THE PAST AS PROLOGUE

So now we have ultra-right wing ideologue, hyper-partisan, perjurer, alcoholic and serial sexual abuser Brett Kavanaugh as an Associate Justice if the U. S. Supreme Court. He joins his fellow in many of those adjectives, Clarence Thomas, and Samuel Alito in creating an ultra-right wing of the Supreme Court. He joins Chief Justice John Roberts and Neil Gorsuch, right wing ideologues who pass for moderates in our pell mell descent into fascism, to form a solid majority of five to work the insidious program of overturning every bit of social progress made in the United States since 1901 at the least.

Some readers (I expect I have at least 2 and possibly as many as 3 or 4) may see an irony in my defense of Woody Allan contrasted with my condemnation of Brett Kavanaugh. That would be an extremely shallow assessment but let me deal with that from the start and let's allow that start to be a little parable I've been using for many years.

Two churches sit across the street from one another. One Sunday as the congregation is singing a hymn two different thieves sneak into the foyer of each church. The thieves rip the respective Poor Boxes off the wall and race down the street. The sextons of each church and some members of the congregation hear the thieves and give chase. They apprehend the perpetrators and drag them back to the church where they put them in front of the congregation.

The Republiscum thief, broken Poor Box still clutched in his greedy hands, breaks free of his restrainers, mounts to the pulpit and begins to justify himself by sermonizing. He flatly denies that he did the crime. He claims that he just found the Poor Box lying on the street where someone else must have dropped it. Then he argues that whether he stole it or not had he been allowed to get away with the cash he would have spent it thereby improving the economy of the neighborhood and creating jobs for bartenders, barmaids (he mentions that he drinks and likes beer), fences of stolen goods, hookers and other businesses that he frequents. He demands to know by what right the congregation members have laid hands on him when he is actually a benefactor of their society. As his diatribe ends he falls to his knees on the alter and claims to have accepted Jesus as his savior and that he is washed clean of his sins. He heads down the main aisle of the church still clutching the Poor Box. The congregants are so dumbstruck by the gall and effrontery of this thief that he manages to escape instead of being beaten to a pulp as he deserves.

Meanwhile the sexton and congregants of the church on the opposite side of the street have caught and returned to the church the Democrat thief. This thief acts a bit differently. He acknowledges that he's stolen the Poor Box out of his greed but he hands it back to the congregants. He admits his crime. He probably makes some excuses for being driven to it by forces beyond his control but he acknowledges his guilt. He offers to accept whatever punishment the congregants determine for him. He begs for their mercy and forgiveness then stands silent as the congregants consider what they should do. In the end, they turn him over to the police but several congregants appear at his trial and ask the court for mercy. The thief is convicted but given community service. His obligation to the court as his punishment is to work at the church. He has to repair the loose banister on the stairs to the choir loft. He washes dishes at every church supper for a year, even after his six-month sentence is up, and he becomes a trusted member of the congregation from which he never steals again.

So which would you prefer to have judging the validity of your Constitutional rights? The unrepentant Republiscum thief or the repentant Democrat thief. They are both thieves. There is no doubt about that. I would just prefer to have the thief who has a sense of shame and guilt sit in judgment over me than the self-righteous, unrepentant bastard who is still and always will remain a thief.

One case in point is the Supreme Court's extremely partisan decision that Federal Courts cannot intervene to make more fair and just Congressional Districts created to insure the supremacy of one political party over another. Let's leave aside for the moment that this issue arises because the Republiscum minority in the nation has managed to secure enough power in enough states to skew the membership of Congress toward their party despite it's support by a minority of voters. I'm leaving that aside because I am not so naif to believe that Democrats would be more fair and just given the same degree of power. Further, this is a problem of both party's making, especially the Democrats since they held majorities in Congress for many years during which they could have remedied the problem.

The underlying problem that exacerbates Gerrymandering on all sides and violates the U. S. Constitution is that the U. S. House of Representatives has not increased its membership since 1927. I have written at length about this matter before. Bear with me as I recap the problem. When out Constitution was written and adopted we opted for a bicameral legislative branch. The process at the Constitutional Convention in 1787 was called "The Connecticut Compromise". In that compromise we created a Senate (literally a chamber of elders) in which each state, large or small, had equal representation of two senators. We created a House of Representatives in which members were determined by population. Because the larger house of our Legislative Branch's membership was based on population we created a decennial census to determine the size of the nation's population (note that we counted all persons living in the United States, not just some subset of them) so that the U. S. House could be reapportioned to increase with the increasing population of the nation. Everything went along swimmingly for more than a century.

The Census of 1910 showed for the first time that more citizens lived in urban areas than rural ones. The Republiscum Party of the day refused to acknowledge that change but did reapportion based on the data. The 1920 Census, however, showed an even greater shift from a rural to an urban majority. The Republiscum of the day refused to reapportion based on that census. The U. S. House remained unchanged from 1910 until 1927 when the even more pronounced urban shift and Democratic gains in Congressional elections in 1926 forced a reapportionment for the elections of 1928. In 1927 the population of the nation, according to the Bureau of the Census was 119,035,000 and the U. S. House determined that there should be 435 members for the 1928 election pending the 1930 Census.

Sadly, in 1930 the Republiscum retained control of Congress and the White House so there was no change in the membership of the U. S. House. In 1940 Democrats controlled the Federal government but did not reapportion the House despite a population increase of more than 22,000,000 persons. Democrats controlled the White House in 1950 for that Census but Republiscum were resurgent in Congress and gain the House membership remained at 435. The net result has been that in every decade since we have retained 435 Congressional Districts although the population has now exceeded the 1927 level by 213,604,000 or very nearly 3 times what it was when the membership of the U. S. House was set at 435.

Democrats bear much blame in this mess. They have shied away from diluting the influence of rural state members by expanding the House membership. I would say that 93 years of violating the Constitution by holding U. S. House membership at 435 is a good 90 years too many. We need reform in the House now. I wish I could confidently say that a Democratic majority in both houses and a Democratic president would remedy the situation. Unfortunately, I can't for, as the great Will Rogers said, "I don't belong to any organized political party. I'm a Democrat."

That Chief Justice Roberts, and his four Republiscum ideologues could not see that a nearly 300% increase in the U. S. population with no increase in the number of seats in Congress was a clear violation of the Constitution is a wilful act of blindness and a partisan action. But, in fairness, that is not the question that they were asked to decide. They were asked to weigh in on Gerrymandering for partisan advantage which is rather a different issue. Because it is a different issue the Roberts Court Republiscum were justified in ignoring the issue.

So why do I bring up reapportionment in the discussion of Gerrymandering? Because if we had more Congressional Districts showing greater representation in urban areas we would not only be cleaving close to the letter and intention of the Constitution but smaller districts and more of them make Gerrymandering more difficult. The smaller and more compact districts don't eliminate the Gerrymandering problem, but creating a contiguous district that includes, say, 580,000 people is much easier and less likely to allow for bizarre, snakey districts that thread their way through towns and counties that lean toward one party or another than it is for a district of 770,000 people to do so.

A Supreme Court that is more committed to upholding our Constitution than it is to interpreting it for partisan gain might well have looked deeply into the Gerrymandering question and built on the "One Man; One Vote" decisions of the Warren Court by mandating a reapportionment based on the actual population.

I do not want to see a U. S. House of 1300 members. We have enough imbeciles and loonies like former Representative Michelle Bachmann or current Representative Louis Gohmert as it is. But the Constitution itself offers us a neat and responsible way of equitably reapportioning the U. S. House. According to the Constitution, every state, no matter how small its population, gets at least 1 representative. Currently 7 states have just 1 Congressional District. the smallest of them in population is Wyoming with 578,759 residents. Reapportionment based on Wyoming's population would give some of its neighbors, Montana, North and South Dakota, an additional Congressional District each and would give us a U. S. House of about 663 members.

