NOW THAT HEF'S DEAD...

revenge of the fantasized

    Sexual socio-politics is certainly at a disruptive distance from the imaginings and slick fantasies of Hugh Hefner. This passage of "revelation and reckoning" is on our thanksgiving list, like cranberries-bitter sweet and essential.

     As tough as it is for women to unearth moments of victimhood, it contributes to the good for everyone. Healing, we hope.

     Men are telling other men to inventory their own actions. We are stunned by the list of those who have fallen. For the present this is a type of national catharsis, and it is a time to be careful.

     Thought and deliberation are necessary. I think most of the fallen have personality disorders-they are creeps, "perverts" and abusive. Not all of the behavior is similar, though all of it may have been unwanted. Some is disturbed, some is poor judgment and the difference is important. 

      The assaults, physical or emotional are connected to  history and we have allowed it. I recall how a woman colleague at a radio station was subjected to salacious and lascivious comments by another colleague. It happened almost daily. I was embarrassed by it, but I did not write it up or report it. The humor at that time, our company attitude and even public standards reflected an uneven field. Social standards were complicit in abusing and objectifying women, systemically. 

       Careful accounting is important. Rebecca Traister, an author who is also a writer-at-large for New York magazine raises a curious dilemma. She asks how culpable were feminist leaders and other women who "condoned" Bill Clinton's sexual escapades because he supported their agenda?

     We need to recall little boys growing up amidst social cues and norms. The Hefner influence objectified women, sexualized their appearance and body, made a behavioral game of sexuality. That also shaped culture and behavior.

Harvey Weinstein appears to be a lout and a debased egotistical slob, and while it is not a justification he is right in saying the "culture was different." The change happening now is evolution. 

     But this reckoning raises questions. How then does someone  flirt or "come on," seek and pursue a potential romance or love interest? What is an appropriate way to begin? What are acceptable opening lines? 

     Should we no longer complement friends or colleagues on a haircut, style or anything of their appearance?

     How far back do we go to seek an apology, explanation, or justice? Could the zeal or emotion of this social change impact its legitimacy and legacy?

     How do we question the authenticity of an accusation without seeming to further victimize? Are the accused entitled an explanation? Could a comment or action simply have been ill-conceived or a case of misperception? Will we rush to judgment? 
     When does the focus turn to the sitting president, quick to criticize others, but also accused of sexual assault?

     You see how careful we must be. 

     This appears to be a most profound cultural change, an inflection point on social history. Anger alone should not be the architect of what is to follow.

autumn settings on the central coast

vineyards adopting fall color

a house concert

Katherine's sand box. Art by Neal.

a grand entrance

Cayucos night light

Piper Riley Evans-a Scot's salute

Joie and Karen in thought

A birthday petite four 

       These old boys have seen many changes on their watch.
More are on the horizon.

       Welcome to the season. Thanks for your readership.

      See you down the trail.

SHAKING GROUND

converging forces

     Fault lines and fissures are cracking social and political order with a force that will leave everything changed

     At ground zero are sexual politics, power, international order and reality.

the lunacy of one

    The US was booed, jeered and delegates walked out when trump's representative spoke to the World Climate Change Conference in Bonn.

      This administration was there to tout coal and nuclear energy. Defending fossil fuels earned the scorn of most of the 200 nations attending. The US is the only nation on the planet to exit the Paris Climate Agreement.

      Can anyone with common sense not see as ludicrous the nature of being the only nation not to understand the imperatives of climate change? It is ignominy, but inevitable when a man of such "intellect" occupies the White House.

the webs we weave

an orb spider taking care of business

 a characteristic of the orb spider is to rebuild the web each day...we watched this one over the course of a week

and it always had something on the line

men stuck in webs

the left must square their own sexual abuse excuses

      More men in power are falling in disgrace as the seismic force of #metoo revelations bring a scope of accountability to sexual assault and harassment. 

A TECH TITAN

      Steve Jurvetson is stepping down as partner of a powerful Silicon Valley VC firm. After allegations of harassment, Jurvetson exits Draper, Fisher and Jurvetson which he co founded in 1985. They have been a huge player 

in tech. Jurvetson is also leaving the boards of Tesla and Space X.

      The tech industry is ripe with a culture of sexual harassment and discrimination. The millionaire boys club culture is getting rocked.

THE CALIFORNIA LEGISLATURE

     California Democrat Senate leader Kevin de Leon will hire an outside firm to investigate a growing list of allegations of a "culture of sexual harassment" in the legislative branch in the state capitol. 

     Traditionally the Senate Rules Committee investigates such allegations. This disrupts California Senate tradition and many read that as a signal of how serious will be the probe.

      De Leon's move has irritated some. He is an insurgent candidate seeking to replace veteran US Senator Diane Feinstein.

SLICK WILLIE FROM PHILANDER

      In fact he is from Arkansas but conscientious Democrats and liberals are actually agreeing with their Republican and conservative counterparts it is time to address Bill Clinton's sexual adventures. One cannot challenge the behavior of a Roy Moore and try to weasel away from Clinton's destructive behavior, even if Clinton's affairs were with consenting adults. 

      Clinton's personal shame and "bimbo eruptions" distracted his administration and many blame it for weakening the party. Al Gore may have had better luck if he didn't have the Clinton shame around his neck. Some will tell you Hillary Clinton may have been a more winning personality if her husband had not been such a sex dog.

     No Bill Clinton is not accused of molesting teens, but his accusers say he was a serial philanderer. Excusing Clinton's behavior may have enabled a culture of harassment where sex, power and manipulation mingled. 

