selly was moonlighting for Charles Keating. Selly served as Keating’s right-hand man at Lincoln Savings and Loan in Irvine, California. In 1989, after seeing its assets rise from $1.1 billion to $5.5 billion, Lincoln Savings went bankrupt. A California court convicted Keating of fraud, racketeering and conspiracy. He served four years of a twelve and a half year sentence. Scott Selly served two years of a five-year sentence for collusion.
     Scott Selly apparently introduced Charles Keating to John McCain. During the 1980s Keating contributed over a million dollars to five senators known as the Keating Five. John McCain was among them. Include that detail in McCain’s “Duty, Honor, Country.”
     As for McCain becoming Bush’s running mate, James Baker offered a double denial. “Dropping Dan from the ticket,” Baker wrote in his memoirs, “was never in the cards.” In addition John McCain’s name, according to Baker, never made the short list.
     Baker’s stock answers in his memoirs didn’t satisfy my investigation. I emailed James Baker a question: Did Baker make an emergency phone call to the McCain camp while the senator addressed the Republican Convention of 1988? A “James Baker spokesman” replied, “The Secretary has nothing to say, except what’s in his books.”

(To celebrate the summer of 2008, a summer of conventions after all, I am writing a series on the presidential conventions of the latter half of the 20th century. To read earlier parts of this series, please click on the link “More articles by Brian Josepher” below. You will see the “History of Conventions” articles to the right.)

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A History of Mao and Yao

A History of Mao and Yao

Yao Zhisui (pronounced Zee-Swee) originally named his Chinese restaurant after its best dish. The year was 1965. Moo Shu pork was making a name for itself in America. Food and Wine Magazine in fact named Moo Shu “the dish of the year.”
     Bouillabaisse came in second.
     Yao’s Moo Shu’s, located on the upper Upper West Side, on Broadway and 99th, did not bring in the customers. The reasons are not known for the lack of traffic. The restaurant business is a tricky one. If it’s too sunny, customers don’t come in. If it rains, customers don’t come in. If it’s one block removed from a good location, customers don’t come in. If it’s called something unremarkable, customers don’t come in.
     In the 1960s Broadway and 99th wasn’t such a good location. Back then Broadway and 99th was a heroin den.
     Yao had to do something he hadn’t planned on: he had to open for breakfast. He didn’t want to serve eggs and bacon and toast, however. That was diner food. Yao wanted to have a Chinese character. He served donuts and coffee and lychees. Moo Shu’s became known for its apple fritters. Maybe that’s not exactly the dish a Chinese restaurant wants to be known for, but there could be worse things. Like not making the rent, for instance.
     Even with the famed apple fritter, Moo Shu’s barely made the rent. Through the turbulent 60s and the economic downturn of the 70s and the cocaine warzone of the 80s and the police state of the 90s, Moo Shu’s stayed afloat. Narrowly.
     When gentrification came to the upper Upper West Side in the early 21st century and rents skyrocketed, Moo Shu’s had to do something drastic to remain in business. Yao Zhisui decided on one last-ditch effort, one last attention-grabbing, unconventional ploy.
     He renamed his restaurant. He chose one of the top three tyrants of the 20th century, a tyrant, unlike the other two, whose genocidal exploits have been shoved under the carpet. The Chinese themselves have refused to unearth the internal demolitions of Chairman Mao’s reign. And besides, nobody on the upper Upper West Side, with a Jewish orthodox community equivalent to Crown Heights, would have frequented a restaurant called Hitler’s or Stalin’s.
     Turning Moo Shu’s into Mao’s proved to be a brilliant stroke. The residents on Broadway (and Columbus and Amsterdam and Riverside and even up to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd and Lenox Ave) ate it up. Business shot through the roof. In the months following the name change Yao Zhisui sold more rice than he had in the previous ten years of business combined. And more apple fritters too. New York Magazine named Mao Tse-tung’s as “the best Moo Shu/apple fritter establishment in the five boroughs.”
     Yao Zhisui had himself a success story, nearly 45 years after opening. But this isn’t the story of Yao’s success. Rather, this is the preamble to the success. This is a story of desperation. If the policies of your leader, and your government, wipe out millions of citizens, including your own young family, what would make you name your business establishment in that leader’s honor? Delving into that question, with the world’s attention focused on Beijing and the XXIX Olympiad beginning this weekend, and with Chairman Mao’s body lying in state in the Hall of Reverence at Tiananmen Square, seems appropriate.
     Yao Zhisui was born in Anhui Province in the lower Yangtze River region in the early 1930s. Yao, like the generations before him, was a subsistence farmer. He had a wife and a young family and a small plot of arable land. He had enough rice to feed his dependents. He was illiterate. As the decade of the 1950s began, he was over halfway to his life expectancy.
     All of that would change.
     In the mid-1950s a revolutionary who had led the communists through a decade of war with the Japanese came to power. His name was Mao Tse-tung. Chairman Mao made his name on the backs of his class, the peasant class. One of his first campaigns as Chairman was to eradicate his own class. He did this through two Five-Year plans. The second plan had a spruced up name: the Great Leap Forward. “The Leap,” historian Jeb Barlow wrote in The Chinese Century: The Evolution of a Modern Nation, “had its basis in land reform and industrial advance. All private food production was banned. All farms fell under the jurisdiction of the collective. To push the peasantry to the cities and the massive infrastructure projects there, Chairman Mao ordered his soldiers to confiscate the country’s grain production.”
     In the rural provinces, nothing replaced the lost grain. Starvation took hold. The death toll soared. Over a two-year period tens of millions of people died. In Anhui Province an estimated eight million people perished. Eight million people represented a quarter of Anhui’s population.
     Yao Zhisui couldn’t keep his family alive. The soldiers had confiscated his grain. In the starvation he lost his wife, his young children, his parents, his wife’s parents. To make matters worse, he watched the suffering. He saw muscles shrivel (his included) and kidneys distend and entire bodies shut down. Worse yet, he was helpless to reverse the effects.
     Meanwhile, Chairman Mao made a public announcement. In recognition of the suffering of his people, Mao temporarily gave up meat. That was his solution. Six months of vegetarianism.
     As Mao returned to meat, Yao began a long walk. The year was 1959. Yao joined the remaining peasants of Anhui and walked to the nearest city. The nearest city was Nanjing, in the province of Jiangsu.
     As luck would have it, Mao crossed the province by rail simultaneously. Yao couldn’t have known it but when Mao traveled by train, he shut down the entire grid in that province. So if he was traveling from the city of Yangzhou to the city of Nanjing, no other trains traveled in Jiangsu Province.
     That didn’t stop the masses from walking, of course.
     As his traditions dictated, Mao kept company with young girls during the crossing of Jiangsu Province. Chairman Mao was a pedophile. According to historian Jeb Barlow, the number of young girls Mao slept with “must have been in the tens of thousands.” The parents of these girls were “only happy to assist.” “Think about it,” Barlow continued, “their daughters were screwing the Chairman.” Screwing the Chairman became a status symbol.
     As his traditions dictated, Chairman Mao rarely bathed and he never brushed his teeth. Instead he rinsed his mouth with tea, in the tradition of his peasant upbringing. Screwing the Chairman must not have been too tasty.
     Yao, by the way, had just lost his young daughter to starvation. What would he have thought had he known about the company kept in Chairman Mao’s train?
     Yao and Mao arrived in Nanjing simultaneously. In Nanjing Mao did something he rarely did. He boarded an airplane. Mao hated to fly and in those few instances when he did, he shut down Chinese airspace. Alone over China, Chairman Mao flew to Shanghai.
     Yao walked to Shanghai. When he arrived in Nanjing, he found a city unable to accommodate the massive peasant immigration. Nanjing, in one year, had doubled in size. There was no work to be found.
     Yao followed the procession of other peasants. Shanghai, in the words of historian Jeb Barlow, was “the Shangri La of mainland China.” In Shanghai one could find work (in the fishing industry) and a place to live (shanty towns mainly) and enough food to exist (rice predominantly).
     Shanghai was also a major embarkation point. Chairman Mao, in a stunning proclamation, announced that for the right price he would allow his peasants to leave the country. The right price was fifty dollars per head. In time, Yao saved enough money to leave. In 1962 Yao boarded a boat bound for San Francisco.
     Eventually Yao made his way to his distant cousins living in New York City. Eventually he opened up a restaurant on the upper Upper West Side. When the customers didn’t line up for Yao’s Moo Shu, he opened for breakfast. He served apple fritters and lychees.
     I met Yao Zhisui over apple fritters. I walked into his restaurant one morning because of Mao Tse-tung. A photograph of the Chairman gazed out on the pedestrians on Broadway. I wanted to see what a restaurant named Mao’s looked like.
     I walked into a crowded restaurant. A waiter told me that it was always busy, from morning to night, from fritters to Moo Shu. In one corner of the restaurant sat the proprietor. When I met Yao, he was 83-years-old. We talked about his business. We talked about a restaurant named Mao’s. He shared his family history.
     I asked Yao Zhisui a question, “How does a man with your history name your restaurant after Mao Tse-tung?”
     Yao smiled. Yao had outlived his teeth and his smile was all gums. Like Mao, Yao had never brushed his teeth. Instead he rinsed his mouth with tea, in the tradition of his peasant upbringing.
     “Mao and Yao,” Yao answered, “a yin and yang.” He then gummed into an apple fritter.
     This Chinese philosophy is interesting. In the history of Mao and Yao there is opposition. There is also complementation.   The two must be in harmony for the story to be complete.

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“Corrupt politicians make the other ten percent look bad”: A History of Conventions, 1972

“Corrupt politicians make the other ten percent look bad”
A History of Conventions: 1972

Richard Nixon placed a glass on the counter. He filled the glass three-quarters full with his favorite scotch whiskey. Nixon drank Famous Grouse. He then, as his tradition dictated, added a scoop’s worth of ice cubes to his drink. Nixon liked to crunch into frigidity. Nixon liked the hard edges in his mouth. Nixon liked the breakage and shattering effect.
     The President filled a second glass in the same manner. He then poured a healthy helping of a different scotch whiskey into a third glass. He walked that drink over to his wife, sitting on the floral-patterned sofa. Pat Nixon drank Chivas. Unlike her husband, she drank her whiskey neat. Pat Nixon didn’t like the hard edges in her mouth. She didn’t like the breakage and shattering effect. She drank her whiskey neat because she was arguably the neatest (as in tidy) woman ever to live in the White House. Pat Nixon cleaned her own toilets. The hired help, she believed, didn’t do the job right. The hired help didn’t understand how to wield a toilet bowl cleaner with the precise muscle. Pat Nixon wielded a Rubbermaid with utter craft, cunning and strength.
     Richard Nixon returned to the counter and grabbed the two glasses of Famous Grouse. He walked over to his fuzzy haired guest. Henry Kissinger wore a “Jew Afro,” according to the final person in the room, Joseph Brine, Pat Nixon’s longtime personal assistant. “He even combed it with a pick.”
     Joseph Brine’s remembrance of the Nixon/Kissinger meeting can be found in the Oral History of Joseph Brine at the Nixon Presidential Library.
     According to Brine, the Nixon/Kissinger meeting took place at the top of the Miami Beach Convention Center. “There was a series of offices up in the rafters,” Brine recalled. “There was a great deal of noise coming from the crowd down below. ‘Four more years,’ the crowd was chanting. ‘Four more years.’”
     The date was August 23, 1972. Four years earlier, at the Republican Convention of 1968, held in the very same Miami Beach Convention Center, there was a hint of surprise. Richard Nixon was not a lock for the Republican nominee. Two governors, Nelson Rockefeller of New York and Ronald Reagan of California, led late charges. There were floor skirmishes before the nomination vote.
     The Republican Convention of 1972 had none of those theatrics. According to the “dean” of convention reporting, journalist Elisabeth Drue (known affectionately as “Dean Drue” for books on many of the national conventions of the latter half of the 20th century, and into the 21st century), “The Republican Convention of 1972 was predetermined. President Nixon, in his reelection bid, was the nominee and there wasn’t even a hush of opposition. What made the convention noteworthy, though, was its scripted timeline. Nothing was left to chance. Now we expect scripted conventions, but 1972 was the first of its kind. From the various politicians across a broad spectrum – from Goldwater and Reagan on the right to Gerald Ford in the middle to Nelson Rockefeller on the left – endorsing the President to smoothly edited film tributes of Pat and Dick to a taped endorsement by a teary Mamie Eisenhower, the entire show provided tidy television fare. Tidy and boring. Even the Republican Rat Pack came off as unexceptional.”
     The Republican Rat Pack included only one member from the famed Frank Sinatra-led Hollywood Rat Pack. His name was Sammy Davis Jr. The Republican Rat Pack also included John Wayne, James Stewart, Pat Boone and Charlton Heston. On the evening of August 23, as an introduction to President Nixon’s nomination speech to the convention, the Republican Rat Pack performed an Oval Office skit. With a script ghostwritten by Pat Buchanan, the skit featured Heston as Nixon, Wayne as Vice President Agnew, Jimmy Stewart as Al Haig and Sammy Davis as Henry Kissinger.
     Only Sammy Davis received accolades for his portrayal. “He did a pretty good Kissinger,” journalist Elisabeth Drue elucidated. “Garrulous, pedantic, relentless, all in a booming baritone. Like Kissinger, he spoke in non sequitur. Of course, because it was Sammy, he smiled the entire time. Kissinger only smiled when the television cameras, and the ladies, were around.”
     In the skit, Sammy Davis as Henry Kissinger baritoned some lines, all in non sequitur, “America doesn’t have friends, America only has interests… Power is the ultimate aphrodisiac… Corrupt politicians make the other ten percent look bad.”
     “Four more years,” the delegates in the Convention Center responded. “Four more years.”
     In the office high above the floor, President Nixon met with the man whom he always turned to in times of trouble. Eyewitness Joseph Brine explained, “There was a small demonstration going on outside the Convention Center. Some Vietnam veterans on a perfunctory protest. The national media hadn’t as yet made news of the demo and Nixon wanted to keep it that way. How would it look if, while the President gave his nomination speech, the news split the television screen, with the President’s speech on the left and coverage of the protest on the right? Nixon wanted to stop the protest. So he called in Kissinger. He asked Kissinger to go outside and speak to the protestors. To reason with them.”
     Why did Nixon ask Kissinger to go out and speak to the Vietnam veterans? “Kissinger had legendary status in America,” journalist Elisabeth Drue explained. “In a Gallup poll taken in 1972, he ranked fourth on a list of ‘most admired’ Americans, after Nixon, Billy Graham, and Harry Truman. The next year, after the death of Truman and with Nixon in his Watergate quagmire, Kissinger ranked first.”
     According to eyewitness Joseph Brine, Kissinger responded to Nixon in his typical baritone, “If I had to choose between justice and disorder, on the one hand, and injustice and order, on the other, I would always choose the latter.” He then swallowed some whiskey and lifted himself from the chair. As he left the office he baritoned, “Military men are just dumb stupid animals to be used as pawns in foreign policy.”
     In the skit down below Sammy Davis as Henry Kissinger baritoned some lines, all in non sequitur, “A leader does not deserve the name unless he is willing occasionally to stand alone… The illegal we do immediately. The unconstitutional takes a little longer… Even a paranoid has some real enemies.”
     “Four more years,” the delegates in the Convention Center responded. “Four more years.”
     Joseph Brine’s characterization of “some Vietnam veterans on a perfunctory protest” smacked of denigration. In fact these Vietnam veterans were all wheelchair disabled. On the evening of Wednesday, August 23, they gathered outside the Convention Center and chanted, “Stop the bombing (of Vietnam and Laos)! Stop the bombing!”
     The chanting coming from inside the arena drowned out the veterans’ chanting. “Four more years,” the delegates chanted inside. “Four more years.”
     Sammy Davis as Henry Kissinger had just baritoned, “We perhaps deserve some credit for holding together the sinews of America at a time of fundamental collapse.”
     The real Henry Kissinger stood before the wheelchaired Vietnam veterans. The leader of the veterans, Conrad Rovic, reflected on the moment in his autobiography, Disabled on the Fourth of July, “We didn’t know what to expect. How would the Republican Party deal with our protest? Who would play MacArthur, Eisenhower and Patton? Who would play Eleanor?”
     Rovic’s mention of “MacArthur, Eisenhower and Patton” harkened back to 1932. Then, World War I veterans camped outside White House grounds. Protesting for the bonus promised to them by Congress back in 1924, the veterans became known as the “Bonus Army.” President Hoover sent the military triumvirate out to greet the veterans. General MacArthur, ignoring Hoover’s orders to peacefully move the protestors, cleared the camp by dispersing DM gas, an arsenic used paradoxically by the Allies during World War I. In the melee that followed MacArthur’s forces opened fire. Two veterans died from gunshot wounds. Hundreds were injured.
     A year later, when the veterans returned to protest for their bonuses, new president Franklin Roosevelt sent out his wife Eleanor, with coffee and cookies. Eleanor persuaded many of the veterans to sign up for a new work relief program called the Civilian Conservation Corp. Many members of the Bonus Army built the highway to the Florida Keys, the southern most route of U.S. Route 1.
     In his autobiography Disabled on the Fourth of July, Conrad Rovic continued, “In our wildest imagination, we never dreamed that Henry Kissinger would play the Eleanor role. Henry Kissinger, the war criminal. Henry Kissinger, the sociopath. I have come to believe there is nothing in the lives of human beings more terrifying than war and nothing more important than for those of us who have experienced it to share its awful truth. In concise terms, that’s called a social conscience. And what of Henry Kissinger? Where was his social conscience?”
     Unlike Eleanor, Kissinger did not appear with coffee and cookies. “He held a whiskey glass in his hand,” Rovic reflected.
     Kissinger, in his basic baritone, growled at the protesting veterans, “While we should never give up our principles, we must realize that we cannot maintain our principles unless we survive.”
     Rovic did a double take. “What did that mean?” he wrote in his autobiography. “Just more Kissinger mumbo-jumbo. Kissinger was King Mumbo-Jumbo.”
     To Kissinger, Rovic replied, “War is not the answer. Violence is not the solution. A more peaceful world is possible.”
     Behind Rovic, his fellow veterans broke into their chant: “Stop the bombing! Stop the bombing!”
     Inside the Miami Beach Convention Center Sammy Davis as Henry Kissinger baritoned, “I would rather like to think that when the record is written, one may remember that perhaps some lives were saved and perhaps some mothers can rest more at ease. But I leave that to history.”
     “Four more years,” the delegates inside the Miami Beach Convention Center responded. “Four more years.”
     The television camera caught an interesting sight just off stage: the chuckling of three politicians. A little over a year later one of those politicians, Spiro Agnew, would resign the vice presidency. He would plead no contest to the charge that he had failed to report $29,500 of income.
     The second chuckling politician, Gerald Ford, would replace Agnew as Nixon’s vice president. A year after that he would be sworn in as the 38th president of the United States.
     The third chuckling politician, Ronald Reagan, would essentially doom President Ford’s reelection campaign in 1976. Ford believed, to his dying day, that he lost his reelection to Reagan, not to the Democrat Jimmy Carter. According to Ford, Reagan exposed all of Ford’s weaknesses during the primary season. Carter merely repeated them during the general election.
     Gerald Ford would never forgive Ronald Reagan. In the 1976 primary campaign he accused Reagan of “disloyalty.” He lashed out, characterizing Reagan as “intellectually thin with a penchant for offering simplistic solutions to hideously complex problems.” Spiro Agnew, a Ford supporter, took the accusation further. In his typical alliteration he called Reagan “that purveyor of pusillanimous perfidy.”
     The television camera, interestingly enough, did not swing from the skit or the chuckling politicians to the scene outside the Convention Center. The television camera missed Kissinger addressing the wheelchaired Vietnam veterans. “Not surprisingly,” noted Conrad Rovic. “The head of NBC news, David Brinkley, received a vote for vice president at the convention. There were delegates wearing ‘Brinkley for Vice President’ buttons. Why would Brinkley want to harm his own cause?”
     According to the dean of convention reporting, Elisabeth Drue, the Brinkley buttons “were a joke. Yes, Brinkley did receive a vote for vice president, but Spiro Agnew received the rest of the votes. Rumor is, Roone Arledge, the chairman of ABC, led a whispering campaign for Brinkley as a V.P. candidate. ABC of course was NBC’s competitor and if Brinkley somehow became vice president, well, ABC would be better off. Of course, Arledge would later hire Brinkley away from NBC.”
     Outside the Convention Center Henry Kissinger offered a major concession to the protesting veterans, at least at first glance. “I believe it’s high time for a ceasefire,” Kissinger baritoned. “You have my word, I will work toward ending the war and restoring peace.” In 1973, in fact, a ceasefire broke out in Vietnam. For his role in the negotiations Henry Kissinger won the Nobel Peace Prize.
     Kissinger’s next remarks to the veterans, however, hinted at a war that would continue well after the ceasefire, and make a mockery of his Nobel Prize. “What is wrong is when you lose,” he baritoned, “not getting up off of that floor and coming back and fighting again.”
     Conrad Rovic did a double take. “What did that mean?” he wrote in his autobiography. “How far would Kissinger go with his double-talk? King Mumbo-Jumbo was at it again.”
     King Mumbo-Jumbo’s words, however, had an effect. The veterans were stunned into silence.
     Meanwhile, inside the Miami Beach Convention Center, the delegates responded with noise. The skit performed by the Republican Rat Pack ended with Charlton Heston as Richard Nixon assuming a Moses-like pose at the parting Red Sea. The lights faded on Moses. When the lighting resumed seconds later, there was President Nixon in his V-for-Victory pose.

