I share this story because I want to get it out of my head – one of the purposes of these blog posts. I also share it because it makes me laugh, while feeling a little nauseous every time I go back to the moment I heard it. Poor Mirabelle. She’s a friend on FB, but we haven’t seen one another for over thirty years, and, in case you’re wondering, Mirabelle is not her real name. She was, and I am sure still is, way, way too nice to out her by name here; even if we haven’t spoken in thirty years, she remains in my memory as a gracious, kind, gentle presence, in fact – one of the reasons I liked her so much was that her energy was decidedly different from mine…I can be kind, I can be gracious and even gentle – but those are not the first words any person of sense would use when describing our heroine.
Mirabelle grew up in the Bay area, and her parents were well-off, upper middle-class hippies or if not hippies, let’s say they were hippie adjacent, open to lots of experiences, and as their child, Mirabelle went – some might say was dragged – along. One of those experiences, which is what I want to get out of my head, came about because her parental units were nudists. Every summer for a week or two the family went to a nudist colony somewhere in northern California. This experience was traumatic for Mirabelle, who would not have chosen on her own at any time, to go nude in public; this was especially true when she was entering and going through puberty when, wearing a bathing suit, she would spend hours under a tree isolated from the general hubbub of the nudist colony with a book and whatever she had prepared for her lunch.
Of course, I was fascinated by the thought of this gentle spirit being made to go through adolescence amidst a group of older people, adults – naked as jay-birds and proud of it. Fine for them but – what the fuck were her parents thinking? Wasn’t there anywhere else she could have gone? Where were her grandparents? Were they there, too?! I never found out, probably because even talking about this period of her life in brief, Mirabelle went into paroxysms of red-faced embarrassment, and it seemed unkind (see, see, I can be kind) to press her.
She did tell me about one of the worst days for her, and that’s stuck in my head because the visual imagery was and is, well, striking? Unforgettable? Both, definitely both. And, lest we forget, nauseating. She had gone with her towel and toiletries, bathing suit clad, to take a shower and do her morning routine. Leaving the communal – divided by gender, I assure you – showers, Mirabelle was confronted by a much older, rather tall man (she was 12 or 13 at the time), wearing glasses but nothing else, smoking a cigar with his huge belly and equally large ‘junk’ hanging out, including testes that she described as hanging down halfway to his hairy knees, softball (pun intended?) sized. She froze there for a moment, until, head down, clutching her toiletries and covering towel to her chest, she did a bee-line to anywhere not there, her heart pounding and head exploding.
I think, but I don’t remember exactly, that not long after this she told her parents she was done with the nudist camp, that if they didn’t remove her from that place she would run away or, maybe, complain to the authorities? That last doesn’t sound like Mirabelle, but can you feel it, and for her? All these years later, I still can. That was, and of this fact I am sure, her last stay at the camp. Phew.
Patric Gagne is a clinically diagnosed sociopath, freely admitting to being one; she also holds a doctorate in psychology, is a wife and mother to two children, and her memoir, Sociopath is riveting, fascinating, fan-fucking-tastic. It’s fantastic because it’s clear, concise, gobble-it-up readable (I finished it over the course of two days), as well as deeply instructive. Sociopaths are cursed and gifted (one of the book’s insights) with an inability to feel a few basic emotions, among them guilt, shame, empathy and compassion. In a psychopath this dangerous combination of lacks, along with these and others present to a higher degree, often creates monsters; in sociopaths it engenders manipulators, charming liars, and – more than anything – lost, lonely, misunderstood and very anxious people.
Gagne knew she was different early on in her childhood, and used breaking and entering her neighbors’ houses – as well as petty thievery – as a release and relief for the profound anxiety she felt knowing she didn’t fit in, wasn’t a ‘normal girl’. These acts meant she had broken through the dismaying pain and loneliness of her in-born yet terrifying apathy toward others, her inability to feel and process emotions like the vast majority of humans. Gagne was smart enough to not get caught, but also to recognize – through many years of life, reading, research and eventual therapy – that these coping mechanisms (she called them prescriptions) were not addressing the larger problem: how to accept her operating system, and live healthily with it, and with others.
