[Magdalen] Now Keillor.

Thu Nov 30 18:16:14 UTC 2017

It is interesting that in the case of men in positions of some power, the
exploitation of women "just because" was a sort of hobby. Bill Clinton said
the reason for Monica Lewinsky was "because I could."

It was a given up until just a short time ago (and still is a given in a
lot of arenas, I suppose) that men can routinely do stuff to act out the
fact that they are totally in control over any female under them, and can
do whatever they want with them. The females are still seen as objects. But
of course, objects that also happen to be sentient have to be kept in line,
and those actions served to keep most of the flock in line.

I am reminded of the case of FDR. He had some kind of relationship with a
secretary, and Eleanor got him to swear never to see her again, and at the
same time, it seems to have ended their marriage in all senses but name
only.  FDR had ongoing relationships with several women throughout his
life. I understand that he was simultaneously making arrangements with two
(2!) women that after he left office he would quietly separate from Eleanor
and they would live together ever after.

One of these was Miss "Daisy" Margaret Suckley, who became a friend before
FDR was president. She was also from aristocratic stock, and gifted the
famous dog Fala to the President. She and three other women were with FDR
in Warm Springs when he suffered his fatal stroke. She lived at the family
estate, "Wilderstein," in Rhinebeck, just north of Hyde Park, and she died
there at the age of 99. My wife is a librarian and archivist, and is
friends with one of the archivists at Wilderstein, who was straightening
things out after Miss Daisy had passed away, and they noticed a box under
Miss Daisy's bed. It turned out that in that box were a treasure trove of
letters. There were a lot of letters from FDR in which these matters were
spelled out.  The letters were sold, and an editor published selections
from them as the book, _Closest Companion_, which pretty much demonstrates
that these things were going on.

Stories of affairs are all over the place, and it seems that the country
has decided the simple way of dealing with this double standard in our
leaders is to let sleeping dogs lie. The trouble with that is that people
grow up assuming that Washington, Eisenhower, Kennedy and Roosevelt were
our fine leaders, and there is little said about their affairs. Thus it
seems that today when someone has a zipper problem, the attitude is that
it's something new, which is just not true. It used to be that a gentleman
had his wife and his mistress, or perhaps several sometime mistresses.

I don't know what ought to be done about this, except that probably one
thing would be to face the fact that these affairs were at one time the
rule rather than the exception, and we need to work out a way of being
realistic with our past history without throwing it all in the trashbin.
For instance, George Washington was a very happily married man who also had
affairs and who also had slaves, and who also set the pattern for so very
much that is good and just and honorable about the office of the President.
He wasn't blameless, and we should recognize his virtues and his faults
equally, not trying to stereotype him into some myth.

Surely the same can be said for Eisenhower, Kennedy and Clinton.

"You mean to say that those horrible things are somehow okay because a
president did them?" I think we should cut it out with saying whether
something is "okay" with us, since we don't get to judge anyway, don't even
begin to have the full story, and saying something is okay is really
pointless, since this is all history now. We can look dispassionately at
it, fully recognizing the good the person did, absent all those "Yes,
but--"s, and also looking at the harm they did without flinching too.  We
have a unique opportunity in Monica Lewinsky to examine the after effects
of this. Washington is so far removed it is next to impossible to get
anything beyond innuendo and rumor, but here we have the opportunity of
taking a real lesson from the woman involved. My understanding is that she
feels it has essentially ruined her life, which, without arguing up or
down, I think ought to get more than some pulp journalist's casual
sensational examination.

The Diocese of New York is making 2018 the year of lamentation, planning a
series of events designed to explore slavery and New York's contribution
(if that's the right word) to it. Such examination might be some steps
toward finally beginning to deal with the after effects of slavery,
enabling us to get on to the subject of reparations and healing. The
following article, written by the rector of my current parish is an
explanation of some of the ideas involved.

http://www.evergreeneditions.com/publication/?i=427324&article_id=2844782&view=articleBrowser&ver=html5#{
"issue_id":427324,"view":"articleBrowser","article_id":"2844782"}

or, if that engulfs your browser:
https://tinyurl.com/ya3q4xza

Also:
https://ednyreparationsblog.wordpress.com/author/ednyreparations/

James W. Oppenheimer-Crawford
*“A life is like a garden. Perfect moments can be had, but not preserved,
except in memory. LLAP**”  -- *Leonard Nimoy

On Wed, Nov 29, 2017 at 12:48 PM, M J _Mike_ Logsdon <mjl at ix.netcom.com>
wrote:

> http://enews.earthlink.net/article/top?guid=20171129/
> a9fa334b-db15-4f70-9238-0a617872feb6
>
> The world is upsidedown.  I'm sure that right now it needs to be that
> way.  But I'm frankly getting dizzy.
>
> M J (Mike) Logsdon.
>
> "Aaugh[.]" -- Charles Brown.
> "Avoid dull needles and use a soft cloth." -- E Kovacs.
>