(To celebrate the summer of 2008, a summer of conventions after all, I am writing a series on the presidential conventions of the latter half of the 20th century. To read earlier parts of this series, please click on the link “More articles by Brian Josepher” below. You will see the “History of Conventions” articles to the right.)

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A Requiem for Frances

A Requiem for Frances

My grandmother died last week. She was four months shy of her 98th birthday. She was born in 1910, at the tail end of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. She was born a subject of Franz Josef. Had Franz Josef been an immigrant and passed through Ellis Island, he would have undergone a spelling change. His name would have been Francis Joseph. Had the immigrant Franz Josef coughed or cleared his throat after uttering his family name at Ellis Island, he would have been Francis Josepher.
     My grandmother’s name was Frances Josepher. Well, eventually. She married into the Josepher family. She spent her life in New York City. She gave birth to two children. She lost a child. She raised a family. She opened her home to her aging parents.
     Franz Josef lost a child too, his son allegedly from suicide. Josef also lost his wife, who was stabbed to death by an anarchist in that era of anarchy-inspired assassination.
     My grandmother lost her husband in the mid-1970s to brain cancer. The death of her “beloved Paul,” as she always referred to him, created a chasm for my grandmother. My grandmother, like the women of her era, went from being a daughter to being a wife. Suddenly, she was a widow. Suddenly, she was the only person sleeping under her roof.
     My grandmother went to work. She was a bookkeeper by training. She knew how to use an abacus. She found a job south of the southern edge of Central Park. The job gave her freedom, independence. She had a second life of sorts.
     There was no escaping the presence of her “beloved Paul” but my grandmother came to realize something remarkable. She could build on that. The Death of Paul wasn’t an end for her. It wasn’t a beginning either. It was a step in another direction.
     The computer generation revolutionized bookkeeping and my grandmother was phased out. She retired. She grieved the loss of her job. My grandmother, after all, knew a thing or two about grieving.
     I did not know my grandmother well. I grew up two thousand miles removed and I saw her once a year, on trips into New York. On a few occasions, she came to Colorado. She slept on a pullout cot during those trips. She struggled with her breath in the Colorado altitude. In the car, my grandmother used to hold onto her seat cushion. Too tightly. I remember seeing the veins pop out in her wrist.
     The Frances that I knew lived a life of singularity. Yes, she had her friends and her family, including her daughter and son-in-law nearby. But she lived alone in an apartment not far from Coney Island. She climbed a flight of steep stairs. She entered into the living room of a two-bedroom flat. There was a blue carpet in the living room. There was a blue couch on the blue carpet. There was a silver tea service on the coffee table in front of the blue couch. From the moment I entered her apartment, sometime in the early 1970s, to the very last time, the room stood still.
     Time did not. At some point in her aging process my grandmother began to suffer from the effects of dementia. The effects robbed her of normal brain functioning. She lost her memory.
     My most meaningful moment with my grandmother occurred at the last moment that it possibly could. My grandmother, in the initial throes of the dementia, could not have marked the change. I can pinpoint it. October, 1999.
     I was in the throes of deep grief. The break up of a romantic relationship had taken my breath away. The thrust of my life pushed downward, not forward. The break up created a chasm.
     I traveled from my home then in San Francisco to New York to get away from the grief. The grief became more aggressive. The distance created a choking effect. I couldn’t swallow.
     One afternoon I traveled out to my grandmother’s apartment, not so far from Coney Island. As always with my grandmother, she stood on the landing above the street, connected by that steep staircase. Like always, she waited for her visitor.
     That landing, or the big window in her living room that looked over the street, became the perfect widow’s perch.
     I walked up the steep flight of stairs. We went inside. She offered refreshments and I sat down on her blue couch. My grandmother soon sat beside me. In my memory, we didn’t talk. In my memory, I didn’t explain what was going on. My grandmother, in my memory, was struggling on that day with her mind and she wouldn’t have understood. So we sat there, on her blue couch, on the blue carpet, with the silver tea service positioned on the coffee table. We sat there in silence.
     My grandmother moved closer to me. She did something then that she’d never done before. Maybe I’d never allowed her to. She touched my hair. She put her hand on the top of my head and slowly she worked her way down the back of my head. She did this again and again.
     On some level my grandmother clearly understood my state of mind. After all, she’d experienced her own chasms, her own recoveries, her own steps in different directions. In her gesture, I think, she was showing me the way. She was smoothing out a period, for me, of thorny knots.
     The tears welled up and spilled down my face. Big tears, as I remember. Not the small fast tears that sprint down the skin and fall to the floor. The big tears that kind of meander. Unsolicited.
     She didn’t wipe my tears. I didn’t wipe my tears. She smoothed my hair.
     I sat there, in great grief, in great warmth. In my memory, the moment went on for minutes, more, a half hour, more. Neither of us had any place to go.

Frances Josepher: born November 15, 1910, died July 18, 2008.

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“We believe in Dick”: A History of Conventions, 1968

“We believe in Dick”
A History of Conventions: 1968

Richard Nixon placed a glass on the counter. He filled the glass three-quarters full with his favorite scotch whiskey. Nixon drank Famous Grouse. He then, as his tradition dictated, added a scoop’s worth of ice cubes to his drink. Nixon liked to crunch into frigidity. Nixon liked the hard edges in his mouth. Nixon liked the breakage and shattering effect.
     He did not pour a drink for his guest. He did not particularly like his guest. Politics was a game of needing, not liking, and no man knew that more than Dick Nixon.
     Nixon’s guest did not like his host. Nelson Rockefeller, the governor of New York, was the consummate glad-hander. The man oozed sincerity insincerely. The man oozed warmth with frigidity.
     Nelson Rockefeller, being Nelson Rockefeller, wanted to be president without running for president. He wanted the Republican Party to beg him to run. He wanted the electorate to elect him in a landslide. He didn’t want to be vetted. He didn’t want to travel. He didn’t want the sweat of the campaign. He didn’t mind paying for advertising, and throwing money around in general. He didn’t mind gossiping with the press. The man was used to entitlement, not political pugilism.
     Richard Nixon was the ultimate political pugilist. He could spar all night and go another twelve rounds the next morning. While Rockefeller slept in, awoke in satin sheets, had his nails done by the hired help and nibbled on toast and marmalade (with yet another woman in his bed), Dick Nixon pushed his way through crowds, shook hands, forced a smile over his obsequiously tanned face. Dick Nixon wanted your vote and would ask for it from morning to night. Nelson Rockefeller wanted your vote but wanted it presented on a silver platter.
     Nelson Rockefeller’s second wife had a nickname: Happy. Imagine Dick Nixon with a wife with that nickname.
     Pat Nixon attended the meeting between her husband and Nelson Rockefeller. Like her husband, Pat Nixon held a glass of scotch whiskey. Unlike her husband, she drank Chivas. Unlike her husband, she drank her whiskey neat. Pat Nixon would become arguably the neatest (as in tidy) woman ever to live in the White House. Pat Nixon cleaned her own toilets. The hired help, she believed, didn’t do the job right. The hired help didn’t understand how to wield a toilet bowl cleaner with the precise muscle. Pat Nixon wielded a Rubbermaid with utter craft, cunning and strength.
     While she wielded a Rubbermaid, Pat Nixon also smoked cigarettes. There have been many first ladies who smoked cigarettes. None smoked as many as Pat. According to the fourth person present at the meeting of Nixon and Rockefeller, Joseph Brine, Pat Nixon smoked “throughout the meeting. One after the other. With gulps of whiskey in between.” Brine then echoed an overriding sentiment, “Pat Nixon did not have an easy life.”
     Joseph Brine served as Pat Nixon’s personal assistant throughout her husband’s presidential years. In 1968, he was a young college graduate. He served by Pat Nixon’s side until her death in June 1993. A year later, following the death of Richard Nixon, he offered his version of life with the Nixons. His remembrance of the Nixon/Rockefeller meeting can be found in the Oral History of Joseph Brine at the Nixon Presidential Library.
     According to Brine, the Nixon/Rockefeller meeting took place at the top of the Miami Beach Convention Center. “There was a series of offices up in the rafters,” Brine recalled. “There was a great deal of noise coming from the crowd below. Dick Nixon had a hard time hearing during the meeting. That I specifically remember. Also, he was sweating like crazy. Perspiration dripped down his forehead.”
     Earlier that evening, while the heat and humidity of Miami in August reached the dripping sweat range, Republican delegates crowded into the Miami Beach Convention Center. There had been a slight sense of surprise in the air. The frontrunner, Richard Nixon, was not a lock for the nominee. Although Nixon controlled the “Eisenhower Republicans,” or the moderates – the “forgotten Americans,” as Nixon claimed, “the non-shouters, the non-demonstrators, the dynamos of the American dream” – the Republican Party was split in three. Nelson Rockefeller controlled the liberal side of the Republican Party, aptly called the Rockefeller Republicans. (Imagine a side of the Republican Party that pushed for an outstanding university system, a network of hospitals, housing projects, mental health facilities, water treatment plants, parks, highways. Yes, that side of the Republican Party existed pre-Reagan/George W. Bush. That side of the Republican Party also bankrupted the State of New York.) On the far right, the “Goldwater conservatives” lined up behind the governor of California, a 57-year-old actor named Ronald Reagan.
     In the weeks before the Republican Convention of 1968 Ronald Reagan’s popularity exploded. Southerners, leaving the Democratic Party in droves, turned to the Reagan camp. He represented what they most wanted: “an earlier era,” in the words of Herbert Parmet, the best biographer of Nixon, where “the state functioned – if it did at all – as a protector of national security and traditional values.” The Goldwaterites-turned-Reaganites “had few reservations about drawing enemies in bold relief: the eastern Republican liberal establishment; the liberal media; the wishy-washy, compromising conservatism of the national Republican Party.”
     To the Goldwaterites-turned-Reaganites, Richard Nixon was the embodiment of compromising conservatism. In the late spring of 1968, according to Parmet’s Richard Nixon and his America, a pollster found that “the biggest interest growing almost like a prairie fire is in Ronald Reagan. Not one thing about his being an actor, or being a Right-Winger. Just that he seems to have done a fine job as Governor of California, that he is not a ‘nut,’ and most of all, that he is tremendously appealing. I am amazed at the depth and breath of deep, serious interest in Reagan.”
     In order to squelch the prairie fire, Dick Nixon turned to the great segregationist and unreconstructed powerbroker, Strom Thurmond. In a meeting between Nixon and the senator from South Carolina two months before the convention, Thurmond handed Nixon a small piece of paper containing three lists. For Thurmond’s endorsement, he wanted to be able to name the vice president. On the acceptable list, he named Ronald Reagan, John Tower of Texas, George Bush, Howard Baker of Tennessee. On the unacceptable list, he named two New Yorkers, the liberal side of the party. Mayor John Lindsay and Governor Nelson Rockefeller. A “no objections” list contained a few names, including the governor of Maryland. His name was Spiro Agnew.
     Governor Agnew was actually a protégé of Nelson Rockefeller. He pushed for a progressive path on social causes. He positioned himself against segregation. He supported President Johnson’s Fair Housing Act contained in the Civil Right Act of 1968. Through Governor Agnew’s pressure, the Maryland legislature rescinded an anti-miscegenation law.
     None of this mattered to Strom Thurmond. The man who built a career on miscegenation laws, even while he was breaking them, wanted a vice president from the South. Spiro Agnew, from a border state, fit the objective.
     To the three lists presented by Senator Thurmond, Nixon responded by pouring Famous Grouse into two glasses. He added ice. The two men clinked glasses. Nixon crunched into frigidity.
     That meeting took place in Atlanta on the last day of May. Nearly ten weeks later, on Monday August 5, Nixon won the Republican nomination by the slimmest of margins, winning 51 percent of the 1,333 votes.
     Later that evening, in an office above the floor of the Miami Beach Convention Center, Nixon met with the man who Nixon needed in the general election. To win the Republican nomination, he’d turned to Thurmond. To win the national election, and the “liberal” establishment of the Northeast, he sought out the governor of New York.
     Richard Nixon began to pace. The pacing exacerbated his perspiring. He held his glass of whisky up to his forehead. The ice in the glass began to melt.
     Down below on the convention floor delegates shouted his name: “We believe in Dick… We believe in Dick…”
     Governor Rockefeller sat in an armchair. He wore black-rimmed eyeglasses. He oozed composure. He wasn’t sweating. He wasn’t pacing. According to his autobiography, he expected an invitation from Nixon. He didn’t necessarily want the vice presidency but he saw the title as a “springboard to the White House, following in the footsteps of Adams, Jefferson, Truman, Johnson and, of course, Richard M. Nixon.”
     Down below on the convention floor delegates shouted his name: “We believe in Dick… We believe in Dick…”
     “Governor,” Nixon said, barely audible over the fray down below, “I’ve asked you here for one reason. I know tonight’s results were disappointing [Rockefeller won 277 votes in the nominating process, or 21 percent]. But I want your support in the general election and as such I’m prepared to offer you…”
     Nixon hesitated. That hesitation led to all sorts of historical wonderings. “What was on his mind at the moment?” biographer Herbert Parmet asked rhetorically. “Nixon needed the Republican center to win the election. Rockefeller did not represent that constituency. At the same time, Rockefeller was the ‘big play.’ He was the big name, the attention grabber. Was Nixon fighting himself over his vice presidential choice? We all know how it turns out. The question is, how close was Nixon to going in another direction? How close was Nixon to offering the position to Rockefeller? Judging from the hesitation, perhaps closer than history portrays.”
     Eyewitness Joseph Brine expressed a different reason for Nixon’s hesitation. “The noise down below on the convention floor was distracting. Nixon hesitated because he couldn’t hear himself think.”
     “We believe in Dick,” the delegates shouted down below. “We believe in Dick.”
     “Governor,” Nixon reconfigured his sentence, “you can name the vice president. I have one requirement. You cannot name yourself.”
     What Nelson Rockefeller felt at that moment remains a mystery. He never recorded his immediate reaction in his memoirs. He never told his good friend Henry Kissinger. History shows that the governor remained stoic. “His countenance didn’t change,” Joseph Brine recalled. “He looked Lake Placid calm, unlike the Grand Central combustion of the Nixons.”
     While Rockefeller thought over the offer, Dick Nixon paced. He paced back to the counter. He dropped more ice cubes in his whiskey glance. He held the glass up to his forehead.
     Meanwhile, Pat Nixon sat on the floral-patterned sofa and gulped Chivas. Then she inhaled a Marlboro. According to Joseph Brine, “She finished both the whiskey and the cigarette in one big greedy breath.”
     Pat Nixon held out her glass for another round. Her husband was too busy pacing the room to notice.
     Nelson Rockefeller spoke a name. Richard Nixon, perhaps due to the noise coming from the delegates below, perhaps due to the ferocity of his pacing, did not hear the governor. “What?” Nixon said.
     “We believe in Dick,” the delegates shouted down below. “We believe in Dick.”
     Nelson Rockefeller again spoke a name. Perhaps to trifle with Nixon, he spoke the name in a near whisper.
     “What?” Nixon said again.
     “We believe in Dick,” the delegates shouted down below. “We believe in Dick.”
     “Ted,” Nelson Rockefeller said again.
     Dick Nixon looked at the governor. “His look conveyed total ignorance,” according to Joseph Brine. “Who was Ted? Nixon must have searched his mind, going down the list of possible vice presidents. There was a George on the list. There was a Ronald. There were a couple of Johns. There wasn’t a Ted. Kennedy was clearly out. Still, Nixon, being Nixon, he couldn’t admit his ignorance. So he did what he always did in those circumstances. He looked at his right-hand man.”
     In this case his right-hand man was a woman. Pat Nixon, with her empty whiskey glass held out for seconds, asked the question on her husband’s mind. “Who is Ted?”
     Rockefeller smiled. “His only smile of the evening,” according to Joseph Brine. “Spiro Agnew,” Rockefeller said. “His family and friends call him Ted. His middle name is Theodore.”
     Nixon responded by taking the empty whiskey glass from his wife’s hand. He paced over to the counter. He filled two glasses. One with Chivas. The other with Famous Grouse. He added ice to the Famous Grouse. He then crunched into frigidity.

(To celebrate the summer of 2008, a summer of conventions after all, I am writing a series on the presidential conventions of the latter half of the 20th century. To read earlier parts of this series, please click on the link “More articles by Brian Josepher” below. You will see the “History of Conventions” articles to the right.)

