LILA RAJIVA: The Mind-Body Politic
Individuals Not Ideologies
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“Safe” School Czar’s X-Rated Recommended Reading For Children
Update: Citizen Link blog notes that Kevin Jennings will be given an additional $45 million for his budget in 2011, bringing the money under his management to $410 million.
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I missed this interesting story at the end of last year, from Gateway Pundit. Strange that child abuse/pedophilia and its promotion is a big story for the press when it’s related to the Catholic church or Republican politicians (and it should be), but a non-story at other times. I wonder why.
The story was apparently picked up by a Bulgarian site, but, according to Michelle Malkin (no favorite of mine) and Dana Loesch at Big Government,, here in the US it’s still one of the most under-reported stories of 2009:Posted by Jim Hoft on Thursday, December 17, 2009, 6:12 AM
(Big Warning on Content)“Butch Dad” Day Or Are Atlantic Writers Necessary?
“A perfectly brain dead piece in The Atlantic, called “Are Fathers Necessary,” published, (in)appropriately enough, around Father’s Day:
“Dads, we tell our husbands, are essential influences on children, the source of unique benefits. There’s only one problem: none of this is proven.
Jamie Dimon Weighs In On “Too Hot” Former Citi Employee?
Update:
The case gets stranger. Lorenzana was on a 2003 TV serial, giggling about breast implant surgery she’d had. Knowing that, would any lawyer have framed her case the way it was? Of course, this doesn’t mean she wasn’t the target of harassment. The surgery itself says nothing. It’s commonplace. Do men who take viagra or steroids lose their civil rights? No. And a competent corporate lawyer would, of course, make it the first order of business to establish that the plaintiff in a harassment suit was a slut and “asking for it.” That’s quite usual. But I remain suspicious why this story, like the Helen Thomas story, has suddenly become so prominent….Maybe to create a little sympathy for the banks? Take the focus off the Gaza flotilla? (more…)
Ex-CIA Station Chief Admits Drugging & Molesting Algerian Woman
And all in the name of “intelligence” the tax-payer has to support this huge bureaucracy of underemployed, over-sexed meddlers..
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A former CIA station chief in Algeria pleaded guilty on Monday to sex abuse stemming from a 2008 incident in Algiers and to cocaine use, the U.S. Justice Department said.
Citigroup Fires Banker For Being Too Hot
Update:
Ms. Lorenzana apparently had some pictures of herself on facebook…Doesn’t sound so professional…
And Citi seems to be claiming that her allegations are false. The ostensible reason for her firing is that she was incompetent - behind on sales.
So let’s wait for more information…
Harvard Undergrad & Perlman Student, Intern Beats Wall Street Whizzes
Update (March 30):
If anyone claims that looking at gender and the way it inflects culture is inherently collectivist, I’d say they need to define collectivism more accurately. The way libertarians define it now, it’s more a term of abuse than a credible unit of analysis, unless it’s qualified pretty heavily.
There is a body of evidence that males are over-represented in highly aggressive behaviors of certain kinds. That isn’t an argument that men are “less moral” or that women are “more moral.” Not at all. For instance, women predominate in certain other kinds of crimes. In studies of child-killing/infanticide, women killers are often represented more heavily when considering certain age groups. Why? Perhaps because children are weaker than women physically and because women spend more time around them and usually have primary care of them. On the other hand, there are fewer female serial killers than male.
The richest financiers in the world are males. That’s a fact. Males are heavily over-represented in the financial industry and it’s a very male-dominated culture. There are complex reasons for that.
But they’re irrelevant to this post.
Do women benefit from welfare-state programs and set-asides and does that affect voting patterns, consumer culture, tax policy, and welfare policy? I’d say, with some caveats, probably yes.
[But conversely, men might benefit from crony capitalism on Wall Street and defense boondoggles, and indirectly, through set-asides from women that benefits families].
But, again, that doesn’t have much to do with this post…
For all I know, some of these financiers were pushed into reckless behavior because their wives were shopaholics or suing them for everything they had.
But, once again, that’s not this post.