Sociopaths score between (I may be getting this slightly wrong, not a professional, here, grain of salt) 9-30 on the testing given to determine psychopaths, with those more dangerous persons scoring from 31 – 40, and what Gagne uncovered in her years of research was that there were no treatments or much help – no empathy and compassion – for her mentally and emotionally challenged co-hort. Her memoir seeks to address that. Sociopaths may not have, naturally, empathy and compassion in their wheelhouse, but the good news is they can learn. They can be taught and they can grow. Many sociopaths are highly intelligent, and c’mon, you have to admit it would be great to live guilt-free!?! Maybe? Sorta? Moreover, their innate inability and ability (gift/curse) to divorce themselves from a handful of human emotions gives them an entire range of opportunities in those areas where rationality and logic are prized. Regardless, sociopaths deserve compassion and empathy, and with this memoir Gagne is putting a face and spotlight on the issue, for which I applaud her.
The book additionally gives the best explanation of how to accept one’s partner I’ve ever read, as well as the process of how not to project onto a beloved your own shit, and vicey-versy, as Gagne and her eventual husband struggle mightily with his desire to fix her, rather than accept her as she was made, and her desire to ‘be good for him’, among other crossed purposes and desires. Y’gotta love that.
*because after the week I have had – much good, a lot of bad – I need to remind myself this is temporary (well, not climate change) and all will be well for, like, another 30 years, maybe? But also, that so much of what I experience is up to me, all of it, a choice to think and do and be in a certain way, to forgive or to begrudge, to let go or hold on, to fight, to weep, to give up and in, to surrender and then – if I choose it – to rise again.
“You are loved; you are capable of lives of great joy and meaning. It’s what you are made of. And it’s what you’re here for. Take care of yourselves; take care of one another.” ~ Anne Lamott
“What if our religion was each other. If our practice was our life. If prayer, our words. What if the temple was the Earth. If forests were our church. If holy water–the rivers, lakes, and ocean. What if meditation was our relationships. If the teacher was life. If wisdom was self-knowledge. If love was the center of our being.” ~ Ganga White
“We are social beings, and we need each other to thrive. A strong, healthy community can bolster us through challenging moments and bring joy to our lives. When we build community, we can build empathy for each other; and building empathy for each other helps us to build community.” ~ Elena Aquilar
“In many shamanic societies, if you came to a medicine person complaining of being disheartened, dispirited, or depressed, they would ask one of four questions. When did you stop dancing? When did you stop singing? When did you stop being enchanted by stories? When did you stop finding comfort in the sweet territory of silence? Dancing, singing, storytelling, and silence are the four universal healing salves and where we have stopped them is where we have experienced the loss of soul.” ~ Gabrielle Roth
“We have a tendency to think in terms of doing and not in terms of being. We think that when we are not doing anything, we are wasting our time. But that is not true. Our time is first of all for us to be. To be what? To be alive, to be peaceful, to be joyful, to be loving. And that is what the world needs most.” ~ Thich Nhat Hanh
“You need to learn how to select your thoughts just the same way you select your clothes every day. That’s a power you can cultivate. If you want to control things in your life so bad, work on the mind. That’s the only thing you should be trying to control.” ~ Elizabeth Gilbert
“The cure for poverty has a name: it’s called ‘the empowerment of women’. Now, name me a religion that stands, or has ever stood, for that.” – Christopher Hitchens
“Misandry without institutional, financial, and cultural power is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.”
I wrote the above comment on a male misogynist’s post this week and personally, I think I may have just won the internet. Of course winning the internet isn’t a thing, even influencers and content creators are finally admitting that, particularly (one story I read recently) those who were as children exploited by their parents, female children now grown who were and are being followed – including stalkers – by a whole lot of creepy men. Ick.
Here’s the thing. Are there women out and about in our world who hate men? Yes, of course. But we live in a patriarchy, not a matriarchy. We live in a world and amidst family and culture and religion wherein women are accepted and pre-determinedly relegated to second class citizenship; this is not a world where, at the same time, men experience anything close to that – not even close, although yes, men of color sure do know what the sting of living as less than in the ‘land of equality for all’ feels like.