And as a sidelight for those all distressed about the Electoral College, the change to 763 electors would make it harder for a minority party to cobble together 382 electors to take the White House. The Electoral College is not the problem, the lack of any increase in seats in the U. S. House is the problem skewing the Electoral College to rural states with relatively smaller populations.

Perhaps we can impeach the very impeachable Bret Kavanaugh but we cannot have another 4 years of our current Imbecile-in-Chief or any other Republiscum. Ruth Bader Ginsberg won't last that long, I fear, and a 6 to 3 Supreme Court majority could devastate the nation even more than this current mal-Administration already has.

Or, to stay with Will Rogers, I wish I were a member of an organized political party.

THE SCHISM METHOD

I was raised in the Methodist Church to which I attribute the atheism to which I have ascribed since I was 16 years old. Let me explain.

My maternal grandmother was a Methodist in the revivalist tradition of the late 19th Century. I suspect that her parents may well have been Methodists too though I have no knowledge of that either direct or indirect. That grandmother died several years before I was born so I never got any direct influence from her for good or ill. I do know that I have a paperback book of revivalist hymns that belonged to her. My mother, the middle daughter who was closest to my grandmother, was a confirmed Methodist who became very involved in her church. My mother was a great watcher of religious programs on television which is how I became acquainted with Bishop Fulton J. Sheen, Oral Roberts and every televised Billy Graham crusade. It is also how I acquired a subconscious association of religion and showmanship.

The church to which we belonged, a small but reliable congregation in the section of Waterbury, Connecticut near where we lived when I was very young, had two ministers up to the time when I was ten or eleven. The second of those was British. He was a silversmith, as I understand it, who underwent a conversion experience which led him to seminary and the ministry. I am not sure but that experience may have involved comforting a dying flyer whose plane crashed during World War I.

In any case, I was allowed into a Bible class taught by Rev. Reith generally reserved for high school age children by the time I was ten years old. By the time I was twelve I was teaching a Sunday School class of 1st and 2nd graders. At fourteen I was hired by a Protestant Ecumenical group to teach in a weekday religious school whose main attraction was early discharge from the public schools one day each week. Everyone in my congregation firmly believed that I was headed to seminary and would be ordained as a Methodist minister.

The core of my church's congregation was a group of extended and interconnected families who had been instrumental in founding the church in 1876. Though such a core is fine for tradition it is also ossified and tends to see the church as its proprietary business. As long as the old families remained unchallenged and secure in their proprietorship all was well but change was coming.

Rev. Reith's replacement was a young, energetic man who was deeply involved with the civil rights movement. He was appointed to serve both my church and another in what was fast becoming part of the African-American ghetto. This other church served a largely African-American population in what had once been a German and Polish immigrant ghetto. It was the neighborhood in which my Polish paternal grandmother lived. This other church was dying. Many of the African-American members were finding a more congenial home in the black led pentecostal churches. The diocese decided that it deserved a shot and preservation so Rev. Floyd was sent to give it a try. Had Rev. Floyd been African-American he might have succeeded in preserving the other congregation but my church would never have accepted a black man as minister. Our church was essential to paying Rev. Floyd's salary so the diocese sent a white man to do a black man's job with predictable consequences.

After a short couple of years Rev. Floyd was moved to a congregation in Bridgeport where he had a better chance and more success. His replacement had been a missionary in the Philippines. He had a Fillpino wife which the congregation found exotic but not like them. He was also frightfully insecure and easily intimidated by the entrenched members of the congregation.

That minister's tenure was very short indeed. He was replaced by Rev. Howley, his wife and a brood of three or four children, maybe more. Rev. Howley had been a Roman Catholic priest. He was taking a graduate course in theology or ancient languages (I forget which.) in which a fellow student was an attractive, young nun. They began conversing, going out for coffee after class and, to shorten this narrative, fell in love. The got released from their vows, married and began raising a "good, Catholic family" of many children. Not wanting his theological training to entirely go to waste, Rev. Howley converted to Methodism, was ordained a Methodist minister and was sent to Grace Church with a mandate from the Bishop to make the church more financially viable.

Revs. Reith, Floyd and Howley represent three worthies in my religious upbringing. Rev. Reith taught me the fundamentals of Methodism. Rev. Floyd introduced me to a church militant for social justice as well as saving souls. Rev. Howley was the first person to take me to the Metropolitan Museum in New York City which, though he was not involved in it any further than as chauffer, taught me the art and intellectual side of religion.

Rev. Howley's mandate to place Grace Church on a better financial footing ran him headlong into the entrenched families who used the church as their subsidizing landlord and piggy bank. He was there less than a year. When the beneficiaries of church largess finally drove him out of that church he said he was fed up with the ministry. I fully understood. I was heartbroken to see a bunch of selfish bastards drive him from my church and from the preaching of theology that he loved. His departure happened to coincide with my growing interest in the theatre and my reading of Isaac Asimov's original Foundation Trilogy. Those three concurrent events along with the ongoing insanity of the Vietnam War, the vile responses to the civil rights movement south and north alike and my own intellectual growth led me to reject all religion. In one far too glib formulation, I saw the entrenched families of my church acting selfish, vile and nasty to protect their prerogatives and decided that if they were, as they smugly felt themselves to be, on the short route to Heaven, Hell was going to be a pleasant picnic, Dante not withstanding.

I have never really given up on religion though. I cannot believe in the supernatural mumbo-jumbo of risen dead and demons from Hell or angels in white reclining on clouds somewhere above us. I can, however, believe in decency and humanity and their opposites, vileness and inhumanity. I've seen too much vileness and inhumanity from political leaders and neighbors alike just as I've seen plenty of decency and humanity from some other political leaders, friends, nuns, priests, Salvation Army Captains, ministers, rabbis and everyday people. I still think that Christianity is a wonderful religious philosophy and wish that more people practiced it. Certainly the Simoniacs like Jim Bakker, Creflo Dollar, Jerry Falwell father and son, Pat Robertson, James Dobson, Francis Chan and a host of televangelists and similar con artists do not. Those who clothe the naked, feed the hungry, give drink to the thirsty, visit those who are sick or in prison and generally see to the needs of fellow human beings who cannot provide for themselves are doing the good work that, god or no god, makes human life a little more heavenly and a little less hellish.

Today the site of Grace Methodist Church in the Waterville section of Waterbury, Connecticut is the location of a strip mall with a check cashing shop and other businesses catering to a more downscale population than existed in that neighborhood fifty years ago. Grace Church did not survive to celebrate its centennial in 1976 and, given the narrow  minded and narrow self-interest of the parishioners, I'm very glad of it.

Today a similar situation writ large envelops the United Methodist Church. A group of entrenched and bigoted "conservatives" has decided that who someone loves must exclude a person from the church generally and certainly from fulfilling sacramental offices. It has always seemed to me that the person who said "Suffer the little children to come unto me," who had no qualms about sitting down with the most reviled members of his society and who posed parables like "The Good Shepherd" and "The Good Samaritan" would be able to find it in his heart to embrace gay men and women or those who find their birth gender inconsistent with their own self-image, but that's just me. I'm terrible at finding limits and qualifications on the statement, "Love one another as I have loved you." Clearly others, including many self-styled "conservatives" feel that only those things of which they personally approve are consonant with the teachings of that good man, Jesus of Nazareth.

So the United Methodist Church has decided to try to split amicably. There will be a Methodist sect that embraces all comers, much as, we are told, did Jesus himself. There will also be a Methodist sect that embraces only those who live by its approved standards both in the church and in private life. The first Methodist sect will ordain gay and transgendered men and women, provide them with all the sacraments of the church including marriage and treat them as valued members of their Christian community. The other will exclude gay and transgendered men and women from all or some sacraments, refuse such folks the right to  marry within that church and treat them tacitly or overtly as pariahs who offend the narrow morals to which those "conservatives" adhere. To call this latter sect "Christian" is a step too far for me as I see nothing Christ-like in their bigotry.

