make a new plan

 People discussing the election on the New York Times site:

" "    One lesson I take from this election is that it's a really good idea to pick your party's candidate in a competitive process.  

One has to look back on the 2016 Republican primary contest as a remarkably successful exercise in figuring out what voters wanted.  

        Democrats, by contrast, cleared the way for Biden to run for a second term and, when that became impossible, they cleared the way for his vice president to run in his place.  

Maybe next time, they should try asking voters what they want.

" "    Hate makes Trump's story appealing.  

In general, stories that appeal to our people's worst selves play well.  

        But so do stories that appeal to our best selves.  We haven't seen Democrats try to tell that kind of story - a "We can be a great, generous, kind nation" type of story.  

Instead, they traffic in some version of "Things are fine the way they are," when that is just not what most people feel.

" "    I have spent my career covering places with really existential problems like hunger extreme poverty, uncontrolled disease, civil war.  

I think Americans are suffering from problems that are primarily psychological rather than material.  

That does not make them less real.  

If anything, it makes them even more powerful and more resistant to material solutions.

-------------------------------------------------------

        I want to play this song to mark the 2024 presidential election:

Paul Simon - 50 Ways to Leave Your Lover (Official Audio)

uploader / channel:  Paul Simon

(OK baby, hit it!)

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poison elegance

 

I went on You Tube to listen to some videos and see what other people think of Martha, the documentary about Martha Stewart.

One guy was talking about her shows and her style and it sounded like he said "poison elegance" but that was an Enunciation Malfunction:  he was saying "poise and elegance."   

        Why do some people get mad at Martha Stewart?  I can remember sitting at a table for supper during a convention in the late '90s, and the subject of Martha S. came up for some reason - several women just erupted in anger.

LOL - I was a little scared!

"You can't do all that!"

 "Regular people don't have the money or the time to do all that stuff perfectly!"

"She just has servants and employees to do everything and then she talks and poses for pictures!" 

"Rahr rahr rahr!"

"Aaaaauuuuggghhhh!"

        This topic was addressed in the documentary - someone said the impression some people come away with is that Martha Stewart is doing things with her home and yard and lifestyle that theoretically we could all be doing, and then some people get really aggravated, feeling like they should be doing "all those things" as well, and as beautifully, as Martha is doing them, but - they aren't.

        And then they feel "less than."

        And that makes them mad.

Early in the film she talks about her time during the 1960s working as a stockbroker on Wall Street.  She says, "That's where I learned how to behave around billionaires."

        She didn't elaborate, so I was left wondering:  how should one behave around billionaires, and why and in what way is it different from the way one behaves around anyone else...?

But see, that fits in with Martha's philosophy and way of looking at the world:  that there's - "a right way and a wrong way," as the saying goes, and she wants to study that, and interpret it, and discuss it and demonstrate it for her audience.  She says she's "a teacher."

        Even earlier in the documentary, before the stockbroker part, Martha's modeling career is covered - she did that when she was a teenager in high school.  

(The filmmakers put in some music at this point - some kind of bouncy, sassy pop-type-1950s song, it reminded me so much of some of the music used in the Hugh Hefner documentary, American Playboy, on Amazon Prime.)

Another point that reminded me of the Hefner film was when Martha got charged with insider trading and her lawyers advised her to not speak in public about it.  She felt it was not a good strategy because then other people set the narrative about her.

        Hugh Hefner said the same thing about a situation he had in the '70s where one of his employees was charged with transporting illegal drugs.  He said he never spoke out because of advice he received, and he felt afterwards it was a bad decision.

When Martha Kostyra got married to Andy Stewart in 1961, they took a five-month honeymoon in Europe.

(Five months?  That what it says.)

It sounded like the European experience was transformative for Martha.  Absorbing the culture, she said, "This is what I would like to spend my life thinking about."

        This aspect reminded me of Jacqueline Bouvier's Parisian experience - it kind of "re-set her dial" in some kind of way.

Snoop Dogg; Martha Stewart

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a good thing

 

        There's a documentary about Martha Stewart on Netflix.  It's called Martha.  (When I saw the title, I thought it was going to be about Martha Mitchell.)

This film says Martha Stewart was "the original influencer."