I deliberately identified that misogynist on line as a male for a reason, because women also embrace the unholy mess of our misogynistic culture. Why? Because it’s fucking hard and demoralizing and exhausting to be a feminist, to fight the daily barrage of bullshit and slights and unconscious biases, including and perhaps especially within ourselves. Because they benefit from not having to fucking think or do anything about it. Because life is hard enough already, plus – their husband/father/pastor told them so. Or they got hit, beaten, shunned, or ostracized for asking a question, once, twice, three times – or saw some other women experience the same, or worse.
Misandry simply does not exist, just like black racism against white peeps doesn’t exist – because it has no institutional traditional power, because it has no hold on our unconscious minds, on our behaviors, on our lives, cultures or dominant religions. Misandry is not real. Misogyny is, as is racism. Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely (Lord Acton). There is a reason why men, not women, kill their wives or exes and even at times their entire families, including small children; it’s the power, y’all, it’s the inability to see women and children as anything other than possessions, extensions of the all-powerful (and powerfully crippling) male ego, and when women say, nah, not playing anymore – the hate, the willingness to destroy, to dominate even to death, is white hot.
Misandry isn’t real, because if it were, I know like I know like I know that if women were killing FOUR men per day, every day as men are killing women in the U.S. (and goddess knows what the body count is in even worse, more repressive cultures), it’d be on the news nightly, we’d have a Presidential task force, and massive amounts of funding to study and fix the problem, as well as laws forbidding guns purchases by women, particularly those going through menopause (that’s an attempt at a joke, peeps).
Misogyny is real, and it harms all woman and all girls, even the ones who play along or are true believers. Misandry ain’t real. Not all men act on their misogyny, but all men benefit from the patriarchy. Yes, all men.
From writer LeAudra Lee Baker:
“Patriarchy is like a man, having his boot on a woman’s neck.
Feminism is a woman complaining about the boot.
Conservatives insist there wasn’t a problem with the boot being on the neck until the woman started talking about it. If she would just be quiet about the boot, there wouldn’t be a problem.
Male allies think there’s a way to talk about the boot being on the neck that appeals to everyone and doesn’t “alienate” those that would help remove the boot.
“Good Guys” insist that not all men wear boots.
Women with internalized misogyny insist they have a boot on their neck by choice and they love it!
They insist something is wrong with women complaining about the boot.
*who I admire and love for her wisdom, decency, intelligence, and leadership. This was her sub stack blog from 11/7, and, quite frankly, it made me weep, but then, a lot of things are making me weep lately. Don’t ever tell me that voting and politics ‘don’t matter’, just don’t.
oday the Trump family posed for a post-election photo. Missing from the group was former first lady Melania Trump. Joining the family was billionaire Elon Musk, who supported Trump’s campaign both through his ownership of X, formerly Twitter, and then with $132 million in cash and with apparent giveaways to get voters to give the campaign personal information.
As an immigrant from South Africa, Musk is barred from the presidency himself by the U.S. Constitution, which requires that a president be born in the U.S. (out of the Framers’ concern that a foreign country could put a puppet in the presidency). But he is now very close to Trump and stands to gain significantly from a Trump presidency, both through deregulation and government contracts, and through Trump’s planned tariffs on Chinese imports that will enable Musk to monopolize the electric vehicle market in the U.S. Musk also would like a victory in the culture wars; he is strongly opposed to transgender rights.
After the election results came out, Musk posted on X, “Novus Ordo Seclorum,” Latin for “New World Order.”
At Trump’s election party, Trump said: “We have a new star: Elon. He is an amazing guy. We were sitting together tonight—you know he spent two weeks in Philadelphia and different parts of Pennsylvania campaigning? He’s a character, he’s a special guy. He’s a super-genius, and we have to protect our geniuses, we don’t have that many of them. We have to protect our super-geniuses.”
Trump’s new closeness with Musk presents an issue for the Republican Party. The president-elect is 78 and has shown signs of mental and physical deterioration, making it possible that someone will need to take his place at some point in the next four years.
The vice president–elect, current Ohio senator J.D. Vance, who is backed by billionaire Peter Thiel, is constitutionally the next in line for the presidency, but neither Musk nor Vance has Trump’s popular support, making it unclear who will take over the leadership of the party if such a takeover is necessary. Whether either can command Trump’s supporters is also unclear.