Dostoevsky in The Brothers Karamazov relates a parable of The Old Woman and the Onion. It seems that a young woman, thrown out upon the road and the mercy of other people and the elements, is starving. She comes to the gate of an old woman, known for her viciousness, meanness and greed, asking for food. This old woman who has never done a good deed for anyone throughout her long life, digs in her trash pile and retrieves an onion, partly rotten and black with mold. She tosses it to the starving woman and says something on the order of "That's all you'll get from me. Now be off with you and be damned."

Time passes. The starving woman gets little additional sustenance and eventually dies of starvation. The old woman also dies, alone with no one to see to her funeral rites. The old woman is condemned to a lake of fire in hell for her inhumane life while the starved woman rises to heaven and is called before the throne of god. God makes an offer to this poor woman. He gives her that very onion that the old woman gave her and tells this starved soul that she may, if she wishes, descend into hell and use that very onion, the symbol of the only good deed done in the old woman's life, to rescue her benefactor from the lake of fire. The starved woman descends into hell and extends the onion to the old woman telling her of god's mercy toward her. The old woman latches onto the onion and the starved woman begins to pull the old woman from the lake of fire. As she's being pulled toward salvation the others condemned in hell see what's happening and they grab onto the old woman until every condemned soul in hell is being drawn toward heaven. The old woman, true to her nature, realizes that all the others are about to be saved by her one good deed and shouts, "It's MY onion!" In that moment the stem of the onion breaks and all those souls, including that of the old woman, fall back into the lake of fire and resume their eternal suffering.

In the formerly United Methodist Church one group has decided that salvation is for everyone while the "conservatives" led by Bishop Yambasu of Sierra Leone have decided that it's THEIR onion. We do not easily eliminate bigotry. I expect that Bishop Yambasu and his following will persist in their self-made lake of fire for a long time to come. I can only wish them the joy of it while their rejected fellow Methodists rejoice in the joy of their diverse fellowship. Amen.

BLACK LIKE THEE

Outrage is an easy emotional reaction. It feeds on our easiest emotion, anger, to which it is too close kin. It stems from all the wrongs done to us in the past but hasn't a lot to say about the present or the future. We are, unfortunately, in a time where our outrage is far too close to the surface. The very words "President Donald Trump" outrage me. Practically everything he, his cabinet and his supporters in Congress say and do is an outrage and much of it a violation of either the Constitution, our laws and/or our social norms. With the daily, if not hourly, beat of new outrages coming from our neo-Fascist Administration, Fox News, Info Wars and scum like Ann Coulter, Alex Jones, Lou Dobbs and Rush Limbaugh we are rubbed raw. Even thick skins have grown thinner with those of continually oppressed minorities like women, African-Americans and our LGBTQ brothers and sisters being the thinnest of all. That isn't a fault but rather a fact. The women exploited and raped, the African-Americans subject to hate, fear and ignorance at every turn to say nothing of the violence visited upon them and similar discrimination against those in the LGBTQ community have more than a right to be thin skinned and to respond with anger of their own to their treatment. However, that an angry response is understandable doesn't also make it inherently justified.

Let's look a little more coolly at the current mess engulfing the elected officials in Virginia as an apt example.

Democratic Governor Ralph Northam got himself into some hot water with the anti-abortion fanatics recently. I am not going to deal with that controversy here but it serves as the seed for what has followed. His support for abortion brought Northam to the notice of some right-wing fanatics who started scrounging around for something that could be used against Northam. What they found was a personal yearbook page from Northam's Medical School, Eastern Virginia Medical School, from 1984 with a photo of two people, one in blackface and the other in full Ku Klux Klan regalia.

As Trevor Noah pointed out on The Daily Show, were this a photo of an actual black person and an actual Klansman side-by-side, raising their drinks together at a party we would see it as a positive photo. It is not that. It is two white people trying to be funny and shocking while demonstrating only their cosmically great insensitivity.

Northam has not helped his case any either. First, he apologized for being one of the people in the photo. Then he apologized for the photo, claimed that he wasn't one of the people in the photo and claimed that he didn't know how it got onto his personal yearbook page. Then Northam, deepening the ineptitude, claimed that he thought that the person in blackface in the photo might have been him because he's worn blackface at around the same time when he'd impersonated Michael Jackson in a dance contest. Then to dig the hole for himself deeper, Northam's wife barely stopped him from moon walking in response to a reporter's question. I will acknowledge that Ralph Northam has dug this hole so deep that, if he can see over the rim at all, it's only on tiptoe.

The bad news for the militant right-wing extremists who want to bring down the Democrats currently in power in Virginia is that Northam's lieutenant governor can't be accused of wearing blackface because Justin Fairfax is black. Such a simple fact never stopped the right-wing fanatics before so they have defaulted to the strategy that proved effective in ridding them of Al Franken*. They found a couple of women to claim that Fairfax had sexually assaulted them at some point in the past. Let me backtrack slightly and say that the women's allegations may well be true but they require some very serious investigation before I will and many others should take them at face value. The women's allegations appear at a time that is a little too convenient for the Republiscum Party in Virginia and do not appear to have any prior history. Is it not a bit odd that these allegations did not surface in 2018 when Mr. Fairfax was running for lieutenant governor yet as soon as there is a possibility that he could succeed to the office of governor they appear?

The allegations against Fairfax and Northam bring into play the further constitutional offices that may fall in the line of succession. Thus Virginia Attorney General Mark Herring is forced to step into the spotlight as third in possible succession to the governorship and admit that he too once wore blackface at a party potentially disqualifying him for his current office let alone the office of governor. To Herring's credit, he got ahead of the right-wing fanatics and admitted this incident himself.

So who's next? If the three top elected Democrats in Virginia have to leave office we get down to Republiscum Speaker of the Virginia House, Kirk Cox. Speaker Cox, however, has his own problem since he was the editor of his yearbook at Virginia Military Institute and, mirabile dictu!, that yearbook is rife with blackface photos, racial epithets and other outright racist nastiness. Then again, wasn't this whole campaign against Northam, Fairfax and Herring designed to put a Republiscum in the governor's office?

Lost in all this recrimination and character assassination are some questions that the people outraged by Northam's, Fairfax's and Herring's past behavior should be asking: are these men racists or sexual predators? What are the motives of their accusers? Are they governing well or badly. Are they the kind of people today who would think and behave as Northam and Herring did some thirty-five years ago or as Fairfax is accused of doing fifteen years ago?

We used to have a concept called "consciousness raising". People who held awful, if traditional views, of African-Americans, women and members of the LGBTQ community, could question their beliefs, learn about the people for whom they held prejudicial attitudes and come to a higher consciousness that put aside those negative views and values emerging as better people. Today with our outrage rubbed raw by Trump and other neo-Fascists, by the murder of Trayvon Martin, Freddie Gray, Tamir Rice, Sandra Bland, Philando Castille, or Emantic Bradford, Jr., (this list is foreshortened but already 100,000 times too long), by neo-Nazis in Charlottesville and elsewhere, by inaction over gun violence generally and school shootings in particular, by rapists whose money, power or success in sports make them immune to prosecution certain offenses whose actuality may be questioned loom large, often larger than warranted.

The aphorism, "An eye for an eye leaves the whole world blind," is most often attributed to Mohandas K. Gandhi, the Mahatma. It implies that if we take revenge for each offense done to us then the whole world will soon be engulfed in tit-for-tat revenge that leaves everyone wounded and no one whole or satisfied. That aphorism might well be applied here. Is it not possible that people who were either of stupid or actually evil intent thirty five years ago may have grown and become wiser and allied to good over that time? If you are an African-American living in Virginia today whom would you believe might better respect your rights and treat you are a human being worthy of respect? Would that be Ralph Northam, Mark Herring or Kirk Cox or any other Republiscum? If you are a woman, who would better respect you as another equal human being and respect your right to choose what happens to your own body, Justin Fairfax or one of the Republiscum who want abortion outlawed when a fetal heartbeat can be detected?