So, this isn’t gender bigotry. It’s simply one way of looking at the influence of our own collectivist tendencies (masculinity as it’s constructed, as well as masculinity as a biological reality) on Wall Street culture.
Original Post
Deal Journal tracks down another outsider who spotted Wall Street’s corrupt practices ahead of the pros. Turns out she’s a woman too. There’s something about estrogen that doesn’t lend itself to mega financial swindles. We’re waiting for the Harvard thesis on the gender behind Wall Street’s agenda.
I hate to come to this conclusion, but a lot of the hot-air, recklessness, ego, hype, aggression, and cut-throat competition really does sound like the product of a culture that conflates masculinity with viciousness and braggadocio. Paulson, Weill, Rubin, Dimon…no women in the top sharks. But when you look at whistle-blowers and expose writers, women stand out: Ann Williamson, Padma Desai (both on the Russian crisis) Lucy Komisar, Meredith Whitney, Janet Tavakoli….
“Deal Journal has yet to read “The Big Short,” Michael Lewis’s yarn on the financial crisis that hit stores today. We did, however, read his acknowledgments, where Lewis praises “A.K. Barnett-Hart, a Harvard undergraduate who had just written a thesis about the market for subprime mortgage-backed CDOs that remains more interesting than any single piece of Wall Street research on the subject.”
“Barnett-Hart’s interest in CDOs stemmed from a summer job at an investment bank in the summer of 2008 between junior and senior years. During a rotation on the mortgage securitization desk, she noticed everyone was in a complete panic. “These CDOs had contaminated everything,” she said. “The stock market was collapsing and these securities were affecting the broader economy. At that moment I became obsessed and decided I wanted to write about the financial crisis.”
Back at Harvard, against the backdrop of the financial system’s near-total collapse, Barnett-Hart approached professors with an idea of writing a thesis about CDOs and their role in the crisis. “Everyone discouraged me because they said I’d never be able to find the data,” she said. “I was urged to do something more narrow, more focused, more knowable. That made me more determined.”
She emailed scores of Harvard alumni. One pointed her toward LehmanLive, a comprehensive database on CDOs. She received scores of other data leads. She began putting together charts and visuals, holding off on analysis until she began to see patterns–how Merrill Lynch and Citigroup were the top originators, how collateral became heavily concentrated in subprime mortgages and other CDOs, how the credit ratings procedures were flawed, etc.
“If you just randomly start regressing everything, you can end up doing an unlimited amount of regressions,” she said, rolling her eyes. She says nearly all the work was in the research; once completed, she jammed out the paper in a couple of weeks.”
More here about the young lady whose research probably played a big part in Michael Lewis’ new book, “The Big Short.”
[At least, Lewis acknowledged the research. That puts him several rungs above most celebrity authors].
Meanwhile, I really like that a violinist was involved in this. My own father was a very gifted amateur violinist and Perlman, Zukerman, Oistrakh, Elman, Kreisler, Menuhin and many others defined my childhood.
Perhaps a lifetime of being immersed in real virtuosity and creativity left Barnett-Hart immune to the glamor of the phony maestros of Wall Street …
The Culture of “Da Boyz”
In a piece on Pamela Martens, the former Wall Street whistle blower, who last year unearthed the black box of Markit, as well as the Primex dark pool, Stephen Metcalf discloses the culture of “da boyz.”
Whistle-blower´s Grim Tale, Stephen Metcalf, The Observer, December 1, 2002
“The secret to Wall Street’s systemic chauvinism is simple: The Street is insulated against litigation and bad publicity. All employees at the major investment banks must sign a mandatory arbitration clause, effectively giving away their right to sue their employer. Claims are adjudicated in what amounts to an industry-controlled private justice system, by arbitration panels staffed overwhelmingly by white males in their 50’s and 60’s. In mandatory arbitration, no depositions are made public, and awards have ironclad gag provisions. So Wall Street can continue to smile, and smile, and be a villain. One anecdote in particular conveys the full horror of the situation. When two female Smith Barney employees complained of strikingly similar episodes involving a male co-worker, in which the man forced himself on them physically, the firm waited four years before conducting a hearing. “A week before the hearing,” Ms. Antilla writes, Smith Barney “forced the two women to undergo examinations by a psychiatrist of the brokerage firm’s choosing.” One of the women was subjected to a Gulag-quality interrogation. The grilling included “questions about her sex life, the opening of her gynecological records, and queries about her menstrual periods, her marital counseling, and her divorce. The psychiatrist even had copies of her therapy records.” The woman finally broke down when the psychiatrist asked her to recite in reverse order the names of the U.S. Presidents.”