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A July 4th Poll: the Politics of Americans

A July 4th Poll: the Politics of Americans

During the week of June 22-29, 2008, the GJBJ conducted a poll via the Internet. The GJBJ asked a series of questions regarding politics and history in questionnaire form. Most of the questions were of the fill in the blank variety. Some were multiple choice. If a respondent did not know the answer, he/she was instructed to write, “Don’t know.” Some ten thousand Americans responded. Here are the findings:

When asked to name the longest serving president of the United States, over 50 percent of Americans named George W. Bush. Over twenty percent named Bill Clinton. Twelve percent named Ronald Reagan. Five percent named George Washington. Five percent named Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

When asked to name the three nations originally listed on President Bush’s “Axis of Evil” list, 14 percent accurately named North Korea, Iran and Iraq. Over 40 percent of Americans included Russia on the list. Thirty-five percent of Americans included China on the list.

As a follow up: When given the three countries on President Bush’s “Axis of Evil” list and asked to name what country remains on the list to this day, 60 percent named Iraq (even after the fall of Saddam Hussein). Two percent named North Korea (to be fair, this poll took place as President Bush removed North Korea from the list). The remaining 38 percent named Iran.

When asked to identify Karl Rove, and given four choices (a current pundit at the Fox network, a track star who won four gold medals at the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics, election campaign manager for President George W. Bush and others, a past boyfriend of Angelina Jolie), 16 percent chose a “current pundit” at Fox. Fifteen percent chose the “track star” from the Los Angeles Olympics. Four percent chose “election campaign manager.” Sixty-five percent chose “past boyfriend of Angelina Jolie.”

As a follow up: The 65 percent who chose Karl Rove as a past boyfriend of Angelina Jolie were asked to identify Ms. Jolie. With one exception, every respondent named Ms. Jolie as a movie star, or a celebrity. One person even wrote, “The next Elizabeth Taylor.” The one exception: One person named Angelina Jolie as “the Chancellor of Germany.”

When asked to name one head of state in Europe, 6 percent of Americans named Nicolas Sarkozy. Four percent named Vladimir Putin. Two percent named Tony Blair. Prime Minister Gordon Brown received .5 percent. Eighty-five percent of Americans checked, “Don’t know.”

When asked to name on what continent (not what country) Robert Mugabe’s dictatorship reigned, 39 percent of Americans chose Asia. Thirty percent chose South America. Twenty-seven percent chose Africa. Three percent chose North America.

As a follow up: The 3 percent who chose North America as the continent of Robert Mugabe’s dictatorship were asked what country he led. One percent chose Jamaica. Two percent chose Haiti. Three percent chose Panama. Four percent chose Nicaragua. Five percent chose Cuba. Zero percent chose the United States. Zero percent chose Greenland. Eight-five percent checked, “Don’t know.”

When asked to name the most successful secretary of state in this nation’s history, 60 percent of Americans answered, “Don’t know.” Twenty-five percent of Americans named Condoleezza Rice. Five percent of Americans named Thomas Jefferson. Five percent named Henry Kissinger. Two percent named George Marshall. One percent named Dean Acheson. One percent named John Hay. One percent named Donald Rumsfeld.

When asked to identify Scalia, and given four choices (a disease of the esophagus, a Hollywood producer, a Supreme Court Justice, the Pope during World War II), 68 percent of Americans chose “a disease of the esophagus.” Twenty percent chose a “Hollywood producer.” Four percent chose the Pope option. Eight percent chose Scalia as a Supreme Court Justice.

When asked to name a political leader slain within the last year, over 80 percent checked, “Don’t know.” Ten percent named Tim Russert. Four percent named Benazir Bhutto.

When asked to name the president of Iran, 81 percent checked, “Don’t know.” Fourteen percent named Ayatollah Khomeini. Four percent named Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. One percent named Salman Rushdie.

When asked to name the president of Afghanistan, 85 percent checked, “Don’t know.” Ten percent named Ayatollah Khomeini. Two percent named Hamid Karzai. Two percent named Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. One percent named Khaled Hosseini.

When asked to name one (of six) country that borders Iran, 65 percent of Americans wrote, “Don’t know.” Seventeen percent wrote, “Saudi Arabia.” Two percent wrote, “Israel.”

When asked to name one (of six) country that borders Afghanistan, 74 percent of Americans wrote, “Don’t know.” Ten percent named China.

When asked to identify the Taliban, and given four choices (a British punk rock band from the 1970s, the last name of the quarterback-turned-criminal for the Atlanta Falcons, a Sunni Islamic movement that ruled Afghanistan, a nation of all-female warriors from Greek mythology), 72 percent of Americans chose “a British punk rock band.” Sixteen percent chose a “nation of all-female warriors.” Twelve percent chose a “Sunni Islamic movement that ruled Afghanistan.” Zero percent chose the “quarterback-turned-criminal for the Atlanta Falcons.”

As a follow up: When asked to name the quarterback-turned-criminal for the Atlanta Falcons, nearly 95 percent chose Michael Vick.

When asked the skin color of senator and presidential aspirant Barack Obama, 38 percent said, “African-American.” Thirty-eight percent said, “Black.” Twelve percent said, “Other.” Ten percent said, “Don’t know.” Two percent said, “Kenyan.”

When asked the skin color of senator and presidential aspirant John McCain, 69 percent said, “White.” Twenty-four percent said, “Caucasian.” Five percent said, “Other.” Two percent said, “Vietnamese.”

When asked to name the current governor of California, 70 percent of Americans checked, “Don’t know.” Nineteen percent named John McCain. Eleven percent named Arnold Schwarzenegger.

When asked to name the actor who played the terminator, 100 percent of Americans named Arnold Schwarzenegger.

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A History of Conventions: 1980 (the Democrats)

A History of Conventions: 1980 (the Democrats)

At the end of May I began a series on the presidential conventions of the latter half of the 20th century. I began the series with the Republican Convention of 1980. That convention took place in Detroit on July 14-17. Four weeks later, August 11-14, the Democrats met in New York City.

9:02 p.m. Jimmy Carter, under the extreme pressure of the most important speech of his career, did what came natural. He tinkered with his speech in the minutes before giving it. He stood in a private box off the main concourse of Madison Square Garden, pencil in hand, and crossed out a few sentences of his prepared speech. He then wrote notes in the margin. These particular notes focused on his accomplishments in office. The notes read: “nine million new jobs added” and “inflation dropped from 18 percent first quarter to 7 percent” and “comprehensive energy policy – now importing 20 percent less oil, or 1 and 1/2 millions of barrels of oil less per day than the day I took office.”
     President Carter’s penchant for note taking was the stuff of legend. “Jimmy Carter was the ultimate note-taker,” Douglas Brinkley, Carter’s sympathetic biographer, wrote in The Unfinished Presidency: Jimmy Carter’s Journey Beyond the White House. “He took more notes in one day than the more hands-on presidents – Clinton, Kennedy, and Wilson – took in a month. He took more notes in one month than the more detached presidents – Eisenhower, Ronald Reagan, and Cal Coolidge – took in an entire administration.” President Carter’s original convention speech, with all of his deletions and additions, can be viewed in the presidential library at the Carter Center, Atlanta, Georgia.
     The private box in which Carter tinkered with his speech belonged to the owner of the New York Knicks, David “Sonny” Werblin. Pictures of great Knicks dominated the wall space. There was a photo of Willis Reed. There was a photo of Walter “Clyde” Frazier. There was a photo of Vernon Earl Monroe.
     Not far from Sonny Werblin’s private box a podium had been erected. The podium stood some twenty feet above the floor of Madison Square Garden. The floor of the arena was jammed with delegates. All the delegates at that moment, and anyone watching the event on television, were viewing a propaganda film entitled “The Vision of Jimmy Carter” on the big screen, located directly behind the raised podium.
     The film began with a helicopter view of monuments in Washington, from the Washington Monument in all of its verticality to the Jefferson Monument and its inspiration to the Lincoln Monument and its gravity. A narrator spoke as the Lincoln Monument faded from view, “No one who’s not had the responsibility can really understand what it’s like to be the president.”
     In the next scene on film President Carter strolled into his office. There was purpose in his stroll. There was power. There was poise. This was the president, the film hinted, of self-assurance.
     9:03 p.m. In Sonny Werblin’s box, the president of self-assurance wasn’t listening to the narrator. He wasn’t watching the huge screen. He continued to scribble notes into the margin of his speech. These particular notes focused on his Republican challenger, Ronald Reagan. The notes read: “promises to abolish the Departments of Education and Energy” and “will slash solar energy incentives – will abolish synthetic fuels program – will eliminate 55-mile speed limit – will gut the Clean Air Act.” Carter then wrote a statement in capital letters: “WILL UNLEASH THE OIL COMPANIES – THAT’S THE TOTALITY OF HIS ENERGY POLICY.”
     Meanwhile, on the big screen located directly behind the raised podium, the propaganda film continued with photographs of past presidents. There was a photo of Lincoln with a narrator quoting one of Lincoln’s contemporaries, “‘I never did see or converse with so weak and imbecile a man; the weakest man I have ever known. If I wanted to paint a despot, a man with the perfect disregard for every constitutional right of the people, I would paint the hideous, apelike form of Abraham Lincoln.’”
     The Lincoln photographed faded and a photograph of Ulysses S. Grant came into view. A narrator quoted the Republican platform of 1872, during Grant’s re-election campaign, “‘He has used the public service of the government as a machinery of corruption and personal influence, and has interfered with tyrannical arrogance in the public affairs of states and municipalities.’”
     The Grant photograph faded and a photograph of Harry Truman came into view. A narrator quoted a famous journalist of the Truman era, “‘Mr. Truman is not performing, and gives no evidence of his ability to perform, the functions of the Commander-in-Chief. At the very center of the Truman administration there is a vacuum of responsibility and authority.’”
     Gerald Rafshoon, the filmmaker and President Carter’s communications director, explained the direction of the film. His reflections can be found in the presidential library at the Carter Center, in the Oral History of Rafshoon, Gerald. “We wanted to say to America: Hey, there’s the image, particularly the negative spin, and then there’s the reality. We ended with the photo of Truman because, more than any other president, he epitomized this dichotomy. His image in America, at the time of his re-election, was rock-bottom. And yet the reality of his presidency is that he met crisis after crisis and succeeded on levels that we’re just now giving him credit for.”
     9:06 p.m. In Sonny Werblin’s private box, Jimmy Carter continued to cross out sentences in his prepared speech and write notes in the margin. These particular notes still focused on his Republican challenger. The notes read: “his fantasy America – inner-city laborers do not exist, working women are ignored, the elderly do not need Medicare, the young do not need help in getting a better education.” Carter then added a statement in capital letters: “IN HIS FANTASY AMERICA, ALL PROBLEMS HAVE SIMPLE SOLUTIONS – SIMPLE AND WRONG.”
     Meanwhile, on the big screen located directly behind the raised podium, the propaganda film continued with Carter on the campaign trail. A huge number of supporters, some 50,000 strong, filled a stadium in Tuscumbia, Alabama. Off to one side, a dozen or so demonstrators wore the white sheets and hoods of the Klu Klux Klan. The Klansmen held up a banner, “Reagan for President.”
     According to the propaganda film (a copy of which can be viewed in the presidential library at the Carter Center), President Carter interrupted his campaign speech. He pointed at the banner. “There are still a few in the South, indeed around the country, who practice cowardice and who counsel fear and hatred,” he fumed. “They say we ought to be afraid of each other, that whites ought to hate and be afraid of blacks, and that blacks ought to hate and be afraid of whites. As a Southerner, it makes me feel angry. As the first man from the Deep South in almost 140 years to be president of this nation, I say that these people in white sheets do not understand our region and what it’s been through, they do not understand what our country stands for, they do not understand that the South and all of America must move forward.”
     The crowd in Tuscumbia, according to the propaganda film, responded in a boisterous and extended ovation. The crowd watching the film in Madison Square Garden did the same.
     Filmmaker Gerald Rafshoon explained, “This was made to be the highlight, the crux, of the film. It was supposed to be President Carter identifying both himself and his American vision.”
     9:08 p.m. In Sonny Werblin’s private box, Jimmy Carter continued to cross out sentences in his prepared speech and write notes in the margin. He still, clearly, had Ronald Reagan on his mind. One note read: “will enter America into unnecessary wars.” He circled that statement. Another note read: “The life of every human being on Earth can depend on the experience and judgment and vigilance of the person in the Oval Office. The president’s power for building and his power for destruction are awesome. And the power’s greatest exactly where the stakes are highest – in matters of war and peace.”
     Meanwhile, on the big screen located directly behind the raised podium, the propaganda film continued with a scene from Camp David, as the leaders of Egypt and Israel reached agreement. The film zoomed in on President Carter smiling in between the scowling Menachem Begin and the anxious Anwar Sadat. The narrator of the film asked, “Can you picture Reagan getting Begin and Sadat together?”
     Filmmaker Gerald Rafshoon explained, “These propaganda films – they're supposed to be feel good, warm and fuzzy. Families and picnics and presidents in splendor. Fine. We made that kind of film in 1976. The Reagan people made that kind of film for their convention a month earlier. With this one, I just thought to myself: Let’s talk some substance. Let’s hit the people with a question. Would Reagan have the magic to bring Begin and Sadat together?”
     Inside Madison Square Garden, a floor full of delegates offered an answer to Rafshoon’s question. “NO!” thousands of delegates screamed.
     Jimmy Carter did not hear the screaming delegates. In Sonny Werblin’s box he wrote a final note in the margin of his speech. The note read: “experience is the best guide to right decisions. I am wiser tonight than I was four years ago.”
     At that moment in time, 9:09 p.m., two of Carter’s most trusted colleagues entered the private box. Vice President Walter Mondale whispered a pep talk into Carter’s ear, “Go after Reagan. His is a make-believe world, a world of good guys and bad guys, where politicians shoot first and ask questions later.”
     Rosalynn Carter did not offer a pep talk. She offered a spirited kiss.
     Seconds later, the band at Madison Square Garden played “Hail to the Chief.” The screen up high went dark. The lights in the Garden blazed in full splendor. And there, standing at the raised podium, was the man of the moment, the president of the United States, with the first lady and the vice president a few steps behind. The time was 9:10 p.m.

(To read earlier parts of this series, please click on the link “More articles by Brian Josepher” below. You will see the “History of Conventions” articles to the right.)

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Seeking Asylum: Past and Present

Seeking Asylum: Past and Present

The year was 1939. Hundreds of refugees arrived at the port of Havana, on board a ship called the St. Louis. The St. Louis was a German luxury liner. On this particular sailing across the Atlantic, one of the last before the Second World War broke out, the St. Louis carried Jewish refugees fleeing religious persecution. Nazi Germany, of course, was not a good place to be Jewish.
     The refugees carried landing permits. Unbeknownst to them, they did not carry official Cuban visas. In fact, most of the refugees held American visas. To the refugees, Cuba was considered a way station, a safe place to wait until their American visa numbers were called.
     The Cuban government turned the refugees away. The St. Louis sailed north. Off the coast of Miami, the passengers sent telegrams to high-ranking American officials, including Secretary of State Cordell Hull and President Roosevelt. Their telegrams met the cold static of executive neglect. There is no record of one high-ranking American responding to these telegrams. The St. Louis, with no place to go and provisions running low, sailed back to Nazi Germany.
     You can perhaps imagine the frenzy that took place amongst the passengers. Back to Nazi Germany. For Jews, who had lived through the 1930s and the culture of rapidly disintegrating rights and growing concentration camps, these were intolerable words. Near-riots began to take place on the St. Louis. A passenger tried to commit suicide by throwing himself into the ocean. Better death than Dachau.
     The story of the St. Louis did not end well. True, the Jewish passengers never went back to Nazi Germany. Fortunately, four Western European countries opened their borders. The war, however, broke out some three months later. Thirty percent of St. Louis passengers perished as the annihilation of the Jews swept from the ravine in Ukraine known as Babi Yar all the way across the continent to the hideous transit camps of Westerbork in Holland and Drancy in France.
     Today, the story of the St. Louis stands as a lesson. Returning asylum seekers to their countries of origin is against international law.
     Is anyone paying attention to this lesson? This past week Egypt began a mass deportation policy. Four hundred Eritrean asylum seekers were flown back to the capital, Asmara. Amnesty International warned, “Most asylum seekers returned to Eritrea are likely to be arbitrarily detained incommunicado in inhumane conditions from weeks to years. They will be at serious risk of torture or other ill-treatment.”
     The Eritreans reacted like the passengers on board the St. Louis, as that ship began the journey back to Nazi Germany. According to Amnesty International, “The asylum seekers knew they were being deported and started to beg the security forces not to deport them, and even threatened to kill themselves.”
     There are an estimated 1,200 Eritrean asylum seekers in Egypt. Like the passengers on board the St. Louis, the Eritreans suffered religious persecution in their homeland. In the Eritreans case, they are Pentecostal Christians. The Eritrean government, led by dictator Isaias Afewerki and his single political party, the People’s Front for Democracy and Justice, recognizes Sunni Islam and the Oriental Orthodox Church, an Eastern form of Christianity. All other forms of religion must undergo a registration process.
     The euphemisms are clear. A name like the People’s Front for Democracy and Justice should be setting off your internal skepticism mechanisms. So should a registration process. The U.S. State Department considers Eritrea, “A state sponsor of terrorism.” Don’t be surprised if Eritrea joins Iran and North Korea on Mr. Bush’s Axis of Evil list. (And Cuba too, while we’re on the subject of the St. Louis.)
     The Eritreans who fled their homeland for Egypt have another similarity with the passengers of the St. Louis. Egypt is their way station. Their end goal is Israel.
     What’s been forgotten in the ubiquitous assault that is the Israeli/Palestinian crisis is that Israel has the most tolerant border policy among nations. Israel receives immigrants (still), non-Jews included.
     In the past year, for instance, Israel estimates that 10,000 Africans have entered the country illegally through its border with Egypt. Some of these refugees have been Eritreans. Some of these refugees have been Sudanese fleeing from the massacres of Darfur. Thanks to a peace treaty with Egypt, the border along the Sinai Peninsula is porous.
     Israeli reporter Sheera Frenkel described the border in the Times of London: “There’s this image of Israel’s southern border as a massive concrete barrier. But Israel’s southern border is just a barbed wire fence, some of it just five feet high.” According to Frenkel’s depiction, border patrols are rare. Excessive force, perpetrated by the Egyptians, is not.
     Eyewitnesses (Israeli guards, on their side of the barbed wire) have observed numerous atrocities. They include: a 24-year-old Sudanese man shot in the back as he tried to enter Israel, a lynching of another man, and a scene in which Egyptian soldiers used rocks, stones, and pieces of wood to kill migrants. According to alertnet.org, whose mission statement is to alert humanitarians to emergencies, Egyptian police have “shot dead at least 13 migrants at the Israel border this year and detained scores more.”
     What’s the Egyptian response to charges of brutal tactics? On May 26, the Egyptian parliament ratified President Hosni Mubarak’s bill to extend the State of Emergency Law for another two years. The State of Emergency Law went into effect in 1981, following the assassination of Anwar Sadat. The Egyptian Prime Minister promised that “the law would be used only to fight terrorism and to defend the citizens.”
      The euphemisms are clear. A name like the State of Emergency Law should be setting off your internal skepticism mechanisms. So should martial law enforced for twenty-seven years.
     What’s the American administration’s response to Egypt’s repatriation of Eritrean asylum seekers? Like the passengers on board the St. Louis, the Eritreans have experienced the cold static of executive neglect. Secretary of State Cordell Hull never responded publicly to the passengers’ predicament. Neither did Franklin Roosevelt. Is it any surprise, therefore, that we haven’t heard from Condoleezza Rice or George Bush?
     The Bush legacy is clearly stated here. As long as the principle is to “fight terrorism and to defend the citizens,” anything goes.
     Perhaps the real lesson of the St. Louis, and the lesson of African refugees in Egypt, is that nobody cares.