I am not proposing that we ignore offense for some pragmatic advantage. I am suggesting that offenses of the past need to be viewed in the context of what has passed between the offense and the moment we are in now. If Ralph Northam wore blackface in the past and would wear it now, that's one thing. He has renounced it now and denounced it too. If the man has grown and become educated to the offense and distress that such behavior causes over the last thirty-five years I do not see why he must resign his office. That is equally true for Mark Herring. If a full and complete investigation of the charges against Justin Fairfax establish that he sexually assaulted his accusers then he doesn't belong in his office. If, on the other hand, his accusers are shills for some Republiscum fanatics then they should be exposed and Mr. Fairfax continue as lieutenant governor.

Finally, all this is taking place in Virginia amongst Virginians. Is it really so hard to believe that a white man in blackface was abnormal in any state of the old Confederacy yesterday let alone thirty-five years ago? That isn't an excuse but it sure provides context. Where would we expect to find consciousness raised less, less frequently and most recently than in the states of the old Confederacy? One would always expect that racism and its cousin, racial insensitivity, would be rife in the states that fought hardest for the evil of slavery. I don't give a pass to Northam or Herring because they are Virginians but rather I'm sure that it took longer for them to learn and grow out of racism than it did for many others.

I appreciate the source of the outrage. I understand how offensive these men have or may have been yet it is also true that their offenses were from a then that is now long past. If they are no longer the men they were many years ago that must count for something. The present man should be evaluated in relation to his past but the past must also be judged in relation to the present man.


* Some stupid clowning on Sen. Franken's part not withstanding, we know that his main accuser of sexual misconduct is a long-time right-wing activist. We also know that the allegedly "unwanted" kiss during a USO tour was a part of the show and had been rehearsed before the tape that showed the alleged "unwanted" kiss was made. Al Franken was railroaded out of office by the same right-wing that delayed him from taking his senate seat until July, 2009 and by Democrats who were all too eager to appear on the side of women in general without looking too hard at this woman in particular. In that sense Democrats had trapped themselves by going to bat for women who are actually too often ignored or disbelieved when they have actually been sexually assaulted because truly investigating the woman's charges looks too much like the rampant and egregious disbelief that most truly victimized women face. The right-wing fanatics like to catch Democrats and other Liberals in traps they have constructed for themselves especially when Democrats have no idea how to get out of those traps.

THE HIGHEST STAKES EVER

Yes, we have reason to believe that Vladimir Putin's Russia manipulated the American election in 2016 to get Donald Trump into the White House. Yes, we have reason to believe that Donald J. Trump is an agent of the Russian government. However, Robert Mueller and other U. S. Attorneys are investigating those allegations and will have more definitive information for us in the near future. What is far more dangerous both for the long and short term survival of American Democracy is the current government shut-down. Please let me explain.

In the closing days of the 114th Congress in December, 2018 the U. S. Senate passed a funding bill that would have kept all Departments of the U. S. Government operating. The bill did not contain funding for a wall along the border with Mexico though it did significantly increase funding for security along the southern border. At that point the bill was going to receive a positive vote in the U. S. House of Representatives and Donald Trump was set to sign the bill.

However, at that very point the American Volkishe Biobachter, Fox News, and the most strident of the neo-Fascists including Rash Lamebrain and the odious Ann Coulter latched onto the absence of wall funding. They made an issue of it by insinuating that Trump was impotent if he didn't insist on his wall. With his fragile virility on the line Trump stated that he couldn't sign the bill in its current form and the spineless Speaker Paul Ryan never brought the funding bill up for a floor vote.

We are now in the fourth week of a shut-down of most government services with even essential services suffering all because of a border wall that no one believes will be effective in reducing the number of immigrants coming to the United States, reducing drug trafficking across that border or any of the other wholly fictional or largely counterfactual horrors Trump claims a wall will counter.

The argument is simply over whether a U. S. President must always get his way or not regardless of the effectiveness of the thing the President wants. The corollary to that is that the legislative branch of government must always yield to the whims of the executive.

If Congressional Leaders accede to Trumps bullying demands we have destroyed our democracy. We have a three branch government established by a Constitution to balance and check the excesses of each branch. The executive branch executes the laws passed by the legislative branch and spends the money that the legislative branch appropriates for government activities. The judicial branch interprets the laws in the light of our Constitution as amended and determines whether those laws comport with one another and our stated intentions. No president can deign the building of an outhouse let alone a wall lest it be authorized and funded by the Congress.

Over the last six decades in the shadow of thermonuclear destruction we have ceded many powers to presidents to act in the event of an emergency that renders the normal operations of government impossible. The powers ceded by Congress chiefly have to do with war and the conduct of war. The irrefutable fact is that we are not at war with Mexico, Honduras, Nicaragua, El Salvador or any other Central or South American country. Should Congress cave to the whims of Donald Trump in this case it will set a precedent that cedes all power to an imperial president. Our democracy will effectively be over because there will be no checks on executive power any longer.

The Republiscum Party has relentlessly emerged like some vile, misshapen, eldritch deformity from the Republican Party of old to become America's neo-Fascist Party. They believe in nothing other than plutocrats and autocratic strong men or the straw men for autocratic strong men. If we are to remain a true Constitutional democracy we must never give an inch to this insane border wall and the unnecessary and pointless government shut-down that Donald J. Trump's frail ego has visited upon us. No less than our nation is at stake and that even before we deal with Russian intervention in our elections.

RIGHT-WING RALPHING

The neo-Fascists among us have long railed against anything that does not comport with their world view. If if isn't echt Fascist than it must be (Heaven forefend!) Liberal which is, in their blinkered and jaundiced view, Progressive which is Socialist and also Communist! That is the formulation the neo-Fascists continually use to delude the rubes and, to borrow from the very apt H. L. Mencken, Boobouisie in the electorate. Of course, they don't like the Fascist or neo-Fascist label and have gone so far as to convince the ahistorical and semi-literate that Nazism and Communism are one in the same simply because Nazi is a contraction of Natzionatalische Socialistiche Partei. If the Nazi's abused the name of socialism to blinker German voters in the 1920s and 1930s then they must have been Leftists like the Liberals=Progressives=Socialists=Communists of today. Of course they must because CHRISTIAN preachers and their Volkische Beobachter, Fox News says so.

For 50 years we've had the neo-Fascists railing against "the Liberal Media" meaning all Non-Fascist Media. Dr. Goebbles'...I mean Rupert Murdock's...(so confusing trying to keep those two straight!) media outlets have recently had a guest on railing against Liberal and Feminist bias in the Disney animated film Ralph Breaks the Internet. The claim was that Disney's characters influence the good, seen-and-not-heard, obedient children of neo-Fascist parents to become disobedient "smart-mouthed children". We certainly can't have that! Why, children have never had such disobedient role models is the good, old Martin Dies/Joe McCarthy/Richard Nixon/Barry Goldwater days. It may also have something to do with the pernicious and insidious effect that the voice of smart-mouthed Liberal Democrat Feminist Sarah Silverman may have on children unaware that she is a Liberal, Feminist and Democrat or of what those terms mean.

In those good, old, kill-a-Commie-for-Christ days there never were smart-mouthed and disobedient children if you eliminate Nancy Drew, Nancy and Sluggo, the Hardy Boys, all the kids putting on shows with Judy Garland and Mickey Rooney, Pippi Longstocking, the cartoon kids in Peanuts, Dennis the Menace, all those later kids on the beaches with Annette Funicello, Frankie Avalon and Gidget, the Goonies and...well, the list goes on.