It says, "American women needed to be re-directed from opening cans of cream-of-mushroom soup and pouring it on top of broccoli and boiled chicken."

        (What?  That's wrong?  It sounds good, to me.  I'd eat it. ...)

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could it be our boy's done - something rash?

 

Go on You Tube and listen to Bobby Darin's rendition of the song, "Mack The Knife."

That song is such a mood.

It starts out with one level of energy and then builds to another level of energy.

The drama is built into the arrangement.

        "The line forms on the right, babe!"...

video title:

Mack the Knife

uploader / channel:  Bobby Darin

        I love at 2:04 how he goes, "Hup! - Hup!"

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that debonair charm

 I have heard in various videos that people in jail use a lot of "charm" on the guards to try and manipulate them.

In the Casey White - Vicky White jailbreak situation, commenters say he charmed and manipulated her to get her to help him escape, which she did.

Videos on You Tube that explain narcissism say the narcissist will use charm on their targets, to get them "sucked into" their influence.

One psychologist said she actively puts a mental barrier between herself and anyone who gives her a compliment because she figures they are trying to charm her and control her.

        I don't know - I thought that might be a bit much.  Some people are giving a sincere compliment.

People who are charming and have charisma can be a good person, or a bad person.  The problem in our perception is, if they are charming to us we automatically assume too much goodness and positivity - kind of the opposite extreme from that one psychologist's viewpoint....

I read somewhere that when President Kennedy met with Russian leader Nikita Khrushchev (the taking-off-his-shoe-and-hitting-the-table-with-it-at-the-U.N. guy) in Vienna, their conversation didn't go as well as hoped because Khrushchev was oblivious to Kennedy's charm.  

One account said JFK was not accustomed to having his gentle friendliness (or, "charm") rebuffed - or, resisted.

('Da Kroosh be not havin' it'...)

One commenter at the time said Nikita Khrushchev was essentially a peasant, barely civilized. ...

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what was your dream?

 In that "Jailbreak" true story, the ending is not happy for Vicky White.  She never returned from that adventure - Casey White did return; he's in jail.

I don't think he wanted to escape as badly as she did.  Even though she wasn't in jail or any other place one would need to escape from.  But she wanted to escape something.  

        Before they made their break, she got rid of all her stuff - giving away big items to co-workers - and sold her house and moved back in with her parents.  At the age of 56.  See, she never intended to return from this runaway project.

Run-away, with a man who says you're his "queen," and he loves you.

My theory is, she had some type of clinical depression.  Low-key enough so that she was functioning, and it went undetected, undiagnosed, and untreated.

Three things she said got my attention and made me wonder.

They were said during the film, not all at the same time, but at different points.

- In a phone conversation with Mr. White, she said in a mildly sad, defeated tone:  "I hate Christmas."

- In another recorded phone conversation he asked her, What was your dream of what you would like to be, when you were young?  She answered that she "always wanted to be a stripper."  That's what I would have been "if I'd been pretty enough."

- In a conversation with a co-worker about retirement, Vicky said, "I'm gonna go out with a bang."

She had enough money, her own home, a retirement-pension thingamajig, however that works...  "Go out with a bang" - ?  Evidently she was not looking forward to retirement.

        freedom?

        flexibility in your schedule?

        relax, read, write as much as you want to?

        work on political campaigns?

                Retirement.  What's not to like?

But see, now I'm speaking for myself, not her.

There are people who do not have a great enthusiasm for life.

It isn't easy to understand.

        ...Well but then that's where the "depression" theory comes in, I guess....

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you know how much I love you

 The jailbreak thing from 2022 did not have a happy ending.

At the end of the film, the law enforcement guys who had worked with Vicky White said Casey White didn't "love" her, he was just sweet-talking her to get her to help him break out of jail.

        A guy who had been an inmate with Casey said he did love her.  

This man was a good storyteller, he made it sound real intense and - desperate, but in a pleasant way.  You know?  "Drama" that some people want to have.  

        It was as if he was writing his own romance novel.

When a car-wash owner in Indiana called police to let them know a vehicle had been left there that may have belonged to Casey and Vicky, some LE people arrived, observed reporters and cameras, and one detective asks the car-wash guy, "Why is the media here?"

He says, "Ah called 'em."

(LOL)

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