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A History of Conventions: An Introduction

A History of Conventions: An Introduction

(Here in this space today, and throughout the summer, I’m going to take a look at some of the more contentious, and entertaining, conventions of the latter half of the 20th century. A few weeks ago I began this series with the Republican Convention of 1980. Before delving into other later 20th century conventions, I thought an introduction was in order.)

With the country teetering on the breaking point, with war clouds gathering and a polarized nation uncertain of its next step, the Republican Party held its convention to elect a candidate for the presidency. The pre-convention favorite was the senator from New York. The senator, however, had many detractors and therefore was not a lock for the nominee. That led to a series of other candidates announcing their presidential intentions. They included: a lawyer from Missouri, a former governor from Ohio, a former congressman from Illinois.
     On the first ballot, the senator from New York gained a clear advantage but fell some 60 votes shy of victory. The congressman from Illinois gained the second most votes, winning his home state of Illinois and neighboring Indiana. The political team representing the Illinois congressman celebrated. The election had come down to two candidates.
     The political team representing the New York senator worried. Detractors seemed to be growing. The campaign director, Thurlow Weed, declared, “We are facing a crisis; there are troubled times ahead of us. What this country will demand as its chief executive for the next four years is a man of the highest order of executive ability, a man of real statesmanlike qualities, well known to the country, and of large experience in national affairs. No other class of men ought to be considered at this time.”
     Thurlow Weed, of course, had his candidate in mind: America’s greatest statesman at that time, a former governor of New York, a powerful senator, a link back to the founding father’s generation.
     The congressman from Illinois had a western sensibility. He didn’t put his faith in Alexander Hamilton, as the New York senator did, but rather in the wisdom of Henry Clay. To vote for the Illinois congressman over the New York senator was to vote for the future.
     Sound familiar? Terry McAuliffe might have recently uttered Thurlow Weed’s comments, with a gender change of the pronoun. As for the current legislator from Illinois, it’s as if he’s taken a page directly from the Republican Convention of 1860. It’s as if he’s the new frontier.
     On the second ballot, the Illinois congressman’s vote tally climbed to within three votes of the New York senator. That key nominating state, Pennsylvania, had thrown its weight behind the Illinois congressman. Simply put, the Pennsylvanians received a deal from the Illinois congressman. Despite that congressman’s directive to his representatives – “Make no contracts that will bind me” – his representatives offered the chief Pennsylvanian a cabinet post. Simon Cameron, a corrupt, vacillating, former Democrat and Know Nothing, became secretary of war. He wouldn’t even last a year in that post.
     On the third ballot, the congressman from Illinois eclipsed the nominating tally. His name was Abraham Lincoln.
     The senator from New York, William Seward, was not considered for the vice president position. VP candidates then ran separately. Seward, however, did take the top cabinet post after Lincoln won the general election, secretary of state.
     In the years that followed, Secretary Seward built an incredible legacy. Through his sheer negotiating prowess, he kept the Union out of a naval war with the British (and the French), at a time during the Civil War when both the British and the French were playing both the Union and the Confederate sides. That war would have crippled the Union. Almost any negotiator can negotiate from strength. Seward could negotiate from weakness.
     Further, he turned this nation’s foreign policy in another direction, toward Asia. Seward was the first statesman to make alliances with Hawaii, Japan and China.
     Further, he made a very unpopular purchase from Russia, known then as Seward’s folly. Today we call Seward’s folly the state of Alaska.
     And perhaps most importantly, after a period of animosity and distrust between Seward and Lincoln, Seward became the president’s most trusted adviser. On nights when Lincoln couldn’t sleep (most nights, for the insomniac Lincoln), he would walk from the Executive Mansion across New York Avenue to Seward’s mansion on Lafayette Square. They would talk through the night. Lincoln typically would fall asleep in one of Seward’s easy chairs. Seward gave Lincoln great comfort.
     Is there a parallel today? We have a country nearly as polarized as 1860, though with no talk of secession. We had a New York senator who once was the clear front runner. We have a legislator from Illinois lacking experience. We have a convention approaching in a city that serves as the gateway to the West. Chicago in 1860 certainly fit that description. As does Denver today.
     In 1860, the Democrats were split by slavery. For the first and only time in the Democrat’s long history, they nominated two candidates to run for president, John C. Breckinridge in the South, Stephen Douglas in the North (even then the Democrats were good at self-mutilation). That left the country open for the new political party on the scene, the Republicans. In the general election of 1860 the Republican Party rallied around one issue, unionism. Keeping the country in tact catapulted Lincoln to the Executive Mansion.
     Lincoln ran on other issues too. He stood for high tariffs on imported manufactures. He stood for a national bank. He advocated railroad construction and land-grant laws. The latter would turn into arguably the most progressive law passed in this nation’s history: the Homestead Act of 1862, which gave an applicant (including freed slaves) free land outside of the original 13 colonies. But most supremely Lincoln stood for the enduring and perpetual spirit of this nation as one.
     South Carolina voted for secession about a month after the general election. In the north, they called the president-elect Honest Abe. In the south, they called him Honest Ape.
     Honest Abe, or Honest Ape if you prefer, took a few weeks before appointing William Seward to the state department. How do you turn a rival into a trusted ally? You make him, or her, wait.
     And so, today, we wait. We have multiple external wars, with others looming. We have an economy turning catastrophic, with foreclosure on homes reaching its highest rate ever, as nearly 1 percent of loans, or 447,723, have fallen into arrears. We have soaring prices, with food costs rising 5 percent this first quarter, the largest increase since the downturn of 1990.
     All eyes are on the man from Illinois. The election is his to lose. What will he do in the face of so much adversity? To strengthen his hand, will he turn his New York rival into an ally? Or will he find a chief ally elsewhere, say in the governor of Ohio?
     Lincoln, it should be noted, appointed the former governor of Ohio to be his secretary of the treasury. Salmon Chase, through extraordinary and perhaps extraconstitutional means (he created the income tax), kept the Union financially afloat. He was also an extremely ambitious man and he desperately wanted the presidency for himself. Chase’s ambition proved to be his downfall. He had a falling out with the president and he lost his job. (Lincoln, the most forgiving man ever to occupy the executive office, later appointed Chase to the Supreme Court.)
     Lincoln and Seward never had a falling out. Unfortunately, Seward was not vice president under Lincoln. History would be a far different read had Seward ascended to the Executive Mansion on April 15, 1865.

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Mailbag

Mailbag

I received an e-mail from Madison in Madison. “Dear Mr. Josepher, me and my roommate here at the U of W read your column every Friday. It’s like the first thing we do. You’re the best. However, I have one complaint. And my roommate has another. So I guess we have two complaints. You haven’t written an ‘Ask B, Relationship Expert’ column in a long time (that’s my roommate’s complaint, see attached for her relationship question). My complaint runs along the same lines. I love it when you answer questions from your mailbag, but you haven’t done that in a long time, either. Isn’t it time for another mailbag column?”
     Madison and Cherry (roommate’s name), you’re both absolutely right. I’ve been too busy with other writings (Iran, sex in New York, Ronald Reagan, NBA basketball); I’ve neglected other pertinent parts of the column. Forgive me.
     The good news, Madison, is that I can resolve your complaint herein (and I can address Cherry’s complaint in future writings, including her relationship question – a real doozy). In honor of Madison from Madison, here’s a general sampling from my mailbag, with my responses directly below.

1) A guy named Phil wrote, “I get most of my in-depth analysis from you (and Lou Dobbs). I really enjoyed your series on Iran. I propose a similar series on Iraq. Any chance?”

Lou Dobbs is one of my favorites too, Phil. I particularly like his nativist rants. There once was a man, by the way, who ran for president. He put together a winning coalition of nativists (known then as the Know Nothings), southern admirers of the slaveocracy, and northern Democrats fearing secession (Unionists). As president he backed a “foreigners out” platform. He also backed the Nebraska-Kansas act, which basically allowed for slavery into the territories. His name was James Buchanan and he was the last president before the Civil War. His successor, Abraham Lincoln, turned the anti-immigrant sentiment around. In fact, if not for the Irish and the Germans, the North would not have won the war. The Union army basically pulled immigrants off the boat, gave them a couple hundred dollars for “volunteering” for the army, and sent them to Fredericksburg, or Antietam, or Chancellorsville. America can thank the immigrant populations for preserving the union. Never forget that in our era of immigrant bashing. Lou clearly has.
     As for Iraq, Phil, America is filled with so-called experts, Lou Dobbs included. We see them on the television and read them online and in print publications. Ironically, of course, none of our experts on Iraq know a word of Arabic (in Iraqi dialect, let alone standard Arabic) and few could have named an Iraqi city other than Baghdad just a decade ago. Just like our president, not surprisingly.
     If America’s ever going to be a great nation again, we need Arabists.
     Phil, I digress. If you want excellent coverage on the real situation in Iraq, read the BBC online, or the German magazine Der Spiegel (which offers an English translation online). I think, for the time being, I’ll concentrate on other subjects.
     I may change my mind.

2) Since Phil mentioned my series on Iran, I’ll mention another e-mail I received on the same subject. This from Yigal in Israel. “Your writing came across as sympathetic to Ahmadinejad, Khomeini, and all of the crazies in that lunatic asylum. When Iran sends the bomb our way, what will you say then?”

Yigal, if someone writes on Iran in a less than belligerent way, is that writer an Iranian apologist? What happens if someone writes on Israel in the same manner? I don’t think rhetoric makes someone a beast. I think action makes you a beast. Rhetoric just makes you a propagandist. On that level, how much different is Mahmoud Ahmadinejad from John McCain or Ehud Olmert?
     As for Iran sending the bomb Israel’s way, I went to see the Israeli (American born) historian Michael Oren at the 92nd Street Y not long ago. According to Israeli intelligence, and as sort of a kick in the pants to our National Intelligence Estimate, he claimed that Iran’s uranium enrichment program will be nuclear capable some time in the early summer. That means now.
     Clearly, Yigal, you believe Israeli intelligence. So does George Bush. The Bush administration, in fact, is pushing for a third country to bomb Iran. If Israel bombs Iran, that only strengthens the anti-Israel cartel. If the United States bombs Iran, that only weakens America. And a weakened America becomes a more potent Iran.
     George Bush, at the tail end of his administration, has come up with a new strategy. It’s called Operation Abdullah. King Abdullah, of course, is the leader of Saudi Arabia. George Bush made a stop in Riyadh late last month. Most American pundits thought Bush went to press for increased oil production. Wrong. According to my source (who must remain anonymous, unfortunately), Bush asked Abdullah to bomb Iran. Using American-made jets, of course. And American-made bombs.

3) Continuing with Iran, I attended a meeting of the United Nations association last week. There, I met Mohammad Khazaee, the Iranian ambassador to the United Nations. Surprisingly, Ambassador Khazaee knew my name. “I found your series on Iran quite illuminating,” he said in his beautiful English. “Although I do not agree with all of your findings, I must say, your journalism offers an enlightened perspective. If you ever achieve your dream job and become the American ambassador to Iran, we would welcome you with open arms.”

“Inshallah,” I responded. Or God be willing. Actually, I probably should have said, “Or Barack be willing.” In a President Obama administration, there’s an outside chance that America reestablishes official relations with Iran. In a President McCain administration, there’s a realistic chance that America rejects President Bush’s Operation Abdullah and itself bombs Tehran and Isfahan and Shiraz into ruination, but not subjugation. For how that might turn out, see Baghdad, Iraq. And Afghanistan, outside of Kabul.

4) Paige from imnotobsessed.com wrote to me concerning her favorite topic, Jennifer Aniston (in response to my interview with J. Aniston, November 9, 2007). “What do you think of the new boy?” she wrote, with a smiley face :) after the question mark. “Personally, I’m so excited. I’ve already bought all of John Mayer’s CDs. Yeah, Jennifer! We love you, girl! We want your happiness!”

What can I say, Paige? Like you, I hope for the best. I also hope that John Mayer’s next CD isn’t a bunch of hokey love songs (unlike all of his past CDs, see “Your Body is a Wonderland”). Hasn’t America suffered through enough Aniston for awhile?

5) In response to my column on “Sex and the City” (May 23, 2008), Stephanie from Portland, OR wrote, “Sex and the City is by far the greatest television show ever made. The acting is fabulous. Sarah Jessica Parker, Kim Cattrall, Cynthia Nixon and Kristin Davis are the perfect groups of girlfriends, and the show would not be the same without any one of them. I’ve been watching this show for years, and can STILL watch it over and over. I am just as addicted now as I was in the beginning! This show has it all – wit, humor, sexiness, tears… and each episode is completely relatable! You clearly don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Stephanie, thanks for writing. Let me just explain, as I did in my column on the subject. I’ve never once watched “Sex and the City.” I can’t name one character. Therefore, I turned to a detractor for a review. The detractor, nicknamed the Dementor, detracted. Your qualms are with him.
     I did take the liberty of forwarding your email on to the Dementor. He responded, “The acting is fabulous? Someone needs to inform Sarah Jessica that there is a lot more to acting than making bizarre faces, contorting your mouth into odd shapes, and trying (unsuccessfully) to raise your eyebrows. What is it about America’s love affair with shoddy actresses?”
     Good question, Dementor. To further illustrate the point, see Aniston, Jennifer.

6) In response to my story “What Are You Thinking?” (May 9, 2008), Barry in Berkeley wrote, “Is Rupert Murdoch really gay? God, wouldn’t that be great. He’s got that whole granddaddy sexuality thing down flaaaaat.” (Yes, Barry really did over vowel for emphasis.)

A little backstory. In the story “What Are You Thinking?” Rupert Murdoch makes an eye-opening statement about the sexuality of Aerosmith’s lead vocalist, Steven Tyler, on his mobile phone. Various news outlets pick up the signal and Murdoch’s sexuality becomes an international issue.
     The story is a fiction. So, Barry, I’ll let you do the math.

7) Since Barry alluded to “What Are You Thinking?,” I’ll mention another e-mail I received on the same subject. A woman named Mindy wrote, “You should take your idea directly to Murdoch. Your idea for a show is fantastic!”

Mindy, do you have Murdoch’s private line? I’d settle for his public relation person’s e-mail address.

8) Speaking of public relations people, I received an invitation from Emily Lazar. “Thinking of having you on the show. Stephen thinks you’re the next Hunter S. Thompson. Interested?”

A little background. I call my column, “The Gonzo Journalism of Brian Josepher.” Hunter Thompson, of course, invented the gonzo style. So there’s the connection to Thompson.
     Who is Emily Lazar? Stephen Colbert’s producer. Who is Stephen Colbert? If you’re asking that, you’ve been watching too much Lou Dobbs.
     Am I interested? Of course. Just please don’t ask me to shoot a gun, or ride with the Hell’s Angels, or smoke cigarettes. I’m gonzo in a whole different way.

9) And finally, I received some serious backlash from e-mail writers in Los Angeles. Here’s one from Marty in Manhattan Beach.   “In your NBA playoff preview (“Will the Spurs repeat,” March 7, 2008) you chose a Spurs-Pistons final. Looks like you were wrong, brother.”

Yes, I was wrong. The Lakers beat the Spurs and the Celtics beat the Pistons. I was doubly wrong. But let’s just understand each other, Marty. We’re not brothers. I hate the Lakers. I’m rooting for Boston. I hope Kobe trips on his politically correct verbiage and sprains an ankle.