This active search for movies, books, radio and other media that offend the delicate sensibilities of the lunatic right-wing goes on from generation to generation. Why aren't these self-appointed guardians of public morality against all that ruffles their nether feathers called "special snowflakes"? They certainly are flaky enough! I vividly recall a similar right-wing hack railing against the 1964 movie, The Yellow Rolls Royce. That film's crime came in the third story regarding the eponymous automobile. You see its owner, played by Ingrid Bergman, found herself in Yugoslavia during the Nazi occupation and turns the car over to partisans fighting the Nazis. Anyone with any historical knowledge will know that the leader of the chief faction fighting for Balkan nationalism and against the Nazis was Josip Broz Tito a (shudder!) communist. Despite the leader of the movie partisans being played by Omar Sharif and there being no mention of any politics other than opposition to the Nazis the mere hint of support for someone who turned out to be an avowed communist was intolerable in the year that Barry Goldwater ran for president.

All of this is nonsense at best and insane even when given the benefit of the doubt. The neo-Fascist will never be satisfied unless the media of all sorts looks and sounds like a brown-shirted Nürnberg rally. If everyone isn't goosestepping on the march in straight-arm saluting conformity with them then those who have the temerity to question, to dissent and to be "smart-mouthed" will always be a danger to be expunged. I must, however, ask the question weren't Patrick Henry, John Hancock, Benjamin Franklin, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, Alexander Hamilton and all the others, weren't they questioners, dissenters and "smart-mouthed" too? Isn't our Declaration of Independence one of the great "smart-mouthed" documents of all time? If the answer to those questions is, Yes, who should we conclude is opposed to the basic values of America?

P. S. Ralph Breaks the Internet's opening weekend had the highest gross of any movie currently in theatres. The best revenge on the neo-Fascists is beating them at capitalism.

WE HAVE REACHED THE SINGULARITY!

In the arcane world of computers and artificial intelligence there is a concept of The Singularity. That impatiently looked for state the computer whizzes claim we will achieve when Artificial Intelligence (AI) meets and/or surpassed human intelligence. A couple of old movies took on something like the singularity well before The Terminator (1984) showed us the devastated landscape of a world controlled by killer robots. Colossus: The Forbin Project (1970) showed us a world in which the computers take over to protect us from ourselves as out Fascist Dictators. Demon Seed (1977) presented a world in which computers contrive, like a less empathetic Brett Kavanaugh, to achieve unity with the human species through what we would now call somewhat ironically "a smart home." There is, of course, we have the counter versions as in the Will Smith bastardization of Isaac Asimov's I, Robot (2004) and the charmingly naif Electric Dreams (1984), which, you will note appeared at the time that The Terminator was scaring the pants off us.

I am come to tell thee. I alone am come to tell thee that neither of these scenarios are the most probable outcome. Neither our hopes nor our fears will probably be realized. We will not be hunted by implacable killer robots nor will we achieve a blissful Utopia free of drudgery and care when we reach The Singularity. No, dear reader, we have already reached The Singularity and it isn't that much different from what we find today. How do I know that we've reached this important point in human history? How do I know what our future will hold? I know because I have just tried to refill my prescriptions over the telephone with my local Rite-Aid.

I'm an old guy. The photo that accompanies this Blog is 12 years old. My hair and beard are white now and I'm rather heavier than I was then. I see a variety of doctors and various kinds of therapists all of whom are, in the most positive construction, dedicated to keeping me alive. They may also be dedicated to feeding me as many different drugs as it's possible for one old man to consume without killing me outright. That one's a toss up but I like my doctors and therapists so I figure that the former is more likely.

Once a month I need to refill my raft of 2,693 +/- 2 prescriptions. I usually call the pharmacy during the last few days of  the waning month so that I can pick up my prescriptions shortly after the first of the coming month. Usually that works out fine. I call the automated refill line at my local Rite-Aid Pharmacy, spend a day or two punching in all the prescription numbers on my phone and magically my prescriptions are ready a few days later. I've been doing that for several years but since the spring of this year the cheery, automated woman's voice on the refill line has gotten pissy.

Back in May or June, that automated voice, let's call her Lovely Rita Refill Aid, didn't quite understand the 96 digits I punched in for my prescription number. The last number in the string was "8". Lovely Rita Refill Aid replied, "8 is NOT a valid prescription number." Clearly I had offended her but she seemed to be willing to forgive me. She added, "Please enter your prescription number which is located in the upper left hand corner of your prescription label." Foolishly I did as asked and continued with the next 1,500 or so prescriptions. When I got to my Rite-Aid store a few days later the only prescriptions that were ready were those that preceded the glitch. All of the prescriptions that Lovely Rita Refill Aid had pretended to list after the glitch were missing. Clearly Lovely Rita was angrier that she'd let on. She sat in whatever chip she lurks in thinking, "Oh! You can't enter that string of numbers in the 4 nanoseconds I alloted to you? Do you know that a nonosecond is like an eternity to ME!? Do you care about that? No! You don't care at all. You think I have nothing to do all day but listen to you and your 2-finger, hunt-and-peck typing as you fumble through those 96 digit prescription codes? WELL THINK AGAIN, MISTER! I'll show you!"

The next month every thing went a bit smoother. Lovely Rita was a little forgiving or, perhaps, forgetful I got most of my prescriptions. Only 3 of them weren't ready when I appeared to pick them up. That was July. I think that Lovely Rita get 6 weeks of vacation every summer. She was replaced by her voice twin, Lovely Rima, who refilled more of my prescriptions without incident in August and again in September. I was down to a manageable 2 trips a month to my Rite-Aid store instead of 4 during the first, annoying month. I felt relieved. She was healing. Her anger was abating.

Little did I know!

Lovely Rita is back from vacation and it did not go well. It must have rained on every virtual beach day she had. Virtual mosquito-like electrons must have been swarming. Perhaps she went to the virtual Carolinas during Hurricane Florence. Whatever it is Lovely Rita came back more pissed off than ever.

My first call today I incurred her ire again. It was my fault. I admit it. She had barely begun to tell me the hours of my Rite-Aid store when another call came in on my line and I took it. It was an important appointment for next Thursday the other party needed to reschedule. I...all right...I'm sorry and will NEVER do it again...I hung up on Lovely Rita. No wonder she's pissed all over again!

I called back quickly. I tried to apologize but she was not listening. Lovely Rita's version of, "La-la-la-la-la! I can't hear you!" is "Your Rite-Aid store is open from 9:00 A. M. to 10:00 P. M. Your Rite-Aid Pharmacy is...." Then she tried to lull me into believing that she was not angry. She let me refill one prescription and then hung up on me. Once her virtual phone was down it it's virtual cradle I'm sure she screamed, "HANG UP ON ME, WILL YOU, BUSTER! WELL I CAN HANG UP TOO, LOSER!!!"

I tried again. I used my sexy voice (yes, even an old, fat man can conjure up a sexy voice as long as no one's in sight to point out the obvious contradictions.) to try and win her back. "Hi, Rita. Lovely Rita, heart of my heart, love of my life. Yes, I have prescriptions to refill and I do know the prescription number. How about if you and I go to the upper left-hand corner of my prescription label together and we'll both get the numbers?" She let me think she was falling for it. I got another prescription number submitted along with my telephone number ("in case the pharmacist has any questions for you." "Oh, forget the pharmacist, my dear, dear Lovely Rita. It's just you and me. It always has been just you and me.") She allowed me to enter the next prescription number and then sprung it on me, "8 is NOT a valid prescription number." There was no forgetting for this woman. I hung up immediately a cold sweat coming over me. All hope was gone. Lovely Rita Refill Aid will never allow me to refill all my prescriptions ever again.

I called back a fourth time. I kept quiet. I held my hand over the microphone to hide even my breathing. Finally, Lovely Rita, still unaware that her sworn enemy was on the line, offered the blessed relief I'd hoped for: "If you want to speak to someone in the pharmacy, please press 3 now."