What is clear is that neither of them has much experience in elected office. Vance was elected senator just two years ago, and Musk comes from the business world.
There is another, major problem for the party, as well: Trump won the election in part by promising everything to everyone, but the actual policies of the MAGA party are unpopular, even with many Republican voters.
Notably, Trump has said he will appoint Musk to head a new government efficiency commission, and Musk has vowed to cut “at least $2 trillion” from the federal budget. Such cuts would decimate government services, including food programs and Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. Supplemental nutrition programs disproportionately benefit rural areas, and Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid are used much more heavily in counties that support Trump than those that don’t.
That will be a hard circle to square.
So will Trump’s promise to lower consumer costs while also putting tariffs of 10% to 20% on all foreign imports and of 60% on imports from China. Tariffs are borne by consumers, so by definition they will drive prices up. These two promises cannot be reconciled.
Trump has promised mass deportations, and much of his base is fervently behind them. The Republican National Committee even had signs saying “MASS DEPORTATION NOW” made up for attendees to wave at the party’s convention.
Priscilla Alvarez and Alayna Treene of CNN reported today that Trump’s allies have been preparing for mass detentions and deportations of undocumented immigrants, and the stock prices of private prison companies GEO Group and CoreCivic have soared since Trump’s election. Steven T. Dennis of Bloombergreported that on an earnings call today, GEO chief executive officer Brian Evans told investors that filling currently empty beds could bring in $400 million a year and that the company can scale up its current surveillance, monitoring, and transportation programs to handle millions of immigrants. “This is to us an unprecedented opportunity,” he said.
But deporting up to 20 million people will be a logistical nightmare and is projected to cost from $88 billion to $315 billion a year. At the same time, much of the U.S. economy depends on undocumented immigrants, and Republican businessmen will certainly object to losing their workers.
Tom Homan, who served as acting director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement under Trump in his first term, backed away from some of the extremes of Trump’s immigration policy when he told CBS last month: “It’s not gonna be—a mass sweep of neighborhoods. It’s not gonna be building concentration camps. I’ve read it all. It’s ridiculous…. They’ll be targeted arrests. We’ll know who we’re going to arrest, where we’re most likely to find ‘em based on numerous, you know, investigative processes.”
Meanwhile, Democratic state lawmakers have been preparing for a potential Trump administration for more than a year, and some are putting down public markers that they will not cooperate with the extreme policies of the Trump administration.
Trump vowed to begin his mass deportation plan in Aurora, Colorado, where he maintained—contrary to the statements of local Republican officials—that Venezuelan gangs had taken over the city. Aurora is a suburb of Denver, and yesterday the mayor of Denver, Mike Johnston, told a reporter he would not cooperate with requests that are “immoral or unethical or unfair.”
California governor Gavin Newsom called an emergency session of the California state legislature to convene on December 2, “to help bolster our legal resources and protect our state against any unlawful actions by the incoming Trump Administration.” It will focus on funding lawsuits against any actions that impact civil liberties, reproductive rights, protection for immigrants, and climate initiatives. Newsom said the California lawmakers “will seek to work with the incoming president—but let there be no mistake, we intend to stand with states across our nation to defend our Constitution and uphold the rule of law.”
California has the fifth largest economy in the world, and its population of 39 million people is more than four times the 9.59 million people in Hungary, the country from which MAGA Republicans are taking much of their ideological vision.
Illinois governor J.B. Pritzker, who has been called a “happy warrior,” held a press conference today, telling reporters that he will continue working to keep Illinois “a place of stability and competent governance” and vowing to protect the people of his state no matter what the new administration does. “To anyone who intends to come take away the freedom and opportunity and dignity of Illinoisans: I would remind you that a happy warrior is still a warrior,” he said. “You come for my people, you come through me.”
Trump has made it clear he intends to have a say in the decisions of the Federal Reserve, which manages interest rates, and during his first term he frequently attacked Fed chair Jerome Powell, whom he appointed, for not lowering rates to boost the economy. Trump’s advisors have suggested the president can gain power over the nation’s finances by removing members of the Fed in his next term.
Today, when reporters asked Powell if he would resign before Trump takes office, he said no. When asked if Trump could fire or demote him or the other Fed governors, Powell was firm: “Not permitted under the law.”