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A History of Conventions: 1980

A History of Conventions: 1980

With the primary season winding down, and the candidates and their parties beginning to think about their conventions at the end of the summer, I thought I too would begin to think about conventions. Here in this space today, and throughout the summer, I’m going to take a look at some of the more contentious, and entertaining, conventions of the latter half of the 20th century, including (but not limited to) the Hubert Humphrey convention of 1968, the George McGovern convention four years later, the Ford/Reagan convention of 1976, and my personal favorite, the Carter/Kennedy convention of 1980.
     But before delving into the contentious, I thought I would start with a far different vibe. Love. The year was 1980. The scene was Detroit’s Plaza Hotel, high noon on a Monday, hours before the start of the Republican convention.
     Mike Curb, then the lieutenant governor of California and the program chairman for the Republican convention, stepped to the microphone. He instantly felt the reverb. “There was this feeling,” Curb wrote in his memoirs Curbside: One Man’s Journey from Songwriter to NASCAR to Politician and Back Again. “It was like the Indy 500. During introductions the cars are announced and the fans go crazy and it’s crowded and hot and quite a bit frenzied. That was the feel as I grabbed the microphone.”
     “Ronald Reagan and his wife Nancy are on their way,” Mike Curb announced to the crowd, an estimated fifteen hundred Republicans packed in sardine tight on the Plaza’s main concourse. “But while we wait, we are very fortunate to have America’s favorite female vocalist sing her smash hit. Ladies and gentlemen, here’s Debbie Boone paying a tribute to Ronald Reagan and singing ‘You Light Up My Life.’”
     The fifteen hundred Republicans greeted Curb’s word with excited applause. Unfortunately for the excited Republicans, Debbie Boone had just given birth and was not able to attend. To take her place, she’d asked her father, Pat Boone. She hadn’t mentioned this replacement to the organizers of the Republican convention. For instance, Mike Curb knew nothing of the Boone substitution.
     Mike Curb greeted the approaching Pat Boone with a big smile. “Did I say Debbie?” he asked the crowd. “I meant Pat.”
     The excited applause for Debbie grew even louder. Pat Boone, after all, was a devoted and vocal Republican. Pat Boone took the microphone. “I want to dedicate this song to my daughter Debbie, my new granddaughter Nancy, named after the next first lady, and to the next president of these United States, Ronald Wilson Reagan.” The crowd roared with delight while, at that very moment, the woman who would become the next first lady, Nancy Reagan, arrived with her husband.
     To the observer, whether fervent Democrat or loyal Republican or staunch Independent, the Reagans formed a most fascinating picture. Ronald Reagan, in his Pierre Cardin ensemble with a white handkerchief in his breast pocket, looked genuinely pleased. He conveyed that emotion like no presidential candidate, prior or subsequent. Nancy Reagan, in her beige Adolfo suit, looked genuinely conspiratorial. She too conveyed that emotion.
     “Ronald and Nancy Reagan,” Pat Boone continued, “you light up my life.” And then, at five minutes after noon, Pat Boone strummed his guitar and broke into song: “‘So many nights I sit by my window. Waiting for someone to sing me his song. So many dreams I kept deep inside me. Alone in the dark but now you’ve come along...’”
     A biographer of Ronald Reagan, the sympathetic Edmund Morris, happened to be at the Detroit Plaza Hotel on Monday at a little after noon. He said of the moment, “Reagan had this look of delight written all over his face. His smile was as wide and as contagious as could be. He could wear that smile all day and into the night and it never so much as ruffled.”
     A hostile biographer of Reagan’s, Robert Dallek, didn’t quite see it that way. While Pat Boone sang, Reagan’s smile “became just a little frayed around the edges,” Dallek wrote in Ronald Reagan: The Politics of Symbolism. “Clearly, Reagan would have preferred Debbie Boone’s rendition.”
     Robert Dallek, it should be noted, was not among the crowd of Republicans that day.
     Pat Boone continued to strum his guitar and sing. At this point in the song he hit the chorus: “‘You light up my life. You give me hope to carry on. You light up my days and fill my nights with song.’”
     Another historian offered her view of the moment. According to Nancy Reagan’s unauthorized biographer, Kitty Kelley, Nancy felt “awkward. There was a strange psychosexual dynamic going on. Pat Boone, who was as archconservative and anti-gay as they come, appeared gay. He just emanated that homosexual boytoy thing. Nancy, I believe, thought that Pat was hitting on her husband.”
     According to Kelley, Nancy Reagan wanted to stop the singing. “She looked at the microphone,” Kelley told me. “She followed the electrical chord to the wall. She inched her way over. Her husband, inconspicuously, pulled her back.”
     Kitty Kelley, it should be noted, was not among the crowd of Republicans that day.
     However, if Kitty Kelley’s version of events and emotions was accurate, a corollary question must be asked. Was Ronald Reagan feeling the same psychosexual dynamic? His sympathetic and overtly masculine biographer Edmund Morris wouldn’t hear of it. “What are you creating?” he asked me. “A fantasy?” (Speaking of fantasy, the same might be said of Edmund Morris’s biography on Reagan. In researching his book Morris was granted all-access status to his subject. Like most of his predecessors and successors with all-access status, Morris fell in love with his subject. There’s a general rule. Historians granted all-access tend to write biographies that read like Harlequin romances. There’s lusty hero worship and latent sexuality involved. Edmund Morris’s Dutch certainly fits that mold.)
     Reagan’s hostile biographer Robert Dallek considered the possibility. “Reagan, as we all know, was very good friends with Rock Hudson and Rock Hudson had come out to Reagan,” Dallek reflected. “Rumor has it that Hudson actually propositioned Reagan and Reagan was cool about the whole thing. Not interested, but cool. So maybe there’s some truth to this.”
     Pat Boone continued to strum his guitar and sing: “‘Rolling at sea, adrift on the water. Could it be finally I’m turning for home? Finally a chance to say hey, I love you. Never again to be all alone…’”
     Nancy Reagan looked at Pat Boone. According to Kitty Kelley, she saw “love in his eyes, and devotion.” She felt “strenuously irritated.”
     According to Kelley, Nancy Reagan then saw Pat Boone perform a rather strange act. Boone was dressed in a typical button-down oxford. He did not wear a tie. His shirt was buttoned to just below the neck, with only the very top button undone. At that moment, according to Kitty Kelley, Boone unbuttoned the button just below the neck, exposing a bit of chest.
     According to Dr. Ferguson Fricke, the distinguished rock and roll musicologist, “This was just what showmen did. They exposed themselves. This was Boone’s equivalent to Mick Jagger’s devil walk.”
     According to Kitty Kelley, there was “a psychosexual causality. Pat Boone was turned on by Ronald Reagan.”
     “And you’re sure Boone’s affection was for Ronald Reagan?” I responded to Kitty Kelley. “You’re sure it wasn’t for Nancy Reagan?”
     “Well, one cannot be one hundred percent certain in these matters,” Kitty Kelley replied. “After all, I wasn’t there. I didn’t witness the event. However, I can tell you that Nancy Reagan was horrified by Boone’s unbuttoning.”
     According to Kelley, Nancy Reagan displayed all the traits of “total shock.” Her eyes enlarged to the size of “apples.” In surprise, her mouth “formed the letter O.” Even her beige Adolfo suit radiated a sense of “indignation.”
     “Nancy could do designer wear anywhere,” Kelley said. “At a baseball game, at a picnic, at the opera, just getting out of bed. But there, during the Boone song, she looked uncomfortable to the point of scandal.”
     For her part, Nancy Reagan has never spoken publicly about Pat Boone’s rendition of “You Light Up My Life” at the Republican convention. As for Kitty Kelley’s description, Nancy Reagan, according to her spokeswoman Joanna Drake, offered a “no comment.”
     As for Pat Boone, he continued to strum his guitar and sing: “‘You light up my life. You give me hope to carry on. You light up my days and fill my nights with song.”
     Unlike the Reagans, Kitty Kelley reported, the crowd “was loving it. I talked to many eyewitnesses. I specifically remember one man’s reaction. ‘This is better than Marilyn serenading JFK,’ he said. I think that basically represents the overall feeling of the moment.”
     “‘It can’t be wrong,’” Pat Boone sung, “‘when it feels so right. ‘Cause you. You light up my life.’”
     According to musicologist Ferguson Fricke, Pat Boone “glowed with sweat and happiness and wonder.” He looked at Ronald and Nancy Reagan; he looked back at the crowd. “Sing it with me one time,” he said to the crowd. And then he, along with thousands of Republicans, sang, “‘It can’t be wrong when it feels so right. ‘Cause you…’” Pause, both from Boone and the crowd. “‘You… light… up… my-y-y-y… life.’”
      And the crowd exploded. There was a noise factor threatening to blow off the roof of the Plaza Hotel. There were people hugging each other. There were high fives. There was alcohol spilled in exuberance. And there was Pat Boone glowing in joy and marvel. “The absolute high point of his career,” according to Ferguson Fricke.
     In great fanfare Pat Boone handed the microphone to Ronald Reagan. For his part, Reagan nodded a thank you to Pat Boone. He did not, it should be noted, pat him on the shoulder or offer a hug.
     Ronald Reagan broke into his oversized cowboy smile. “Nancy and I were just flying by and we thought we’d drop in and see what’s going on,” he told the packed, attentive audience. “I had a dream the other night…”
     Other than Reagan’s voice, there wasn’t a sound to be heard. This was the Ronald Reagan effect. He could instantly quiet thousands of celebrating Republicans. “I dreamed that Jimmy Carter came to me and asked why I wanted his job,” Reagan continued. “I told him I didn’t want his job.” Reagan paused. He moved the microphone just slightly, so nothing blocked his oversized cowboy smile. “I want to be president,” he said.
     A moment or two of uncertainty followed. Reagan then laughed and the crowd responded by mimicking their actor. “It was typical Ronald Reagan,” Edmund Morris wrote of this moment in Dutch. “The content didn’t matter; the delivery was the thing. And America, quite suddenly, was in love with Dutch. This was the man who was going to lead the American renaissance.”
     The next four days, otherwise known as the Republican convention of 1980, was a coronation of Ronald Wilson Reagan.

Bibliography

WORKS CITED:
Curb, Mike. Curbside: One Man’s Journey from Songwriter to NASCAR to Politician
     and Back Again. New York: Miramax Books, 1998.
Dallek, Robert. Ronald Reagan: The Politics of Symbolism. Cambridge: Harvard
     University Press, 1999.
Kelley, Kitty. Nancy Reagan: The Unauthorized Biography. New York: Simon and
     Schuster, 1991.
Morris, Edmund. Dutch: A Memoir of Ronald Reagan. New York: Random House,
     1999.

INTERVIEWS:
Edmund Morris in his “country home” in Kent, Connecticut.
Ferguson Fricke Oral History, Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Cleveland, Ohio.
     http://www.rockhall.com/archive/ffricke/.
Joanna Drake in e-mail correspondence.
Kitty Kelley in interview and e-mail correspondence. Interviews at her home in
     Washington, D.C.
Robert Dallek in interviews and e-mail correspondence. Interviews in Washington, D.C.

(Disclaimer: This is a faux history, a fiction based on fact. What's fact and what's fiction? I'll leave that up to your imagination.)

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Sex and the City, a detractor speaks

Sex and the City, a detractor speaks

First off, an admission. I've never watched one episode of Sex and the City. Without research, I couldn't name one character. I'm a Sex and the City ignoramus. I'm also a little leery of all this Sex and the City love. It's just in my nature, to be leery.
     Every hit show, I know, has its detractors. I thought, in this column, I'd find one of those detractors.
     After a rather extensive investigation, I found seemingly the one and only. On Amazon's website, where the complete Sex and the City compilation (all six seasons) is going for a steep $196.99, I found one negative review among 26 pages of glowing reviews.
     The author of the review went by the pseudonym, "The Dementor." I contacted The Dementor (it pays to have friends at Amazon.) He was more than happy to chitchat about Sex and the City. Here is an excerpt from our e-mail conversation.

Q: Let's get down to business. What exactly is your gripe with Sex and the City?

The Dementor: Where do you want to start? At the heart of the show there is this great irony. Sex and the City was touted as a breakout show – here's female empowerment at its strongest, here's the new feminism, strong, thoughtful characters, independent – and yet the characters are more shallow, superficial, petty and empty-headed than virtually any other television show in history. Three's Company had more female empowerment.

Q: That's the show with Suzanne Somers as the blonde-headed dumbbell?

The Dementor: Yes, exactly. Her character name was Christmas. She went by Chrissy. Carrie Bradshaw is the 21st century version of Chrissy. Silly, adolescent, juvenile, totally unencumbered by any burden of logic.

Q: But yet you say that Three's Company had more female empowerment?

The Dementor: There was a character named Janet [played by the actress Joyce DeWitt]. She's somewhat evolved, or at least she's evolving. There's no Janet on Sex and the City.

Q: I thought the Cynthia Nixon character was a little like Janet.

The Dementor: Please. She spends the entire show on a hunt for sex. Do you know what they call that in psychosexual parameters? Nymphomania.

Q: I thought the Kim Cattrall character was the nymphomaniac.

The Dementor: No, she's the exhibitionist. These characters, they all fall into little boxes. Charlotte York [Kristin Davis] just wants to get married. Samantha Jones [Cattrall] just wants shock value. Carrie Bradshaw has the emotional maturity of a 16-year-old. These characters don't break out of their molds, and the show goes on for six years. I mean, even the characters on Friends expanded a little.

Q: Chandler got married?

The Dementor: Well yes, he learned to commit to a relationship. And Rachel established herself as an independent, career-oriented girl. Had Rachel been a character on Sex and the City, she would still be walking out on that wedding.

Q: That was the Friends' pilot?

The Dementor: Exactly. And here's another thing that really bothered me about Sex and the City. It never mentioned larger world issues, not even symbolically. It was all fashion, sex talk, martinis, hubris. Who cares about Manolo Blahnik?

Q: Who?

The Dementor: The Spanish fashion designer. Mr. Stiletto Heels.

Q: As far as larger world issues, what would you have liked to have seen?

The Dementor: The show was filmed in New York City, right? I mean, New York City plays a starring role. How about some serious ongoing discussion on 9/11, or post 9/11 New York City? Meanwhile, Carrie Bradshaw is busy writing her infantile and meaningless ponderings, such as "Is life in Manhattan like a bagel with cream cheese?" Um, reality check. They just blew up the World Trade Center.

Q: I understand your point, but what show, a sitcom, deals with such big issues?

The Dementor: M*A*S*H.

Q: Yes M*A*S*H but M*A*S*H was set in a warzone.

The Dementor: That's my point. Listen, I don't need a full examination of geopolitical realities. But how about some recurring references? Take a show like Seinfeld. There were constant references to the larger world, even as simple as Kramer yelling "Yo-Yo Ma" or Jerry saying "Boutros Boutros-Ghali." I mean, at least Seinfeld recognized its time and place. With Sex and the City, you'd never know the era of the show. Put the series in a time capsule. A century from now, would they know that Sex and the City was shot in 2000? I doubt it. I think it's more probable that the sociologists of the future would place Sex and the City in the 1970s, beside Dukes of Hazard.

Q: So what's your idea of a great show?

The Dementor: Star Trek, the Next Generation. Imagine if Carrie Bradshaw somehow ended up on the Enterprise. Like in the Holodeck. Do you think the characters on Trek would pay her any attention, other than as a historical curiosity? Of course not. They would dismiss her as a composite of a silly age.

Q: Well, maybe that's what Sex and the City was saying. This is a silly age.

The Dementor: Maybe. But why do we really need six seasons and a movie to do that?

Q: There will be people reading this article who will identify you according to your pseudonym. In the lore of Harry Potter, dementors are soul-sucking creatures, the foulest of the foul. They will say that you've missed the entire point of Sex and the City: that you won't let whimsy be whimsy, that you won't let fun be fun. What do you say to them?

The Dementor: It's just a pseudonym. I really wanted to call myself Dumbledore, but that was already taken.

Q: In your opinion is there anything redeeming about the show?

The Dementor: The end.

Q: Other than the end, I mean.

The Dementor: The way Mr. Big treats Carrie, as an unbalanced little child. That's exactly what she is and exactly the way she should be treated.

Q: Why would Mr. Big, if he thinks Carrie is an unbalanced little child, want to be in a relationship with her?

The Dementor: That's the million dollar question. But that question could be asked for every relationship in the show. Let's face facts, unless these girls grew up together, they would not be friends in real life. In fact, they would hate each other.

Q: They do, if there's any truth to the dominant gossip. Any last thoughts?

The Dementor: I hope there's not a Sex and the City movie sequel.

Q: You realize you're in the vast minority, don't you? Most of America loves the show.

The Dementor: I know, I know. You can include my wife and daughter in there.

Q: Really. That's kind of ironic, isn't it?

The Dementor: How so?

Q: Well I'm assuming your wife is a self-empowered woman and I'm assuming you're bringing up your daughter to be a self-empowered woman and here they are, in love with a show that in your own words is more "shallow, superficial, petty and empty-headed than virtually any other television show in history." That's irony for you.

The Dementor: Do you want to hear something even more ironic?

Q: Sure.

The Dementor: My wife already bought tickets to the movie. We're going to the first showing on opening day.

Q: That's funny, in a twisted way.

The Dementor: I'm glad you're amused.

Q: Well, thanks for your time and I hope you enjoy the movie, despite your disdain. I hear the plot has Carrie becoming a political writer and trying to end our war in Iraq.

The Dementor: I would like a show like that.

Q: I thought you would.

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Sex in New York City

Sex in New York City

In addition to this column, I author a sex column for another website. Sometimes those columns become more political columns than sex columns. Sometimes those columns become investigative columns. When that happens, I usually set it aside or erase it completely. After all, not everything written is suitable for the Internet, or the book publishing industry.
     At any rate, I’ve decided to post the article here in this space. This is what happens when a sex columnist tries to track down a story on a busy weekend in New York.

A Sunday in April. The cherry blossoms in full bloom. The sunshine as bright as can be. Sunbathers filling the lawns of the city. The restaurants jammed. Broadway matinees sold out. Somewhere in the hubbub of New York City a story waits to be exposed. A sex columnist leaves his apartment with pen and paper in his backpack. His mission: to write a sex column before the day is through. This is the story of one sex columnist’s hunt for that elusive story.
     8:30 a.m. The sex columnist enters the elevator for the ride down to the ground floor. He wears a blue linen suit, a button-down white oxford shirt, dressy sandals. He is cleanly shaven. He’s splashed on a little Paco Rabanne pour homme. Is this foppery? Indeed so. But recognize that the columnist has a big day planned, with events both formal and casual. How do you dress when your itinerary takes you from church to Central Park to Yankee’s Stadium to Moses’ (and Miriam’s) table? If it’s spring, you wear linen. This may be a sex column, not a fashion column, but trust me: When the warmer weather comes opt for linen.
     The sex columnist catches a 1-train. He rides to Times Square and transfers to an S (for shuttle). The S-train lets out at Grand Central Station. From there, he walks north. He walks with hundreds, perhaps thousands, of others. There are teenagers in the crowd. There are elderly folk. There are white and yellow papal flags and placards. Some in English. Most in Spanish. There are nuns. Lots of nuns. From all points around the world, it seems. Catholicism is a multinational smorgasbord. Nowhere is that more evident than on the streets of New York City.
     Nearly everyone, our intrepid sex columnist notes, wears a cross. In fact, there are cross vendors walking within the crowd. The sex columnist buys a few, stuffs them in his pack.
     The sex columnist arrives at his destination at nine a.m. St. Patrick’s Cathedral, for those who have never visited or seen photos, is the grandest edifice of religion in America. You can search this country thoroughly and you won’t find a building with such grandeur, such gravitas, such holiness. St. Patrick’s is more than the symbolic seat of American Catholicism. It is the citadel of God.
     In disappointment, the sex columnist notes, there isn’t a sex story here. But that could change. After all, the Catholics are having some problems with priests and chastity.
     At 9:05 a white pickup truck pulls up to the entrance of St. Patrick’s. This is a white pickup truck like no other. A compartment fills the bed of the truck. The compartment is made of glass (bullet-proof, to be sure). There is one raised seat within the compartment, and two lowered, unobtrusive seats.
     In the raised seat sits an 81-year-old man. He wears a big smile. He wears all white. His clothes match the color of his hair. He does not wear a wedding ring, our intrepid sex columnist notes.
     The world knows this man as Pope Benedict XVI and his automobile as the Popemobile. Benedict is the heartthrob of hundreds of millions of Catholics. In fact, Benedict redefines the word heartthrob. This man does not inspire romantic thoughts. This man is not the Brad Pitt of the Catholic priestly set. This man inspires piety. Who would have thought that piety could be sexy?
     At 9:12 the Pope climbs the stair, waves to the thousands of spectators and enters the Cathedral. None of the spectators enter behind the Pope. This is a mass held for the invited only: priests, deacons, cardinals, bishops, archbishops. Oh, and sex columnists who come equipped with a press pass. Our intrepid columnist follows behind the Pope.
     From within, the Cathedral is a lesson in verticality. The walls reach for hundreds of feet, seemingly. The arches are all narrow, creating the illusion of even more height. Our sex columnist has forbidden thoughts. People talk about the most forbidden and therefore best places for sex. On an airplane, otherwise known as the Mile High Club, seems to rank high on everyone’s list. Supposedly the atmospheric pressure increases the intensity of the orgasm. Well the atmospheric pressure of St. Patrick’s far exceeds 20,000 feet. The atmospheric pressure reaches for the heavens.
     In his homily the Pope says, “The spires of St. Patrick’s Cathedral are dwarfed by the skyscrapers of the Manhattan skyline, yet they are a vivid reminder of the constant yearning of the human spirit to rise to God.”
     He continues, “We can only move forward if we turn our gaze together in Christ. In the light of faith, we will then discover the wisdom and strength needed to open ourselves to points of view which may not necessarily conform to our own ideas or assumptions. Thus, we can value the perspectives of others, be they younger or older than ourselves, and ultimately hear what the Spirit is saying to us and to the church.”
     Inspiring words? The mood inside the Cathedral moves toward awe. Unfortunately for our sex columnist, there isn’t a story here. The Pope isn’t calling for free love. Our columnist leaves early.
     As the crowd waits for the pontiff to exit the Cathedral and wave and then climb back into the Popemobile for the ride to the Bronx, our sex columnist walks north. He enters Central Park at 72nd street at high noon precisely. From there, the Bandshell beckons in a sea of blue. A banner advertises, “Welcome to Earth Day 2008. BYOB.”
     The acronym stands for Bring Your Own Blue. The organizers of Earth Day 2008 had an idea. Wear blue to raise consciousness for global warming. Wear blue to call for a moratorium on coal burning.
     Fortunately for our intrepid sex columnist, he not only wears a blue linen suit but under his button-down white oxford he wears a blue t-shirt. Since the day is warm, he strips down to the t-shirt level. There are others, the sex columnist notes, going topless, with blue painted on to their skin. And an E for Earth in green.
     Now this is the kind of place, our intrepid sex columnist thinks, where sex columns happen.
     On the stage of the Bandshell, the band Big Head Todd and the Monsters performs “Bittersweet”:

“A little light looks through her bedroom window.
She dances and I dream, she’s not so far as she seems,
Of brighter meadows, melting sunsets,
Her hair blowing in the breeze.
And she can’t see me watching.
And I’m thinking: love.