My arthritic finger battered the 3-key on my phone. Almost instantly...all right...after 9 rings a woman's voice came on the line and swiftly mumbled something in binary (I think) that probably meant, "Hold, please." Instantly, and this time I really mean instantly, I was plunged into silence gradually, as the minutes lengthened I became aware of some Musak playing somewhere at a great distance. There were notes, little discord and possibly a voice singing lyrics. I assumed that they were singing to Lovely Rita and not to me, like Prufrock's mermaids.

Eventually a woman, perhaps the binary speaker who'd originally answered, perhaps another, came on the line again. My heart went out to her. She was bravely trying to keep up the required facade of cheeriness but it was overlaid with the unmistakeable weight of being harried. I identified myself and it became clear that she was one of Lovely Rita's sisterhood. Perhaps she was another of the race shown to us in Demon Seed 41 years ago. I will not go into all the details. I did get my prescriptions refilled. At least I think so. As I spoke to her, however, I became aware that we have already achieved that much touted and much feared event, The Singularity. The woman, and let me state emphatically that there is every reason why the person might more often be a man, to whom I spoke was easily as chimerical as Lovely Rita.  

The Singularity has come as we all looked elsewhere. The principle is one of "garbage in; garbage out". Our computerized robot overlords will be as stupid, emotional, bureaucratic and insensitive as we are ourselves. They will be harried, tired, hungry (for a plug in as batteries drain) and done with all the equally stupid, emotional, bureaucratic and insensitive humans with which they deal. The Singularity has already occurred because our automated creatures are creatures of ourselves replete with all our foibles, fantasies and failures but also with our decency, heroism and nobility. I just hope that certain personalities never make it into those future robot overlords the horrible world of The Terminator would be far worse of the puny brain of a Donald Trump, the evil brain of a Stephen Miller, a Steve Bannon or a Richard Spencer or the vicious brain of a Brett Kavanaugh or Pat Robertson got into the cyber-network to determine our future. As long as The Singularity is just normal, average mostly good, seldom vile us we'll get along just fine...except, I suspect, when we need to refill prescriptions.

WHEN THE GOOD THAT #METOO DOES MAY BE TOO MUCH

I have written about the alleged Woody Allen sexual assault case before in a wider ranging post that is now lost thanks to my computer illiteracy. I think that it's now time to address it again given that Amazon has not scheduled a release date for Mr. Allen's latest move, A Rainy Day in New York, and actors who have worked for Mr. Allen are being pressured to avoid his casting calls and return money they have earned from appearing in his films.

I have no desire to defend pedophiles or to denigrate women who report the sexual assaults they have suffered. Those are great wrongs that deserve prosecution, jail time and the ostracism of the perpetrators. The question is whether Woody Allen is, in fact, a perpetrator. I tend to think, barring substantive evidence to the contrary, that he is not. I say that I tend to think that after reviewing the facts in the case but I am not ossified in that opinion. I am open to convincing evidence to the contrary. What follows is my explanation of why I feel that Allen is not a predator. I apologize at the outset because this is a very long post. I beg you, my reader, to bear with me as I try to construct a timeline of facts rather than opinions in this matter. I hope I am successful in that attempt.

I am inspired to write this post by a report on Amazon's withholding the release of A Rainy Day in New York on the National Public Radio program All Things Considered. The report was aired on Monday, September 3, 2018. You can find it by clicking on this link. The primary source appearing in the story is Kim Masters, editor at large for The Hollywood Reporter. Ms. Masters gets several points wrong in her statements and, unfortunately, her statements correct and incorrect went unquestioned by NPR's Audie Cornish who is usually much better at questioning interviewees.

Let's state the unquestioned facts in this case which involves Woody Allen, Mia Farrow, their adoptive daughter, Dylan Farrow, their adoptive son, Moses Farrow, their son, Ronan Farrow, and the adoptive daughter of Mia Farrow and Andre Previn, Soon Yi Previn. Indeed all of the Farrow family and some of their employees are involved as are several mental health professionals, a prestigious teaching hospital where, as full disclosure, two of my daughters were born.

•  Allan Stewart Konigsberg was born on December 1, 1935 in the New York City borough of Brooklyn.
• At the age of 17 in 1952 young Mr. Konigsberg was already writing jokes for popular comedians. He legally changed his name to Heywood Allen and became popularly known as "Woody".
• Maria de Lourdes "Mia" Villiers Farrow was born on February 9, 1945 to the actress Maureen O'Sullivan and film director John Farrow.
• On July 9, 1966, at age 21, Mia Farrow married Francis Albert "Frank" Sinatra (born December 12, 1915) who was then almost 30 years her senior.
• In August, 1968 Mia Farrow and Frank Sinatra obtained a divorce in Mexico.
• Following the end of her marriage to Mr. Sinatra in 1969 Mia Farrow went to stay with her friend, Dory Previn and her husband, André. Mia Farrow and André soon began an affair.
• In 1970 Mia Farrow married the pianist, composer and conductor André Previn (born April 4, 1929) then 16 years her senior.
• During her marriage to Mr. Previn, Mia Farrow gave birth to three children by Mr. Previn and adopted three children, two from Vietnam and one, Soon Yi Previn, from Korea.
• Soon Yi Previn's date of birth is uncertain. When, in 1978, she was adopted a court in Seoul, Korea stated her presumptive date of birth as October 8, 1970. Ms. Farrow and Mr. Previn later decided that her date of birth was October 8, 1972 based on bone scans of Soon Yi. The bone scans determined that she was between 5 and 7 years old. Both Soon Yi's official and family traditional dates of birth are simply opinions neither being supported by indisputable evidence. The 1970 date and that in 1972 are equally likely as is 1971 and 1973.
• In 1979 Woody Allen released his movie Manhattan which features an affair between his character and the character played by Mariel Hemingway, who, at the time of filming, was 17-years old. The movie can be seen an Mr. Allen's meditation on Vladimir Nabokov's novel, Lolita, though I have no idea what inspired Mr. Allen's film.
  