Mencken On Fighting a Woman
“Any man who is so unfortunate as to have a serious controversy with a woman, say in the departments of finance, theology or amour, must inevitably carry away from it a sense of having passed through a dangerous and almost gruesome experience.”
- H. L . Mencken (hat-tip to Lew Rockwell)
Duvall ‘Fesses Up To Bark, Not Bite
Now Mike Duvall admits to “inappropriate story-telling” but denies having had an affair with either of the two lobbyists. That denial is seconded by Ms. Barsuglia. The man to whom he told the story now denies hearing it. He wasn’t paying attention, he says. Duvall talks a lot.
We were wondering ourselves…..
If the denials are accurate, it looks like Ms. Barsuglia and her family might have a case for defamation.
We’re all agog.
And we have another question: Just what level of IQ does it take to be a California assemblyman?
We’re all agog about that too.
Many’s the time we’ve seen a female employee slandered for no more than being more personable and competent than the males around her. Her career is then almost sure to be attributed to her sexual wiles.
If Duvall is any indication, there seem to be married men whose rich imaginations don’t come equipped with the ethical compass that tells them that dragging your associates into your adolescent fantasies does irreparable damage to their professional credibility and personal reputation.
If the denials hold water, Ms. Barsuglia should be paid substantially for the damage done to her career and her family’s sensibilities.
Of course, the denials may not hold water.
Ross Douthat on Sarah Palin
Ross Douthat on what to expect if you’re a female candidate for office:
Male commentators will attack you for parading your children. Female commentators will attack you for not staying home with them. You’ll be sneered at for how you talk and how many colleges you attended. You’ll endure gibes about your “slutty” looks and your “white trash concupiscence,” while a prominent female academic declares that your “greatest hypocrisy” is the “pretense” that you’re a woman. And eight months after the election, the professionals who pressed you into the service of a gimmicky, dreary, idea-free campaign will still be blaming you for their defeat.
All of this had something to do with ordinary partisan politics. But it had everything to do with Palin’s gender and her social class.
Sarah Palin is beloved by millions because her rise suggested, however temporarily, that the old American aphorism about how anyone can grow up to be president might actually be true.But her unhappy sojourn on the national stage has had a different moral: Don’t even think about it. “
“Me and Mrs. Palin” - Vanity Unfair’s Low-Class Smear Job
The whole piece is posted at Lew Rockwell.
As I said, I’ve never been a fan of Sarah Palin as vice-president. It was apparent to me from the beginning that she was unqualified. But the fault in picking her was not hers but McCain’s. It was an opportunistic and silly choice, given the economic challenges the country was facing, and in my opinion it called into question McCain’s own temperament. But that said, vilifying the woman at every turn is pointless, ugly, and calls into question the motivations of her critics.
To take the example of a non-white woman who I believe is as unqualified and as polarizing, would people talk about Maxine Waters in the same way? I think not. And I hope not.
Then let’s extend the same courtesy to all candidates, regardless of their political affiliation or religion or race or class.
(Note: I’ve criticized attacks on Hillary Clinton on the same grounds on this blog).
Thought Control and the Sex Police
The media these days has an unhealthy and strange preoccupation with the sex lives of politicians and “public figures”… especially when they’re adulterous.
All this, despite journalists’ protests that they’re interested in “privacy”…
The issue becomes doubly important because of the role sexual blackmail…or worse yet, sexual libel.… plays and has played in controlling political mavericks, reformers, or even whistle-blowers, whether in government or elsewhere.