It’s bittersweet, more sweet than bitter, bitter than sweet.
It’s a bittersweet surrender.”

Below the stage, there’s a crowd singing along. There are people swaying to the sounds. Further removed from the band, there are food stalls. You won’t find meat burgers or turkey legs here. You will find tofurki and meatless meat and corn on the cob and apples and pears, all organic of course.
     Beside the food stalls, there’s face painting for the young, and not so young. With natural, non-toxic, chemical free agents, naturally. There’s composting demonstrations. There are kids digging in the mulch. There are crafts made of recycled materials. There are also eco-friendly sex toys.

Big Head Todd sings:

“We live together… But it’s different from my dream.
Morning light fills the room. I rise.
She pretends she’s sleeping.
Are we everything we wanted?
And I’m thinking love…

It’s bittersweet, more sweet than bitter, bitter than sweet.
It’s a bittersweet surrender.”

The sex toys catch the sex columnist’s eye. He approaches the stall. There are organic massage oils. There are hemp and bamboo sheets. He overhears the stall’s saleswoman talking about the sheets, “Bamboo is one of the softest materials out there. So you have that to consider. Bamboo doesn’t need pesticides to grow, and it renews itself extremely fast. When you add all of that together – pesticide free, soft to the touch, a nearly renewable resource – why would you choose anything else?”
     The saleswoman turns to an article of clothing, GreenKnickers. “Why are panties made of synthetic materials?” she asks. “Why can’t we have eco-undies? Now we can. Not only are GreenKnickers made of hemp and therefore ecologically superior but check ‘em out. I think they’re sexy. What do you think?”
     The ten or so people gathered around the table agree on the sex factor.
     The stall’s saleswoman then introduces herself to the crowd. “My name is Lara,” she says. “I pronounce it as Laura but I dropped the U from the spelling. U is the chemical symbol for uranium. And as we all know, uranium kills.”
     Lara then segues to other killers, “There’s a chemical called phthalates. Dildos and vibrators and condoms and all the rest, they’re made of phthalates. Why can’t condoms come natural, made of cocoa powder? Why can’t condoms be vegan?”
     Lara answers her own questions by holding up vegan condoms, in green of course. She then makes her pitch for safe, ecologically friendly sex, “The world is so overpopulated. We can’t afford unplanned, unwanted babies. More mouths to feed are just as dangerous to the earth as chemicals and pesticides.” She then turns and speaks directly to the sex columnist, don’t know why, “Please, buy some vegan condoms for yourself, your friends, your loved ones. They are our future.”
     The sex columnist buys a bunch. He throws them into his backpack.

Big Head Todd sings:

“I know we don’t talk about it._ We don’t tell each other.
All the little things that we need.
We work our way around each other.
As we tremble and we bleed.
As we tremble and we bleed.”

It’s strange how a song changes according to the environment. Our sex columnist used to listen to “Bittersweet” in bed with a girlfriend. They used to sing the song at the top of their lungs. “We work out way around each other” was always a powerful and meaningful lyric.
     In the environment of Earth Day, the song seems to speak to a much bigger relationship: ours with earth.

1:15 p.m. now and our intrepid sex columnist waits at the 59th Street/Columbus Circle stop for a D or a B train up to the Bronx. Surreptitiously he scans the crowd, a sex columnist hunting for a sex story. Nothing jumps out. Instead, the smell of Kentucky Fried Chicken overpowers his story finding abilities. A couple nearby sucks on grease and bones. The sight of grease dripping off chin makes the sex columnist look away. He occupies his mind with the B-train. B for Benedict. B for baseball. The D-train arrives.
     Our sex columnist arrives at 161st Street/Yankee Stadium at 2:02 p.m. Outside the famed baseball stadium, there are thousands of people milling about. They’re not waiting for a glimpse of A-Rod or Derek Jeter. They’re not waiting to jeer the arrival of the evil Boston Red Sox. They’re waiting for the man in white, Pope Benedict and his Popemobile.
     The sex columnist does not wait with the masses. He walks over to one of the turnstiles. The security guard looks him up and down. “Didn’t you read your ticket?” the guard says. “You were supposed to be here by noon. I’m not allowed to let you in now. It would be a breach of security.”
     Along with tickets to the mass, apparently, the organizers of the event sent along instructions. The instructions included: Gates open at 9 a.m., close at noon. The stadium prohibits backpacks, strollers, video cameras, metal, glass, plastic containers, outside food or drink. “Please note diaper bags are permitted,” the instructions ended.
     The arrival of the Pope in his Popemobile creates a diversion. For the briefest moment our sex columnist thinks of jumping the turnstile and making a run for the inner confines of Yankee Stadium. Instead he flashes his press pass.
     The security guard frowns. He’s actually disappointed that he can’t turn our intrepid sex columnist away. Contemptuously he searches through the columnist’s backpack. If he has anything to say about the condoms, he holds his tongue. Perhaps the power of the crosses transfixes him. The sex columnist enters Yankee Stadium with pack on back.
     Yankee stadium looks beautiful. The place is filled to capacity, nearly 60,000 strong. On the infield there’s a large stage. The papal colors of yellow and white are everywhere, purple streamers too. The Vatican seal covers the pitcher’s mound. Andy Pettitte, a very religious man and the Yankee’s starting pitcher the next day, would be proud.
     At 2:15 p.m. the Pope enters the stadium. The Popemobile cruises the warning track. The Pope waves to the adoring crowd. There’s a sense of benevolence in the air. There’s a sense of unity. There’s a sense of faith. There’s not a story for a sex column.
     Still, the sex columnist lingers. As a Jew, he’s never attended a mass. Also, he’s curious as to how 57,000 worshippers will receive Communion. It turns out that 530 priests and deacons (yes, the sex columnist counted) serve the crowd in just over twenty minutes (yes, the sex columnist timed it too).
     The sex columnist does learn, interestingly enough, that the symbolic body of Christ is made of wheat bread. For some reason he’d assumed the body was made of rye. Jesus, after all, was a Jew.
     On his way out, the columnist drops some vegan condoms in the tithe jars.
     At 6:30 p.m. the D-train carrying the sex columnist arrives back at 59th Street/Columbus Circle. The columnist transfers to the 2-train. He looks at his watch nervously. His next (and last) event begins in about a half-hour and he’s a good forty-five minutes away. To make matters worse, the 2-express train runs local on the weekends. Life can be frustrating in New York.
     Almost an hour later the sex columnist arrives at his stop: Crown Heights in Brooklyn. He’s instantly transfixed by the rushing around. Hasidic Jews, late for the second night of Passover, are in sprinter’s mode. Those coat tails really flap when rushing, and yarmulkes fly off too.
     The columnist follows some rushing Hasids. The Orthodox Jews and the secular Jew enter the same brownstone. The sign on the front of the building reads: The Shneur Zalman Chabad House. This causes the secular Jew, otherwise known as our intrepid sex columnist, some trepidation. The Chabad-Lubavitch movement makes up the largest number of Hasidic Jews. Shneur Zalman was the founder. The Hasidic brand of Judaism practiced by the Lubavitchers is fundamentally different than the brand of Judaism practiced by the sex columnist. Also, our intrepid columnist accepted an invitation from a group he’d never heard of. The group is called the Miriamists. Miriam was one of the few prophetesses mentioned in the Bible.
     At this point in the evening, a question must be asked. What’s our sex columnist doing in a Hasidic building in one of the world’s most Orthodox neighborhoods on the second night of Passover? The answer might be surprising.
     The Miriamists celebrate Passover with a remarkable twist. Yes, they tell the story of Moses and Pharaoh Ramses and bondage and freedom. Yes, they believe in the ten plagues, including the frogs, the locusts and the unhealable boils. Yes, they think that Moses parted the Red Sea and the Pharaoh drove his army into it in hot pursuit. Yes, they’re fans of Moses receiving the Ten Commandments up on Mount Sinai.
     They just don’t believe that Moses did it alone. They believe that Moses had help, in the form of his older sister Miriam.
     The Miriamists take feminist theology a few steps further. In recent years there’s been a great deal of attention paid to Miriam and her role in the Exodus story. For instance, while wandering in the desert Moses brings his parched people to a place of bitter waters. He turns to God for guidance to fresh water. Miriam, at this point, produces a magic well of water.
     Moses might be good at the big miracles, rivers turning to blood and death to the first-born of all Egyptian families, but Miriam is the backroom negotiator. After all, in the desert, water is politics.
     So is sex. According to the leading Miriamist, Rabbi (or Rebbe, since we’re in Orthodox Crown Heights) Mary, “Miriam’s sexuality was overpowering. And she used her powers to seduce the masses. Listen, why do you think they listened to Moses? Here’s a guy who comes down from the mountaintop. His hair is all frizzy and gray. He looks like he’s aged a thousand years. He’s carrying some supposedly divine words on some really heavy tablets. Sounds a little crazy, right? Well, it was Miriam who got her people to listen to her brother. All she had to do was to shake her hips.”
     That hip shake, apparently, led to the Miriam Dance. In the Miriam Dance, you shake your hips like you’re spinning a Hula Hoop.
     To further add to the image, Rabbi Mary offers a description of Miriam: “She had long curly red hair. She had deep brown eyes. She had high cheekbones and luminous skin. You couldn’t take your eyes off of her. She was the most seductive of Bible characters, and that includes Delilah.”
     In the sex columnist’s mind’s eye, he studies the features. The curly red hair, the brown eyes, the healthy, glowing skin. The features form an image. Did Miriam of the Exodus story look like the actress Susan Sarandon?
     Rabbi Mary did not want to confirm such a specific appearance. Instead, she sent the sex columnist home with a box of matzah.
     His day ends with a 2-train back to Manhattan. He sits in a car at midnight. Aside from our sex columnist, there’s a homeless man stretched out sleeping on the bench and a young couple kissing rather passionately. Actually, that’s an understatement. The couple appears on the verge of orgasm. As an observer you either stare because it’s engaging or you look away because it’s disruptive. It all depends upon what kind of person you are, whether you can tolerate the titillation factor or not.
     The sex columnist watches until he looks away.
     He’s the first to exit the train. As he does so, he reaches into his backpack. He drops a cross on the sleeping man’s chest and a vegan condom beside the couple. Maybe the Catholic Church can help the man. Certainly the couple needs some protection. Ecologically friendly, of course.
     The sex columnist keeps the box of matzah for himself. There’s nothing like unleavened bread after a long day hunting down a sex story.

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What Are You Thinking?

Story time. I thought I’d take a break from the hardcore politics of the last month or so and move into something more culturally pivotal. This is the story of a television show. Or more specifically, one night on the set during the live filming. This is:

What Are You Thinking?

RUPERT MURDOCH’S SEXUALITY
AND OTHER ISSUES OF NATIONAL IMPORTANCE
(7:58 p.m.)

The television camera caught its subject slipping out of his suede jacket, then adjusting his blue jeans, making certain his zipper was left ajar and just a flash of hairless skin peeked below his form fitting Polo shirt.
     Ronde had a nice form. Even his severest critics had to admit: If ever there was a body perfectly cut and smoothly sculpted and national audience enticing, his was it. Ronde knew the price for the build: very little dairy and very little snacking and rarely red meat and no more than one blueberry muffin (or two bran) per month, not to mention the vitamins and the muscle building substances (Creatine) and the many many hours in the gym, the seemingly endless squatting and crunching, the barbelling, jabbing the big bag, wind sprints every other day, etc., etc., etc. But the results… one critic called Ronde’s physique, “Something to behold.” Another critic, turned adoring fan, responded, “I wish that was something that I could hold.”
     For proof of his development, go to www.WAYT.com and take a look at a picture of Ronde from 2001 and that first season of What Are You Thinking? on Fox.
     Ronde then wasn’t America’s boytoy. In 2001 he went by the name Randy. He’d never modeled or acted or been an athlete or any of the usual routes that led to television success. Ronde then didn’t have an agent.
     He did, however, have a superb idea and a friend with a connection to Rupert Murdoch, who owned and operated the Fox Network. What Are You Thinking? instantly became a hit. Ronde soon became a boytoy, although there might be some question as to his spot on the list. Whether he ranks up there with Justin Timberlake and Ashton Kutcher in boytoy glory is a worthy question. Though not ours today.
     “Well, let’s go find our next victim... er, contestant,” Ronde said to the camera and the national audience.
     The camera, and cameraman, followed the leader. Ronde ran off in a hurry. Ronde’s cameraman, Bruce, had no trouble keeping pace. Bruce was in good physical shape.
     Ronde’s soundman, Tyrone (who insisted on Tie, spelled that way too), was not in good shape. Tie was a smoker and after ten to twelve paces, his breath became a hacking, attacking kind of experience. Ronde and Bruce always had to wait for their soundman.
     What Are You Thinking? appeared every weeknight in one-minute segments. The show aired typically at a minute or two before the hour, in primetime.
     What Are You Thinking? used a specific location in New York as its stage: the shopping district of the Upper East Side on Lexington Avenue between 58th and 64th Streets. The establishments within that vicinity included Bloomingdales, Nine West, William-Sonoma, two Starbucks (across the street from one another), Banana Republic, Diesel, Levi’s, Gap. The list goes on and on.
     Occasionally the show traveled, like the trip to the Super Bowl (televised by Fox Sports) in 2003. During the 3-hour pregame show, Ronde conducted a series of interviews. Actually, “interviews” might not be the most accurate term. For Ronde always posed his one and only question: “What are you thinking?” Ronde never asked a second question.
     At that Super Bowl the responses varied. One guy standing in line at the concession stand answered Ronde’s question with a truly profound, and truly American, retort: “What’s better, Coor’s Light or Miller?”
     Another guy, doing another truly American exercise (tailgating), answered Ronde’s question with a huge barbecue-smothered smile. “I like my ribs just like my women,” he said, “raw and randy.” The man’s huge barbecue-smothered smile turned twangy. “Say,” he said, “didn’t your name used to be Randy?”
     The best interview of the day came directly after Aerosmith’s 3-song set (about a half hour before kickoff). Ronde went up to an obvious Aerosmith fan and posed his question. The female, perhaps twenty years of age, had jumped on stage (at the request of the band) and done a little boogie with Steven Tyler. The dance had turned steamy and he’d kissed her. At the time of Ronde’s interview she had Steven Tyler’s sweat and make-up all over her face. The effects of Steven Tyler’s sweat and make-up made her giddy. “I love older men,” she screamed.
     Rupert Murdoch called Ronde after the interview to offer his congratulations. In that conversation he uttered a now famous line. “So do I,” Rupert said.
     The signal of his cell phone was picked up by various outlets. One of the outlets belonged to the New York Daily News, the main competition to the Rupert Murdoch-owned New York Post. The next day the headline in the Daily News was not, “Tampa Bay Buccaneers win Super Bowl XXXVII.” Or, “Bucs kick the Raiders.” But rather, “Is Rupert Murdoch gay?”
     Rupert Murdoch issued a statement. “As an older man,” the statement read, “I find it charming that a young, beautiful woman might find an older man attractive. My comment meant to express that. I should have said, ‘I’m so glad.’ I do not have a crush on Steven Tyler.”
     Back in New York, on live television, Ronde dashed into the Diesel store at Lexington and 60th. His presence, and Bruce’s camera a few steps behind, caused quite a loud ruckus. The commotion in fact nearly drowned out the screaming, thumping music pumped over the stereo at concert-level intensity.
     Neither Ronde nor Bruce was surprised by the commotion factor. Tie, arriving late and in a bit of a coughing fit, found the noise startling. Not that such a reaction should have been surprising. But as the soundman Tie had a sensitivity to such things.
     Diesel management and security instantly appeared. “We’ve told you before,” the Diesel manager said. “We don’t want you here.”
     “Why?” Ronde asked.
     “What do you mean why?” the manager responded. “Every time you come in here, you cause a problem. Every time.”
     “Really?” Ronde asked.
     “Really,” the manager replied.
     “Well, we don’t want any problems,” Ronde said. “We’ll just be going.”
     “Please,” the manager said.
     But as Ronde stepped to the exit, a revolving door, he put his foot against the frame, momentarily halting all momentum. The one person in the revolving door instantly broke into a laughing fit. Evidently, she loved Ronde and she loved What Are You Thinking?. Evidently, she went to the Diesel store and the Levi’s store and all the rest during primetime, hoping for just such an interview opportunity.
     “What are you thinking?” Ronde roared.
     “I… love… you!” she yelled. “Ronde, I want to have your baby!”
     Ronde didn’t respond to the girl. Instead, he turned to the camera and said, “Don’t forget to cast your vote for What Are You Thinking’s? best interview of last year. To cast your vote go to www.WAYT.com and follow the prompts. We’ll be counting down your choices on a special What Are You Thinking? Now, stay tuned for That ‘70s Show. Next on Fox.”

THE INFLUENCE OF BLUE JEANS
(7:59 – 8:47 p.m.)