THE MYSTERY OF DONNIE THE LOUT

    I wonder how this time of revelation and falls may affect the serial adulterer and self avowed sexual predator who snuck into the White House. trump had threatened to sue the women who accused him of sexual assault. I wonder if those accusations will come back to center stage. Should they?

the idiot and the bomb

    It is appropriate the Senate Foreign Relations Committee tackles the issue of a President's capacity to singularly initiate a nuclear strike. The question and the protocol is fraught with complexity and nuance, but the probe is certainly appropriate given who this president is. I would never have imagined I'd call the President an ignorant buffoon, but I never imagined this president. 

     These are strange times. 

     See you down the trail.

      

     

      

THE LIBERATION OF FOX NEWS & TIDE POOLS

washed up

     From Pacific detritus to a world apart, tide pools offer a kaleidoscope. We go there, just ahead.

how will America's conservative voice survive the slime?

      The future of Fox News is the serious speculation in media and financial circles now that its creator and driving force has been dumped for being a sexual miscreant and bully. This is a story larger than the offenses of a dirty old man and sexual extortionist, Roger Ailes.

      Fox News is a huge cash cow, the largest money maker in the 21st Century/Rupert Murdoch empire and a key to it's market value. Fox is also the principle mouth piece for a brand of Republicanism and conservatism. The king of Fox News's culture of sexual harassment is offender number one, creator Ailes and that raises yet another question, the integrity of anything you see on Fox News. More about that quandary in a moment.

not a journalist

      In serious journalistic discussion, Roger Ailes is considered a propagandist, despite being the brains behind the successful Fox News empire. 

      Ailes concocted the notion of a propaganda network when he worked for Richard Nixon. Before Fox News Ailes was a political word smith and hack.

He was a partisan in the employ of Nixon, Ronald Reagan and George HW Bush, plus other candidates. His specialty was spin, selling a candidate and their position. There was nothing fair or balanced about his work ethic. He did not care about facts or truth other than what a campaign or administration wanted the public to know and or think. He was a shill, and if the reports are to be believed he was an abusive sexual predator all the while.

      Ailes was outed by high profile Fox News talent. Since then victims of his harassment from past decades have come forward and the Murdoch family canned him, albeit with a multi million dollar severance. Ailes made them billions, still the younger Murdochs do not like Ailes and so Fox must now manage a future without the dirty old man and coverage tyrant.

fox news is big money

      Fox News with it's conservative to arch conservative personalities and the Ailes spin on news has amassed an audience of devotees. To abandon it's current format risks a huge financial loss. But it has become clear Ailes directed the tone, nature and content of Fox News-both it's personality programs and it's "news coverage." Ailes decided what and who got on the air. He hired the talent and directed coverage.

      Ailes was not a journalist, remember. He was a propagandist but he found an audience of true believers and he made the network a profit center, a huge winner of cash while he advanced political agendas of his own choosing while also harassing, intimidating and extorting women who worked for him.  He set a tone and in the last few days we've learned there were other men who emulated the boss. Conservative America had no idea who was playing them for a chump.

saying no to miles

      My problem with Fox News has always been Ailes. Years ago a well respected political operative and now a former Governor suggested I might reach out to Ailes as he was building Fox News. This public servant knew Ailes because they had worked for the same President. I passed on the option because of my sense of Ailes. He was not out to create a new brand of journalism, he was out to create a clearly tilted perspective on news with the sole purpose to feed a conservative political audience it's own view of things and to make billions of dollars in the process. Some will tell you Ailes created a response to a liberal bias, to balance things. Poppycock! Ailes poisoned the well of journalism by politicizing it in an overt and obvious way. Obvious to those who care about real balance and no slant. But it is the nature of the poisoning. Everything at Fox was according to Ailes. He was a dictator.

      If the New York Times has a liberal bias it is the product of an editorial page and even that is the enterprise of many voices and input. At Fox News it was all Roger Ailes. Hannity and O'Reilly would not exist if they did not tow the Ailes line.

      I don't believe the swill that some spew that CBS, NBC, ABC or even CNN are liberal media. It is just they are not conservative and that alone condemns them to being "liberal." MSNBC is indeed liberal, the antithesis to Fox News, but for the most part the other networks traditionally were simply equal opportunity offenders. A good news organization will tow no line and will in all likelihood irritate left and right, republican and democrat. 

the credibility crisis at fox news

       So here's a hard point. Fox was created by Ailes in his image and to his own designs. He was a manipulator, a political propagandist who dreamed of having a network to sell a party's point of view. That is not fair or balanced and it is not journalism. Any real reporting that was done on Fox was probably done by virtue of enterprise and professionalism of those who worked there. Obviously not everyone drank the Ailes cool-aid. And finally women with courage came forward and exposed the lecherous political hack who posed as a news executive. How can a network that took it's marching orders from a sexual offender who emotionally brutalized employees and who's purpose was to sell a particular political point of view, and who ran the place with an iron hand not be ashamed, embarrassed and exposed for being what it is, a mouthpiece and the tool of a jerk. 

       Bill O'Reilly should put this in the no spin zone. Sean Hannity is a perfect Roger Ailes creation, but O'Reilly is different. I don't think O'Reilly cares much at all about anything that he blathers about.  It's an act. He's a television player and good at it. His real concerns are his ratings and his bank account. He's living a good life with the elite and he played the Ailes game for the big dollars. In that way he is a symbol of Fox News. It is not real, it is spin. But now that Ailes is on the trash heap, Fox has a chance to prove it can be something else, not a Roger Ailes project and not under his menacing regime of an old boy world where white men ruled, where they could sexually intimidate women, where a narrow point of view was spread as truth even if it was not so. So in the months and years ahead it will be interesting to see how Fox News might care more about news than Roger Ailes did.

        Oh, there is a lot of speculation that Ailes might be an advisor to Donald Trump. They are long time friends. How does that sit with you?

a private world

a visit to pacific coast tide pools

    See you down the trail.