I call it strange, because modernity is supposed to have removed itself so far from oppressive mores and bourgeois conventions….and yet in most commentary on the subject, one finds nothing more than the same hideous cliches - about guilt, predation, sex-pots, cheating, and high drama….
In point of fact, most spouses wander (or more accurately, cultivate fantasies of wandering) because of lack of emotional connection in their marriage.That’s clear from Mark Sanford’s tepid (yawn) revelations..
Now, as a good Tory-Bohemian, I find myself often on both sides of this issue.
On the one hand, the nostalgic popular imagery of It’s a Wonderful Life, and Father Knows Best…..
And, as a Christian - even an unorthodox one, the fact that one is supposed to admire the impossible standard set in the Sermon On the Mount…
A standard that no normal human could follow to the letter..
A standard that perhaps no normal human should follow to the letter.
[I wonder if that was the point Jesus was trying to make?]Yet, while no one casts stones at anyone for not giving away all his belongings, or for failing to keep the sabbath, or for slandering or lying, or for fraudulent business practices, strange that even the most benign friendship should bring out the sex police.
(As an example, think of McCain’s supposed affair with a lobbyist - an affair both of them denied and for which no proof existed beyond the media’s fervent desire for a little dirt…and mind you, if one were to be precise, it was McCain’s marriage itself that was grounded in adultery…Cindy being a former ‘other woman’).
Stranger yet, the sex police these days are usually so-called leftists and liberals.
Their modus operandi would have made the gestapo proud…If there’s anything calculated to keep women out of public life, it’s this intensely misogynistic and pornographic scrutiny. If you don’t think that’s what all this is, why haven’t we been treated to sexualized nudes of, say, George Bush, as we have of Hillary?
Why wasn’t Ralph Nader lynched by the media mob in the same way as Cindy Sheehan?
So my sympathies are with scarlet women (and men), then and now, paraded up and down while the public stones them symbolically. Even Eliot Spitzer has my sympathy. The man after all did try to cordon off his extramarital life from his wife and children. He had that much concern for them. It was the guardians of public morality who had none.
I admit it. When there’s a stoning, I’ll take the side of Hester Prynne and Anna K.
I prefer Tolstoi’s intelligent, ambitious, restless, sexual, and deeply moral adulteress, to either her vain, shallow lover or her wooden, hypocritical husband….or even to her brother’s long-suffering wife, the plaintive, babied-out Dolly - so aptly named.
Tolstoi, being a man, could give Anna no credit for anything except beauty or sexuality, but the fact is, you read the novel for her. ..and not for Dolly, or for Levin, or for Karenin, or for Vronsky. She’s worth them all.
The other woman…..
Who’s to say how much this unspeakable she profited countless miserable marriages, neutered husbands, and pathetic, damaged children…by taking up the slack (physical or emotional) of the immoral “business arrangement,” by which I loan you my body to make babies and play with, and in return you fork over 50% or more of everything you make, or will ever make, while we endlessly bait, hurt, rob, insult, control, extort, blackmail, bore, manipulate, wound, sue, demean, abuse, and torture each other verbally, emotionally, and physically….all in the name of holy matrimony.
What a fraud….
And that’s how many children are raised today. Any wonder they became traumatized adults, easily manipulated by propaganda?
Where would respectable Victorian marriage have been without the brothel, asked Shaw..
And where would the nuclear family be without countless other women, whether they were only friends, sisters, neighbors, and “office wives,” or whether they crossed the boundary into a physical relationship?
Thank God for other women….and for other men.
It takes a village to raise a married couple…..
We all have an image of the other woman in our heads: the calculating predator who moves in on happily coupled men. The cloistered, diamond-draped mistress. The office sexpot who’s always just a little too close to your guy at his holiday party. She’s a staple of novels, movies, tabloids, even history books - from the restless Emma in Madame Bovary to Fatal Attraction’s bunny boiler to, most recently, Eliot Spitzer’s hotel call girl. And if you’ve never seen it, go YouTube the legendary clip of Marilyn Monroe purring “Happy Birthday, Mr. President” to her rumored lover, J.F.K. That’s the other woman as we usually imagine her.
More at Glamour, via Truth to Power blog.
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