On televisions across America the handsome and fresh face of Ronde faded, to be instantaneously replaced by the handsome and worn face of Kiefer Sutherland in a spot promotion for 24. At the Diesel store at Lexington and 60th Ronde took some time to shop. Ronde loved blue jeans. He bought them in surplus. He bought them in spades.
     Unquestionably, Diesel was Ronde’s favorite brand. He never wore anything else on What Are You Thinking?. According to the rumors (never effectively squashed), What Are You Thinking? had an understanding with Diesel. At least once a night, the understanding went, Ronde would take his show into the flagship Diesel store on Lexington and 60th and create a ruckus. At least once a night Diesel management and security would threaten to throw him out. And once a night, as Ronde made for the exit (without argument), he would pose his question to some seemingly random individual. The arbitrary quality of the show was just the opposite. According to the rumors, the whole thing was staged.
     Neither Ronde nor Rupert nor the Diesel Corporation ever adequately addressed the rumors. For that reason, according to the critics, What Are You Thinking? had a “professional wrestling feel” to it.
     As for Ronde, he was not proud of the fact that he preferred Diesel over Levi’s. Levi’s was old school. Levi’s was the epitome of American culture. Levi’s was full of history. Levi’s, however, did not permit effortless movement. A pair of Levi’s jeans came with a sense of confinement, encasement. In Ronde’s case, the quads area was simply too snug. Levi’s didn’t account for the modern male. Levi’s still lived in the gold rush days.
     Diesel on the other hand conformed to every contour, from the bulging quad to the toughened calf to a pelvic implant of any kind. Diesel made a comfortable fit for every possible curvature.
     At this moment in time (8:30:21) Ronde didn’t care about his dissatisfaction with Levi’s. He stood in the dressing room of Diesel, before a full-length mirror. He looked at the product covering his legs. He liked the cut of the jeans; he didn’t know about the color.
     Ronde stood in front of a mirror wearing a pair of red (actually, cherry-apple) jeans. Years ago, even six months ago, he would have considered jeans of any color other than blue a cop out, a heresy, a disaster.
     He’d had a change of heart however in recent days and he’d yearned for color. Now here he was, considering not only the purchase of cherry-apple jeans but wearing them in the next segment of What Are You Thinking? in twenty minutes time. Ronde stood in the dressing room with a quandary. Ten minutes passed without a decision rendered.

TO MAKE A BIG BOLD HYPER CHANGE
(8:47 – :49 p.m.)

Ronde’s experiment with red jeans combusted in less than two minutes. Here’s what happened. In the dressing room Ronde decided to attempt what had never before been attempted before. He stepped on to the Diesel showroom floor in red jeans. He approached the cash register with his Diesel credit card in hand. The sudden silence in the store slowed his momentum. Gone were the shouts of excitement from jean buyers recognizing the host of What Are You Thinking?. Gone were the salesfolk with the complimentary remarks. Gone too was the “lookin’ good, boss” tag line usually exiting Bruce’s mouth. By the time Ronde reached the cash register even the screaming, thumping music pumped over the stereo at concert-level intensity had a hush factor. Ronde’s red jeans apparently had that kind of effect.
     Still, Ronde didn’t flinch. “Courage,” he prodded himself. To make a big bold hyper change, one needed an inner voice of prodding. “Bravery,” Ronde prodded himself. “Guts.” He laid his credit card on the counter. “I’ll wear ‘em out,” he told the saleswoman.
     She didn’t have time to say, “Sure.” She didn’t have time to say, “Will there be anything else tonight?” Or, “That will be one hundred and twenty-two dollars.” Or, “Thank you, Ronde. And, by the way, I love your show.”
     Ronde’s soundman interrupted the transaction. “Dude,” Tie said, “what are you thinking?” And that was basically that. Ronde understood: The time wasn’t right for such a fundamental shift. The nation couldn’t handle the color change.
     Ronde picked up his credit card and dashed back into the dressing room. By the time he reached the curtain, the sales staff was assisting customers and the music was screaming and thumping and both Tie and Bruce were adjusting their equipment, preparing for the next segment. By the time Ronde reached the dressing room, normalcy had returned.

THE HAZARDS OF WORKING AND EATING SIMULTANEOUSLY
(8:57 p.m.)

The camera caught its subject slipping out of his suede jacket, then adjusting his blue jeans, making certain his zipper was left ajar. Ronde hated the button fly. The button fly didn’t leave room for zipper malfunction (purposeful or otherwise).
     “Well, let’s go find our next victim... er, contestant,” Ronde said. The camera, and cameraman, followed the leader. Ronde moved down the sidewalk in a full sprint, stopped on a dime, turned, gave a head and shoulders fake, and retraced his steps. He then stepped into a deli one giant step removed from his original starting point.
     The millions of viewers watching the Fox Network after That ‘70s Show momentarily lost sight of their host. When Bruce and Tie – and Fox’s viewership – caught up to Ronde, he chewed on a sandwich. Bruce’s camera zoomed in on sauerkraut, mustard, hot pastrami. Bruce’s camera caught Ronde wiping his mouth with his hand. Ronde’s hand swipe missed a speckle of Russian dressing. Such are the hazards of working and eating simultaneously.
     “How did the deli have time to make a Reuben?” a critic later responded. “As any good line cook knows, it takes less time to cook a really thick steak.” Nobody at What Are You Thinking? responded, providing further circumstantial evidence that the show was staged.
     “And what about a napkin?” another critic responded. “God forbid that the boytoy actually wipes his face in a civilized, mannered way.”
     In the deli Ronde posed his question to the first customer entering (a small man in a black and red checkered hunting jacket). As Ronde spoke, speckles of Russian dressing flew off in various directions. Had the customer been taller, he might have been struck in the forehead. But as it was, specks flew over the customer’s head (covered by a black and red checkered hunting cap) and smudged the recently-Windexed glass door.
     “What are you thinking?” Ronde asked the man.
     The customer replied, “A ham sandwich.”
     Ronde, taken aback by the apparent non sequitur, repeated his question. The customer, thinking Ronde hadn’t heard properly, repeated his answer. Ronde ended the segment by scratching his head in confusion.
     The head of the customer, as noted earlier, was covered by a black and red checkered hunting cap. The cap included oversized, flannel flaps for the ears. Excellent for warmth. Terrible for hearing.
     The customer hadn’t heard Ronde’s question correctly. He thought Ronde was asking, “What are you eating?”
     Not only did the customer misunderstand Ronde’s question but he misunderstood Ronde’s employment. The customer thought Ronde worked for the deli.

THE NINE O’CLOCK SNOOZE
(9:10 – :46 p.m.)

In the post-nine o’clock hour the What Are You Thinking? gang sat down in one of the deli’s booths. Ronde, having consumed the Reuben in lickety-split time, wasn’t hungry. Rather, he was drowsy. The digestion of pastrami and rye bread and swiss cheese will do that. So while Tie and Bruce ordered dinner, Ronde curled into an oval (knees against chest, feet tucked below butt) and closed his eyes. His suede jacket draped over his body assisted the falling asleep process. The softness of suede will do that.
Bruce and Tie spooned up swells of chicken soup and layers of liverwurst. They ate in a hurry. Neither used a napkin. Both used their hands instead. Meanwhile, Ronde dreamed. Unfortunately, he experienced his recurring nightmare. The nightmare went like this: Ronde on the set of What Are You Thinking?, the camera and sound in place, interviewees lined up awaiting the famous question and Ronde’s lips melded into one. Ronde muted as the world watched.

THE MIRACLE ON 62ND STREET
(9:58 – :59 p.m.)

The camera caught its subject slipping out of his suede jacket. Then he went against the flow by darting into oncoming traffic. Ronde resembled a mogul skier: weight on his toes, knees forward and slightly bent, his body displaying a wonderful flexibility and dexterity. Meanwhile, objects -– in this case, automobiles – whizzed by on his flanks.
     Ronde turned one-way Lexington Avenue into the most challenging ski slope in North America. Both Bruce and Tie were blown away by Ronde’s prowess. As were the critics. “That man can definitely shred,” one later wrote.
     The traffic light at Lexington and 62nd Street turned red, freeing Ronde from the rush of traffic. Around the nation the anxiety level momentarily eased. That was evident on the corner of Lex and 62nd, where both Bruce and Tie exhaled. That was evident at the White House, where the president held an intelligence gathering and a What Are You Thinking? peek-a-boo. That was evident down in the Everglades, where a party of teenagers (girls mainly) gathered to watch Fox’s primetime lineup (and eye ogle the Ashton Kutcher/Ronde/Ryan Seacrest trifecta). That was evident over in the Texas Panhandle, where a middle-aged couple sat in their living room with their hands covering their hearts (unaware that the other was doing the same). And that was evident on the border between San Diego and Tijuana, where border guards from both nations congregated at the country line to watch What Are You Thinking? every hour shortly before the hour.
     With Fox’s top rated show (American Idol) due to begin in a minute and a half, and Fox’s viewership at its peak, Ronde knew this was a significant moment in America.
     When the traffic light turned green, recreating the havoc of automobiles heading straight for the show’s host, Ronde put out one hand in stop sign significance. The fact that one car stopped, the front bumper inching up to Ronde’s boot-cut jeans, was a miracle. The fact that the next car stopped was another miracle. The fact that the car behind that one stopped... well, to quote from the headlines of the New York Post the next day: “The Miracle on 62nd Street.”
     In the name of accuracy the headline should have read, “The Miracle near 62nd Street,” but that’s the New York Post for you.
     At this moment in time (9:58:32) Ronde did not calmly approach the driver’s side door and pose his question, nor did he call out his question from his spot on the pavement. Rather, he belly flopped on to the hood of the beautiful black Mercedes sedan.
     Fortunately for those viewing around the nation, the Mercedes did not have tinted windows. Bruce’s wide angle captured the scene in its entirety: the driver stunned beyond belief (the driver must have been new to the streets of New York), the passenger, sitting directly behind the driver, scratching his head in impatience.
     The hair on the passenger’s head did not budge. Despite fingernails scratching scalp, despite the stopped cars honking and a fire truck approaching with its siren roaring, despite pedestrians noticing the scene and pointing and screaming, despite all of this hubbub, the passenger’s hair did not so much as shift one measly inch.
     “What are you thinking?” Ronde shouted.
     The driver hadn’t recovered from the shock. The passenger hadn’t gone into shock. The passenger’s name was Donald Trump and Donald Trump was unnerved by nothing, or so he claimed.
     “What are you thinking?” Donald Trump shouted back.
     Ronde, who normally did not answer a contestant’s reply, did in this case. “I want this car,” he shouted. “It’s the B. O. M. Bom, bom, bom.”
     Ronde’s spelling, it should be noted, caused quite a stir among critics. “What is he, in first grade?” one critic wrote. Another responded to the first, “What are you talking about? My daughter, in kindergarten, can spell better.”
     As for Donald Trump, he knew how to spell. “You A. S. S. H. O. L. E.,” he hollered at Ronde, “get off my car!”
     Ronde, sensing the contestant’s frustration, followed orders. He slid off the hood. Fortunately, the light directing traffic at Lexington and 62nd showed red, interrupting the harried charge of automobiles. Donald Trump’s driver immediately stepped on the gas.
     “The Incident with Donald Trump,” as critics later called the show, occurred a few minutes after the taping of The Apprentice. That program, recently purchased by Fox from NBC, starred Donald Trump as himself seeking a chief lieutenant. The question, for the critics, was a profound one: Was the incident staged? Was it all merely a plug for the Donald on Fox?
     Neither Ronde nor Rupert nor Donald adequately addressed the issue.
     As for Ronde, he stood on the safety of the sidewalk following the Incident with Donald Trump and said, “Well, that’s all for tonight. Stay tuned for Ryan, Simon, Randy, and the lovely Paula on American Idol. Next on Fox.”

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The future American ambassador to Iran: a fantasy

The future American ambassador to Iran: a fantasy

The act of writing is a tricky and mostly frustrating gig. There’s the story in mind and there’s the blank page. Getting one to spill out onto the other can be an exercise in stomping your feet, cursing, yelling at your dog, cursing some more, checking your email too often, drinking too many cups of coffee, running to the bathroom, cursing some more. Let’s just say that in the act of writing – or not writing but hoping to – there’s a great deal of time spent fantasizing.
     I have a favorite fantasy. I imagine myself in another line of work. There are all sorts of vocations I’d choose. For instance, I’d love to be a carpenter. I’d also love to be a sculpture. I have skills in neither.
     I fantasize about vocations I could actually do. I fantasize about vocations I currently hold the skill sets for. Here’s a top three list, in descending order:

3) An emergency room doctor. I think what attracts me most is the pace, the frenetic quality, the multitasking. Writing is slow and ponderous. It’s a severely overweight man walking. The emergency room is a hockey game. Yes, there’s plenty of down time but there’s also the mad rush, and a lot of looping, and a few wicked slap shots.
     As a young writer, I wanted to change the world. I wanted to change the world through storytelling. As a middle-aged writer I still want to change the world through storytelling. But I realize that stories don’t change the world. Stories momentarily remove readers from time and place. Do you know what we call that? Entertainment.
     Emergency room doctors change the world. Even removing a splinter from someone’s finger is an act of changing the world. Writers don’t remove a splinter from someone’s finger. At least not literally. And if we remove a splinter from someone’s finger on the page, we don’t numb the area and then use a tweezers to gently pull the splinter out of position, as an emergency room doctor might.
     We imagine the day. Hot and humid. Runners moving at various paces on a riverwalk. What cities have beautiful riverwalks? San Antonio? New York? Portland?
     On the riverwalk in Portland one of the runners stumbles. He is a very good athlete and he doesn’t usually stumble. Why now? Why today? Is there something wrong with him that we don’t know? Does he have, for instance, a tumor in his brain that’s causing just the hint of clumsiness? Will that tumor swell? Will that tumor create an unbalance, and far worse? Will this runner end up in a cancer center twenty floors above an emergency room?
     Unknown. It’s too early in the story to tell.
     When the runner stumbles, he loses his footing. A paved running path, there’s also debris. A storm’s recently gone through. Pebbles, branches and Starbucks coffee cups speckle the path. One of those cups reaches up, somehow, and trips the runner. Starbucks coffee cups can do funny things.
     As he falls he reaches out both hands. One of those hands smashes into a tree limb. The tree limb, previously a racecourse for squirrels but now a part of the debris on the Portland riverwalk, is jagged. Points and edges. One of those edges, a sliver of wood, slides into the man’s finger.
     Ouch. That’s the runner’s first reaction while he’s sitting on his butt. His second is to notice the Starbucks coffee cup. He thinks about a lawsuit. Is Starbucks somehow responsible?
     His third reaction is to study the impact of the sliver of wood into his flesh. He’s fascinated by the impact site.
     Do you see the difference? In an emergency room, there wouldn’t be a fascination with the impact site. There would be a medical evaluation of the impact site. The impact site would have to be disinfected. The impact site might need some anesthesia depending upon the severity of the wound. And no one in the emergency room, not the attending physician, not the nurse and not the receptionist, would care about the Starbucks cup.
     Now why would a runner with a splinter in his finger go to an emergency room to remove the splinter? Why wouldn’t he just run home and remove it himself?
     Good question. As an emergency room doctor, that would really bother me.

2) The general manager, in charge of player personnel, for the Denver Nuggets. As my regular readers know, I am a huge Denver Nuggets fan. I grew up obsessing over all things Nuggets. As readers probably know as well, the Nuggets just got swept out of the playoffs by those dreaded Los Angeles Lakers. These are sad, dismal days for Nuggets fans.
     Here’s what I would do as Nuggets general manager. I would fire the coach, George Karl. I would hire a young coach who wants to run, run, run the ball. The coach of the Memphis Grizzlies, a man named Marc Iavaroni, is about to be fired. Memphis doesn’t want to run the ball and Iavaroni made his name as an assistant coach for the Phoenix Suns, back when that team wanted to run, run, run the ball.
     I would hire Iavaroni. I would then place my trust in Iavaroni and Iverson. Player personnel wise I would put Allen Iverson at the point. J.R. Smith becomes the off guard. Linas Kleiza becomes the small forward. Carmelo Anthony becomes the power forward. I’d look to trade Marcus Camby and/or Kenyon Martin. At this point in his career Martin probably has more trade value. Camby, with an easier contract to move, is essentially finished.
     At any rate I’d look to bring in a few shooters. I’m going to run the ball down my opponent’s throat. In Denver, the city of altitude, that can’t be a bad idea. My number one option offensively, when the game turns slow, is Anthony down on the block, with shooters spaced around him. That’s unstoppable and efficient.
     The problem this year wasn’t Denver’s lack of defense. It was Denver’s inefficient offense. My plan might not help the defense but it certainly will make Denver a much more efficient offense. And as everyone knows, the best defense is a really efficient offense.
     The Denver Nuggets, it should be noted, do not officially have a general manager. Maybe I should apply.

1) The American ambassador to Iran. As astounding as this sounds, America has not had official relations with Iran since 1980. The last American ambassador, William Sullivan, was recalled months before the takeover of the American embassy in Tehran.
     That all ends with me. What would I do as American ambassador to Iran? To start, I’d end the ritual condemnation of Iran in the West. How is Iran portrayed today? As the leading member of the Axis of Evil. As the chief sponsor of state-supported terrorism. One man’s terrorist is another man’s hero. There’s a large population out there that hero-worships Osama bin Laden and Mullah Omar.
     I want to end the name-calling. It’s simply the superego at its worst. I also want to take a page from history. Back in the 1980s, terrorist number one on the West’s list was the leader of Libya, Muammar Gaddafi. Today, Gaddafi is a valued member of the family of nations. What turned the rogue leader into an ally? Libya’s economy.
     Libya’s economy, like Iran’s, is almost solely based on oil revenue. In the mid 1980s there was a slump in the oil markets. The price of oil dropped from $27 a barrel in 1985 to $10 a barrel in 1987. Qaddafi responded in two surprising ways. Number one, he adopted a reform policy aimed at liberalizing and privatizing the economy. Number two, he sought foreign investment.
     Now Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is no Muammar Gaddafi. Number one, he doesn’t have the power. Number two, he doesn’t have the vision. He does have the oil. He does have a recession, possibly a depression, on his hands. He also has oil prices surging at $120 a barrel.
     As the American ambassador to Iran, I would suggest the Gaddafi Way to the Iranian leadership. That means, in terms of Iran, the mullah population must be held accountable by accepting critical scrutiny. If the absolute power of the mullahs is beyond reproach, then reform is a pipe dream.
     That means, in terms of Iran, an egalitarian interpretation of the existing constitution. The austerity packages need to end. The price fixing is actually price gouging. State controls over the economy have produced double digit unemployment, high inflation rates and rapidly rising prices. Economists use a dirty word for that phenomenon: stagflation.
     When Gaddafi encountered stagflation in the 1980s he sought foreign investment. Gaddafi did not turn to the United States. The United States was the enemy. Rather, he turned north, to Britain, France and Italy. Iran isn’t going to turn to the United States either. Iran appears to be looking east, toward India and China. Iran even has a name for its policy: the Asia Look.
     That sounds like shrewd investment planning to me. America, of course, has a bit of the Asia Look in its foreign investments, too.
     At any rate, Mr. McCain or Mr. Obama or Ms. Clinton I’m available in early 2009. I think I’ll get along just fine with Dr. Ahmadinejad. And after a gut renovation, I think I’ll have the American embassy in Tehran back in tip-top shape.