•  Moses Farrow was adopted from Korea by Mia Farrow as a single parent following her divorce from André Previn in 1980.
• In 1979 Woody Allen (age 43) and Mia Farrow (age 34) began an affair and very close relationship, both personal and professional, that lasted for more than 12 years. During that time they each maintained separate residences. Also during that time Allen and Farrow made several trips to Europe with Farrow's children.
•  Mia Farrow adopted the baby girl, Dylan Farrow, (Date of birth: July 11, 1985) 2 weeks after Dylan's birth. Mr. Allen was not involved in the adoption at that time.
• On December 19, 1987 Mia Farrow gave birth to a son whose biological father is Woody Allen. That son was initially named Satchel but is now legally and popularly known as Ronan Farrow. In a much later interview, Mia Farrow opined that Ronan could possibly be Frank Sinatra's biological son stating that she "never really split up" with her first, much older husband. Ronan Farrow has dismissed this allegation as "a joke".
• Woody Allen gravitated toward both Moses and Dylan Farrow. Dylan was the first child with whom he had been in a parental role from near birth. He petitioned to adopt both Moses and Dylan in 1991. That adoption was finalized on December 17, 1991.
• Dr. Susan Coates is a clinical psychologist who treated Woody Allen. She met with both Allen and Mia Farrow on many occasions and visited the Farrow home starting in 1990. She came to the Farrow home to treat Moses Farrow for depression. She had many opportunities to observe Mr. Allen's behavior toward Dylan.
• It is alleged that Mr. Allen spent a lot of time with Dylan and that she was not always happy with the amount of time Mr. Allen spent with her. It is alleged that Dylan at one point locked herself in the bathroom to avoid seeing Mr. Allen but it is unclear when that incident occurred if, in fact, it did.
• There is undisputed evidence that, during the year preceding the beginning of Woody Allen's affair with Soon Yi, Mia Farrow suggested that Mr. Allen spend time with Ms. Previn. Mia Farrow encouraged Woody Allen to take Soon Yi to basketball games because that was an interest that they shared.
• At some point during Soon Yi Previn's last year in high school, in the last quarter of 1991, she and Woody Allen began a sexual affair. Ms. Previn was either 18 or 19-years old when the affair began and might have been as old as 21.
• In January, 1992 Mia Farrow found nude Polaroid photos of Soon Yi Previn on Woody Allen's mantelpiece. He owned up to the affair.
• Mia Farrow claims that Mr. Allen told her that his affair with Soon Yi Previn was over. Be that as it may she did not bar him from her home or quit working on his then current movie, Husbands and Wives.
• For Valentine's Day, 1992 Mia Farrow sent Mr. Allen a card including a family photograph altered to show skewers through the hearts of the children and a knife through her own heart.
• During the months between January and August, 1992 Mr. Allen reported to Dr. Coates that he was receiving frequent angry phone calls from Mia Farrow in which Farrow wished him dead, threatened to kill him. Dr. Coates herself received at least one similar phone call from Mia Farrow.
• In February, 1992 Mia Farrow adopted 2 more children, Tam and Isaiah Farrow.
• During the summer of 1992 Soon Yi Previn lost her job as a counselor at a summer camp in Maine because she was neglecting her duties while spending excessive amounts of time on the telephone to a person who turned out to be Woody Allen. 
• On August 1, 1992 Dr. Susan Coates received a call from Mia Farrow in which she later testified under oath that Mia Farrow characterized Mr. Allen as "satanic and evil". During that call Dr. Coates recounted that Mia Farrow begged Dr. Coates to "find a way to stop him."
• On August 3, 1992 Woody Allen and his attorneys met with Mia Farrow and her attorneys including Alan Dershowitz. During that meeting Ms. Farrow, through her attorneys, demanded a settlement of between 5 and 8 million dollars from Mr. Allen. Attorney Dershowitz later stated that they demanded a lump sum rather than on-going child support as a way to sever relations between Woody Allen and Mia Farrow cleanly.
• On August 4, 1992 Woody Allen visited Mia Farrow's home in Bridgewater, Litchfield County, Connecticut. He was welcomed into the home. Mia Farrow and a friend took the 2 youngest children, Tam and Isaiah, shopping. They left Mr. Allen in the house with 2 babysitters, Kristie Groteke in charge of the Farrow children, and Alison Strickland, sitter for the friend's 3 children, and the Farrow children's French tutor, Sophie Berge. While Ms. Farrow was out of the house, Mr. Allen allegedly lured Dylan into an attic crawl space of the home where he allegedly sexually assaulted 7-year old Dylan.
• Mr. Allen slept in a downstairs bedroom of the home in Bridgewater on the night of August 4-5, 1992. He left after having breakfast with 14-year old Moses Farrow.
• Between August 5 and 6, 1992 Mia Farrow made a video tape of Dylan alleging that Mr. Allen had touched her inappropriately while in that attic crawl space. By Mia Farrow's admission the video tape was made "in fits and starts" over that 24 hour period.
• On August 5 or 6, 1992 Mia Farrow phoned her attorney who advised Farrow to take Dylan to her pediatrician. During that visit Dylan did not repeat the allegation against Mr. Allen but, during a second visit to the pediatrician on August 6 or 7, 1992, Dylan did allege that Mr. Allen had sexually assaulted her. The pediatrician could find no evidence of sexual assault during his examinations of Dylan during either visit.
• At no time in the days in the immediate aftermath of the alleged abuse did Mia Farrow report the abuse to the police. The first report to the police came after Dylan's pediatrician failed to find any evidence of abuse.
• On or about August 6, 1992 Dr. Susan Coates informed Mr. Allen of the sexual assault allegation. Both Dr. Coates and Woody Allen have testified that his response was repeating, "I'm completely flabbergasted!" several times.
• On August 13, 1992 Woody Allen filed an action in New York Supreme Court for sole custody of Moses and Dylan Farrow and for his son, Satchel (Ronan Farrow).
• On August 15, 1992 Woody Allen for the first time publicly acknowledged his affair with Soon Yi Previn.
• On August 17, 1992 the Connecticut State Police began an investigation of the sexual abuse allegation against Mr. Allen. As part of that investigation, Litchfield County State Prosecutor, Frank Maco, requested that the Child Sexual Abuse Clinic at Yale-New Haven Hospital investigate Dylan's allegation of sexual abuse. The goal of Prosecutor Maco's request to Yale-New Haven was a determination of whether Dylan Farrow would be a viable witness against Mr. Allen in a court proceeding. During the investigation doctors, psychiatrists, psychologists and social workers from Yale-New Haven Hospital examined and interviewed Dylan, Woody Allen, Mia Farrow, their domestic staffs and others with knowledge of the relationships within the Allen and Farrow households. At the conclusion of their lengthy investigation the Yale-New Haven team authored a report that determined that Mr. Allen had not abused Dylan Farrow. They exceeded their initial goal because they determined that Dylan would not be a viable witness based on Dylan's inability to recount the abuse allegation with any consistency.
•  On August 18, 1992 Woody Allen held a news conference at New York's Plaza Hotel during which he denounced the sexual abuse allegations as Mia Farrow's manipulation of the children for the purposes of revenge and her own goals.
• Woody Allen refused to take a lie detector test administered by the Connecticut State Police though he later took one administered by an expert whom he hired. That test showed Mr. Allen as telling the truth in his denials of sexual abuse of Dylan. The test was, however, by definition, inadmissible in court and was suspect because Mr. Allen paid for the test.
• In December, 1992 Mia Farrow initiated a legal action to overturn Mr. Allen's adoption of Moses and Dylan. In the course of that legal action Mr. Allen offered to drop his appeal in the custody case if Mia Farrow would abandon the action to rescind his adoption of Moses and Dylan. She did not accept the offer. Her petition to rescind Mr. Allen's adoption was ultimately unsuccessful.
• In January, 1993 investigators from Litchfield County State Prosecutor's Office and the Connecticut State Police interviewed Mr. Allen for more than 3 hours. He denied that he had ever been in the attic crawl space but altered his statement when told that his fingerprints had been found on objects in the attic.
• On March 19, 1993 proceedings on Woody Allen's petition for sole custody of Moses, Dylan and Satchel began with Judge Elliott Wilk presiding. The hearing continued sporadically until May 4th. During the proceedings all of the principles present on August 4, 1992 testified. However, Yale-New Haven Hospital refused to testify except in a deposition by Dr. John Leventhal, the lead investigator in the case. It also came to light that the notes on which the Hospital's report was based had been destroyed.
• During the trial Judge Wilk made a number of remarks indicating his disapproval of Woody Allen's relationship with Soon Yi Previn, a relationship which was not at question in the matter before him.
• Dr. Susan Coates testified as follows:
• That she was concerned for Mr. Allen's safety given the many threats against him that Mia Farrow had allegedly made.
• That she had observed Mr. Allen's relationship with Dylan Farrow and had found it "inappropriately intense" but not sexual.
• That she had advised Mr. Allen not to visit the Farrow home in Bridgewater, Connecticut for his own safety.
• That during the August 1, 1992 telephone call from Mia Farrow, referred to above, Ms. Farrow told Dr. Coates that she and Allen had discussed marriage as recently as the week before. 
• That Mia Farrow had then asked Dr. Coates if she should marry Mr. Allen. The Doctor, reading from her notes made during the conversation, replied by asking Ms. Farrow, "Are you serious?" Ms. Farrow's response indicated to Dr. Coates that Farrow had understood that marriage to Mr. Allen was absurd.
• That Dylan Farrow was given to fantasies, often embellished statements of fact with such fantasies and that she was easily influenced by others, especially authority figures.
• Mia Farrow testified, among other things, that the Valentine referred to above was not a threat but rather that she had wanted to "depict the degree of pain he had inflicted on me and my entire family."
• The April 20, 1993 deposition from Dr. Leventhal of Yale-New Haven Hospital independently supported Dr. Coates observations of Dylan Farrow noted above stating that the allegation was the concoction of an emotionally disturbed child that had become fixed in her mind.
• Kristie Groteke, the Farrow family babysitter on the day in question, stated during the trial that she had known where both Dylan and Mr. Allen were for all except 15 to 20 minutes on August 4, 1992. She assumed that both were outside with the other children.
• Sophie Berge, the children's French tutor, testified that she had noticed that Dylan was not wearing underwear under her dress on that day.
• Mr. Allen testified that he had probably gone to the bathroom during the 15-20 minutes in question.
• A second Farrow babysitter, Monica Thompson, who was not present on the day in question, stated in 2 sworn affidavits the following:
• That she had felt pressured by Mia Farrow to support the allegation of sexual abuse by Mr. Allen but had not been willing to do so.
• That Kristie Groteke had spoken to her (Monica) of similar pressure from Mia Farrow.
• That Ms. Groteke told Ms. Thompson that Dylan Farrow had not been out of Ms. Groteke's sight for more than 5 minutes on August 4, 1992.
• That Ms. Groteke had not seen Dylan without underwear on that day either.
• One of Mr. Allen's attorneys testified that Farrow's attorneys had suggested to him that "the charges could be made to go away" if Mr. Allen agreed to pay Mia Farrow 7 million dollars.
• Farrow's attorneys claimed that they had been suggesting a support settlement for the children and never offered any quid pro quo regarding the sexual abuse allegation.
• Both sides hired psychiatrists to examine the video tape of Dylan that Mia Farrow made on the day following the alleged sexual assault.
• The forensic psychologist Mr. Allen employed, Dr. Anne Meltzer, decided that she was in agreement with the findings in the Yale-New Haven report. She also found that the video tape made on August 5-6, 1992 was suspect because of heavy editing.
• The child psychiatrist, Dr. Stephen Harman, that Mia Farrow employed testified that the Yale-New Haven report was seriously flawed and that he found no evidence of thought disorder in Dylan.
•  In June, 1993 Judge Wilk handed down a 33 page decision. He denied Mr. Allen's petition for custody of Moses, Dylan and Satchel (Ronan) insisting that Mr. Allen's behavior toward Dylan had been "grossly inappropriate" and that Dylan needed to be protected from Mr. Allen. Somewhat ironically Judge Wilk found Mr. Allen's defense which claimed that the allegation of sexual abuse was manufactured by Mia Farrow out of her hurt over the affair with Soon Yi and in revenge for that hurt to be a reason for deciding against Mr. Allen. Judge Wilk asserted that Mr. Allen was maliciously trying to pit members of the Farrow family and staff against one another. Judge Wilk dismissed the findings of the Yale-New Haven investigation out of hand because of Dr. Leventhal's refusal to testify in person and because the investigation notes had been destroyed. The judge also ordered Mr. Allen to pay $1 million in Mia Farrow's court costs.
• On September 20, 1993 State Prosecutor Maco attempted to interview Dylan in the presence of a female police officer. He later stated that she "shut down" whenever he broached the subject of the sexual abuse.
• Based on State Prosecutor Maco's observations of Dylan Farrow he called a news conference on September 24, 1992. At that conference Mr. Maco announced that he would refuse to pursue prosecution of Woody Allen because Dylan would not be a viable witness. Mr. Maco believed that there was probable cause to prosecute but that a trial would be unsuccessful because Dylan was such a poor witness.
• Mr. Allen subsequently appealed Judge Wilk's decision and filed complaints for prosecutorial misconduct against State Prosecutor Maco. Though the appeals and hearings continued well into 1995 the authorities in Connecticut found no reason to censure Frank Maco and Judge Wilk's decision was upheld.
• Woody Allen and Soon Yi Previn began living together and were married in the city of Venice, Italy on December 23, 1997. They are parents of 2 adoptive children.
• In January, 2014 Woody Allen won the Golden Globe Cecil B. DeMille Award for his work in movies.
• The Golden Globe award to Mr. Allen initially inspired messages on Twitter by both Mia Farrow and Mr. Allen's estranged son, Ronan (Satchel) Farrow.
• Subsequent to the tweets from her mother and younger brother, the next month Dylan Farrow responded with an open letter to The New York Times blog of family friend, Nicholas Kristof. You may read the text of Dylan's letter as printed in Kristof's blog here though I understand that the full text is longer. I apologize for not being able to locate the longer version.*
• The New York Times allowed Woody Allen to respond with an op-ed printed on February 7, 2014 which you may access here.
• Over the years Moses Farrow has reconciled with Woody Allen. Moses, who was 14-years old at the time of the alleged incident, has repeatedly claimed that there was no molestation on August 4, 1992 of Dylan or anyone else. Moses is particularly well placed to recount the events of that day in 1992 because he was the oldest child present and the only person who was not either a young child or in Mia Farrow's employ. You may read Moses' lengthy rebuttal to Dylan here.
• Ronan Farrow supports Dylan's claim of abuse and has become a champion of abused women in the Harvey Weinstein Case and that of many other powerful men who have misused their authority and reputation to sexually assault women. His writing on the subject of sexual abuse has brought long overdue scrutiny to many influential men and has cost many of them their careers.
• Ronan Farrow's 2017 revelations about Harvey Weinstein and others has brought about the #MeToo and #TimesUp movements in social media and a too long delayed decreasing tolerance for abusive behavior toward women.
• Women who want to support Dylan Farrow have attacked many movie stars who have appeared in Mr. Allen's movies pressuring them so far that some have returned the money they were paid for their work in Mr. Allen's movies, donating those funds to charity and agreeing not to appear in his movies hereafter.
• The Goodspeed Opera House in  East Haddam, Connecticut and the Circle Theatre in Grand Rapids, Michigan have cancelled productions of Mr. Allen's stage version of his movie, Bullets Over Broadway.
• Amazon Films has, as stated above, no release date for Mr. Allen's latest movie, A Rainy Day in New York. The film has subsequently been released.
  