Well, enough of the fantasizing. I have a story in mind and a blank page. I better get back to work.

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Ahmadinejad: The Exclusive E-mail Interview, part II

Ahmadinejad: The Exclusive E-mail Interview, part II

In this final segment of a five-part series I take a closer look at the tragedy of American-Iranian relations. Early last autumn I began to spend some time on the website of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, http://www.president.ir/eng/. In early October I pressed the “contact” key on the website. I don’t exactly remember the first time that I received a response from President Ahmadinejad, or whomever manages his website. I do remember my exact response, a very surprising “What is this?”
     From those words a correspondence began. The correspondence turned into a series of interviews, all via e-mail. Without the consent of President Ahmadinejad, or whomever manages his website, I have decided to go public with that correspondence. This is the second part of that interview. (To read the first part of my interview with President Ahmadinejad, or my interview with Iranian expert Professor Bill James, or the first part of this series (America’s first look at Khomeini), please click on the link “More articles by Brian Josepher” above. You will see the articles to the right.)
     The first part of my e-mail interview with President Ahmadinejad concluded with the martyrdom of Iranian youth during the Iran-Iraq War. Young soldiers walked through minefields as the way of detecting mines laid by Iraqi armed forces. That image brought another subject to mind.

Q: Mr. President, unlike the Palestinian Intifada, or al-Qaeda in Iraq, we have not seen Iranian suicide bombers in Iraq or Lebanon or Israel for that matter. What does that say?

Ahmadinejad: We have a special unit of martyrdom seekers in the Revolutionary Guard. The unit consists of 52,000 trained volunteers ready to attack American and British targets if America should attack Iran.

Q: Yes, I’ve heard that. I’ve also read that your unit of “martyrdom seekers,” as you call suicide bombers, was established for defense. Does that mean the defense of Iran or the defense of Islam? In other words, would Iran send its martyrdom seekers to Palestine to support Hamas?

Ahmadinejad: We are opposed to oppression. We support whoever is victimized and oppressed. And that includes your people, Mr. Josepher. I am very saddened to hear that 1 percent of your total population is in prison and 45 million Americans don’t have health care coverage. That is very sad to hear.

Q: Is Iran directly supporting Hezbollah?

Ahmadinejad: Hezbollah is a popular organization in Lebanon and they are defending their land. They are defending their own houses. According to the charter of the United Nations, every person has the right to defend his house.

Q: Mr. President, in the February 25, 2008 edition of Newsweek, there’s an article on the death of Imad Mugniyah, the driving force behind Hezbollah for decades. According to the article, you went to Damascus in early 2006 for a meeting with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal, Mugniyah, and Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of Hezbollah. The authors of the article insinuate that it was you who suggested kidnapping Israeli soldiers along Lebanon’s southern border. That led to the 34-day war in Lebanon. Do you have any comment on that?

Ahmadinejad: It is no secret that Syria and Iran enjoy a working relationship. I would characterize Syrian-Iranian relations as amicable, excellent and extremely deep. As for Hezbollah, their victory over Israel proved the weakness of the Zionist entity. The Great Oppressor is providing state-of-the-art military hardware to the Zionists. And they are throwing their full support behind Israel. We believe that this threatens the future of all peoples, including the American and European peoples. So we are asking why the American government is blindly supporting this murderous regime.

Q: The Great Oppressor? I assume you mean America. Is that your version of Ayatollah Khomeini’s Great Satan?

Ahmadinejad: Let me turn the tables and ask you a question, Mr. Josepher. If an atrocity was committed in Germany or Europe for that matter, why should the Palestinians answer for that? They had no role to play in the Holocaust. Why on the pretext of the Holocaust have they occupied Palestine? Millions of people have been made refugees. Thousands of people to date have been killed. Thousands of people have been put in prison. At this very moment, a great war is raging because of the Holocaust. Do you see what the Holocaust has given us?

Q: Mr. President, why are you bringing up the Holocaust at this juncture? We’ve spent a good deal of time on it earlier.

Ahmadinejad: I’m not the one bringing up the Holocaust. I am reacting to the Zionist entity. Iran takes a defensive position.

Q: I have to tell you, as a left-leaning American Jew who deeply questions the policies of Israel, your words incite me to go and join the IDF. Do you realize the power you’re giving Israel in your Israel-hatred?

(President Ahmadinejad, or whomever manages his website, chose not to answer this question. I waited three days but a response never came. I therefore asked the question in another way.)

Q: Mr. President, if a traveler arrives in Iran with a visa stamp from Israel on his passport, Iranian customs officers kick him out of the country. Israelis of course are not welcome in your country but neither are Australians or the Swiss or Brazilians if they carry an Israeli visa. Why?

Ahmadinejad: The Zionist entity uses laser-guided bombs offered by the Great Oppressor to target the shelters of defenseless children and women. The Zionist entity is a depraved, immoral society. I offer as evidence the overall IQ of Israel. Ninety.

Q: Yes, you’ve said that before. While we’re talking about that part of the world, a recent poll in Egypt identified you as the third most popular leader, behind Hassan Nasrallah and Khaled Meshaal. How do you interpret that?

Ahmadinejad: Muslims throughout the Middle East are listening to Iran and buying into our Shia revolutionary arc.

Q: “Shia revolutionary arc,” is that your terminology for exporting your belief system? Your hero, Ayatollah Khomeini, tried and failed in that endeavor. What makes you think that you can succeed?

Ahmadinejad: In Egypt, with a total population of 80 million and a Shia population of less than 700,000 – or under .05 percent of the Muslim population – I am the third most popular man.

Q: You are more popular in Egypt than you are in Iran.

Ahmadinejad: I won the election of 2005 by more than 7 million votes.

Q: Mr. President, in a recent poll conducted by Tehran One, the government-run television network, 56 percent of those who voted for you in 2005 declared that they would not vote for you gain.

(According to America’s foremost Iranian expert, Professor Bill James, the polls are meaningless. “His popularity doesn’t really matter,” James told me. “There’s no such thing as free elections. In Iran, there are two powerhouses that determine elections. The first is the Vali-e faqih, or the Supreme Leader. Now, Ali Khamenei is no Ruhollah Khomeini but nobody doubts his power. The second is the Revolutionary Guard. And guess what? Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is a founding member. He joined the guard in the early 1980s. He has their total support. And why wouldn’t he? When he came to power, Ahmadinejad appointed Revolutionary Guard commanders to fill his cabinet and to run the intelligence agencies. The government of Iran today is basically an offshoot of the Revolutionary Guard.”)

Ahmadinejad: I do not trust polls. I put my faith in the people of Iran.

Q: And in God.

Ahmadinejad: Always in God.

Q: Well, speaking of the people of Iran, let’s talk about the internal conditions there. Let’s start with the election of 2005. There seemed to be major irregularities in the general election. Mostafa Moin, for instance, appeared in the days leading up to the election to be the favorite, along with Rafsanjani. And yet Moin came in fifth, with some 2 million votes compared to your 5.7 million. How do you explain that?

Ahmadinejad: By 2005 Iranians had grown tired of President Khatami’s failed reform strategies. Mostafa Moin ran on the legacy of Khatami’s policies. He never was a favorite in the election. If he was, there’s your major irregularity.

Q: And then there was the case of Mehdi Karrubi. When he went to bed on the night of the election he led you by 1 million votes and looked certain to get into the runoff with Rafsanjani. When he awoke three hours later, you’d leapfrogged him, outdistancing him by 1.7 million votes. How do you explain that giant leap?

Ahmadinejad: Ayatollah Karrubi tried to bribe the populace. He promised a handout of $62 to every adult if elected. The people saw through his campaign pledge. Iranians are a very ethical people.

Q: You campaigned on the promise of setting up a pure Islamic government, a government of God. Did your victory in the election suggest that the people of Iran favor theocracy over democracy?

Ahmadinejad: Democracy is not a value for us. Justice is a value, and fairness, but not democracy. We didn’t raise a revolution to institute democracy. The people of Iran recognize that democracies wish to solve everything with bombs. The time of the bomb is in the past. It’s behind us. Today is the era of thoughts, dialogue, cultural exchanges and economic interdependencies.

Q: Let’s talk about economic interdependencies. Abbas Milani, the director of the Iranian Studies Program at Stanford University, called your economic policies, “disastrous.” I’m quoting now from Professor Milani’s article in the Boston Review. “In spite of record earnings from oil, there has been massive capital flight, a shrinking private sector, a banking crisis, and an increase in oil dependency and subsidies paid by the regime…”

Ahmadinejad: If I may interrupt, Mr. Josepher, that sounds like the United States of America.

Q: Cute, and true. But if you will allow me to continue, “The oil sector itself is facing serious structural problems due to decaying infrastructure. If trends persist, and Iran cannot attract an estimated six hundred billion dollars of investment in the oil industry, Iranian oil exports may collapse completely within a decade. With unemployment in double digits, the regime is now facing stagflation – high inflation rates and rapidly rising prices – as well as a depression-like recession.” How do you respond to that?

Ahmadinejad: Mr. Josepher, when Mr. Milani talks about trends, allow me to quote some of my own. In 2003 Iran’s oil export revenues soared to $24 billion. In 2004, the oil revenues reached $32 billion. In 2005, $47 billion. Oil just reached $113 dollars a barrel. Do you see the upward trajectory?

Q: Mr. President, you just fired your economic minister. You offered no explanation. I’m quoting now from an Iranian newspaper, the moderate Kargozaran, “People should know that Mr. Danesh Jaffari [the economic minister] is being sacked because of the skyrocketing inflation or because of his opposition to the president’s economic policies.” Which is it?

Ahmadinejad: You are showing your prejudices, Mr. Josepher, and your ignorance. Kargozaran is allied with Rafsanjani. Do not believe what you read. As a fervent reader of my website, you should know that I posted my reasons for firing Mr. Jaffari. My Cabinet choices reflect my policies for progress and development.

Q: Okay, let’s talk about progress and development. According to the World Bank, Iran’s energy subsidies are now the highest in the world. There are government controls on the price of nearly every food staple, from bread to rice to meat. Gasoline costs around ten cents per liter. The official rate of inflation is 18 percent, although that’s a governmental statistic. Economists believe it to be in the 25 percent range. Unemployment hovers around 18 percent, another governmental statistic. Among the young, the rate of unemployment is 30 percent. And Iran has a huge youth movement. During the decade of the 1980s the population rose by 45 percent. Seventy percent of the total population is under thirty years of age. Don’t you need a huge increase of foreign investments? And shouldn’t you be pursuing policies that end the UN-mandated sanctions? I don’t think Iran as a totalitarian state will end the sanctions.

Ahmadinejad: Iran’s future rests with the East. We have implemented our Asia Look. In the near future we will sign multi-billion-dollar oil and gas agreements with both China and India. We will connect Iran to India, and eventually to China, with a new pipeline. We will share our nuclear technology with our friends to the east, and they will share their technology with us. Your gloom and doom statistics make you sound like an operative from the decadent West.

Q: But it must concern you, Mr. President, that the population of Iran has an aging clerical class and a huge youth generation. That’s a combination ripe for a revolution.

Ahmadinejad: As a youth, Mr. Josepher, I studied the Qur’an. I put my faith in Khomeini. I’m confidant that our youth will do the same. If they do, we will see tomorrow what kind of heaven this place becomes.

Q: Yes, you’ve stated that before. Your youth, if you believe the UN World Drug Report of 2005, are addicted to opium. Nearly three percent of the population, according to the report. No other country rises above the 2 percent mark.

Ahmadinejad: What you must understand is that Iran shares a 750-mile border with Afghanistan and some 93 percent of the world’s opium is grown in Afghanistan. Over the past 15 years, opium production in Afghanistan has become an industrialized industry feeding Western markets. As a result of passing trade, the entire region has become a consumer. Pakistan has the same problem that Iran does. So does Turkmenistan and Tajikistan.

Q: You make it sound like the fault lies with the West.

Ahmadinejad: The fault lies with the direction of commerce. The imperialism of the West yields the penury of the East. Addiction and economic crisis is a functionality of American dominion. To reiterate, Iran’s future rests with the East.

Q: Pardis Mahdavi, an anthropologist at Pomona College, conducted a study of married women in the northern, affluent neighborhoods of Tehran. According to his study, nearly half of those who responded admitted to extra-marital affairs. How do you respond to that?

Ahmadinejad: The researcher finds what the researcher wants to find.

Q: Perhaps. But when you consider the possible punishment for adultery, stoning to death for women, the very act sounds like a sexual revolution to me.

Ahmadinejad: The journalist writes what the journalist wants to write.

Q: Are you denying that adultery takes place?

Ahmadinejad: Sharia law requires that married people found of adultery be executed by stoning.

Q: Well there are different interpretations of Sharia law. They don’t stone women to death in Lebanon.

(President Ahmadinejad, or whomever manages his website, chose not to respond. I therefore asked the question in another way.)

Q: I recently read a report, Mr. President. Two women in your country were accused of adultery, tried and sentenced to death by stoning. The punishment was carried out the next day. As one human being to another is there no room for compromise?

Ahmadinejad: Do you know what the term Sharia means?

Q: I do not.

Ahmadinejad: It means “the path to the watering hole.” We are following the path.

Q: There are many paths to the same watering hole.

Ahmadinejad: Typically, Mr. Josepher, there is one best path. The shortest, most direct route. I should know. I was trained as a traffic engineer.

Q: Okay, let’s talk about the traffic in Tehran, and the greater issue of the environment. I am quoting statistics now from the Green Party of Iran. This is what Tehran bumps into the atmosphere per day: 3,000 tons of carbon monoxide, 450 tons of hydrocarbons, 30 tons of sulfur and two tons of lead. Residents of Tehran take in nearly 8 times the amount of carbon monoxide considered safe. Sixty to seventy percent of the pollution is caused by motor vehicles and yet the cars on your streets are not equipped with catalytic converters. This seems like a simple solution. Why aren’t they?

Ahmadinejad: Trust me, Mr. Josepher, when I say that as a traffic engineer, this is not such a problem with simple solutions. The fact is, the pollution in Tehran is a cultural, social and economic problem. Without taking into account any one of these aspects, any proposed solution would be impractical and inefficient.
     I would also remind you that the Islamic Republic of Iran joined the Kyoto protocol. We’re still waiting for the United States to do the same. It expires in 2012, you know?

Q: I know. The United States may sign the Kyoto protocol in 2009, when a new president moves into the White House. And Kyoto needs to be totally rewritten anyway. I mean, I’m not a fan of the Bush environmental policy but the U.S. was right not to sign Kyoto. It doesn’t go nearly far enough. At any rate, Mr. President, with this being an election year in America, who would be better for Iran, a Republican president or a Democrat?

Ahmadinejad: Iran does not interfere with the internal operation of other countries. The Great Oppressor should learn from us.

Q: Of course, but you must have an opinion. Senator Obama calls for a dialogue with Iran. Senator McCain pushes the Bush agenda. Wouldn’t Obama be better for Iran?

Ahmadinejad: The rhetoric of campaigns does not concern me. If the next president of the United States wishes to have relations with us, we would be interested. This is the principle of my foreign policy.

Q: When was the last time the leaders of Iran and the U.S. had direct conversations?

Ahmadinejad: Twenty-eight, 29 years ago.

Q: What would it take to begin a new era in Iranian-American relations?

Ahmadinejad: Conducive conditions. Look at the makeup of the American administration, the behavior of the American administration. See how they talk down to my nation. They want to build an empire. They don’t want to live side by side in peace with other nations.

Q: Within your own country, Mr. President, you do not live side by side in peace with other groups. I would not want to be a gay man in your nation.

Ahmadinejad: In Iran we don’t have homosexuals like you in your country. We don’t have this phenomenon.

Q: That sounds familiar. Didn’t you say the exact same thing at Columbia University? I don’t expect an answer. Moving on, I would not want to be part of the Baha’i faith.

Ahmadinejad: When we talk about divine religion, the Jewish groups, their prophet was the Holy Moses and the Christians Christ and the Muslims, the prophet of Islam. Can you tell me who the divine prophet of the religion you mentioned appeared and was revealed to when exactly? Did he have a name? Good luck.

Q: Is it heretical to actually speak the name Baha’i? And why has every leader from the Shah to Khomeini to Rafsanjani to you tried to eradicate this group? Why do you believe in genocide? I don’t expect an answer. Moving on, as a Jew, Mr. President, would you welcome me to Iran?

Ahmadinejad: Mr. Josepher, in your readings you must have come across the historian Herodotus and The Persian Wars. According to Herodotus, there was a peaceful despot named Cyrus the Great. When Cyrus conquered Babylonia, he did not put the Babylonians to the sword and he freed the Jewish population. Many of those Jews moved to Persia to begin a very strong, very integral relationship with us. Today, Mr. Josepher, that relationship continues. There are thousands of Jews in Iran. They have total freedom of religion. For instance, doesn’t your Passover begin soon? The Jews of Iran celebrate with sweet wine.

Q: You make it sound like you are the Cyrus of the 21st century. You talk as if you welcome everyone to your Seder table. It should be mentioned that since the Khomeini revolution the Jewish population in Iran has dwindled from 150,000 to under 25,000. It should also be mentioned that in 2006 your government reiterated the death-sentence fatwa against Salman Rushdie. Why?

Ahmadinejad: “It is incumbent on every Muslim to employ everything he has, his life and his wealth, to send Rushdie to hell.” These are the words of Ayatollah Khomeini when he pronounced the fatwa. Only the original author of a fatwa can retract it. Khomeini never did.

Q: You would celebrate the assassination of Salman Rushdie?

Ahmadinejad: He is a heretic.

Q: He is a writer of fiction. He is an entertainer. In our “era of thoughts, dialogue, cultural exchanges and economic interdependencies” – your words, Mr. President – we should be able to recognize the difference between fiction and heresy.
     Unfortunately we are running out of time and space. I want to end this interview by going back to the personal. I have to tell you, my brother-in-law rhymes your name with “I’m-a-dinner-jacket.” He asks why you seem to always dress in a Members Only jacket. Mr. President, do you consider yourself a vain man?

Ahmadinejad: Sometimes appearances – yes, you have to look your best…

Q: Can I just interrupt you for a moment? According to Iranian expert Bill James, Ayatollah Khomeini spent a part of every morning grooming his beard. Ruhollah Khomeini was a Paco Rabanne man.

Ahmadinejad: Yes, this is why I comb my hair.

Q: Mr. President, I want to thank you for your time and candor. I hope we can do this again.

Ahmadinejad: To paraphrase a Jewish saying from Passover, Next year in Tehran.

Q: Yes. Next year in Tehran.

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