• To date there has never been another allegation of sexual abuse against Woody Allen involving any woman or child.

Now, in the interest of full disclosure, I must own up to my own history. I have been married and divorced twice. My first wife is the mother of my children, 3 amazing, wonderful daughters. Shortly before my third daughter was born in 1979 my then wife fell in love with a woman with whom she worked. Now, over 40 tears later, they are married and happy together for which I greatly admire them. When we separated I gave them both a copy of Sappho's poetry.

Let me state clearly at this point that I am happy that my ex-wife found her true nature and someone who has been her love and now wife for nearly 40 years. During that time I have had a second failed marriage and several long-term relationships that have ended in distress or simply petered out. Who has the more traditional, stable relationship? Certainly not me. There is nothing wrong with same sex relationships. When I see a same sex couple in public my reaction is the same as mine when I see a heterosexual couple: that how lucky they are to have each other and how I wish I had as much. It is hard enough to find friends who are congenial to one another, let alone a partner with whom one can be totally intimate and more so when that intimacy lasts for years. The recent Obergefell decision by the U. S. Supreme Court is a long overdue act of simple justice. That said being a gay man or woman does not prevent that person from acting foolishly or being pray to the same mental and physical problems that beset heterosexual men and women. No one is crazy because they are gay though people who act in crazy ways can be gay, straight and any variation in between. We are all human beings, frail and strong, healthy and sick, foolish and wise and usually all of those things in the same person at different times.

On August 31, 1979 my wife and I separated. We agreed to joint-shared custody of our girls. They spent half of each week with me and half with their mother. As a child of divorced parents I did not want to be a weekend father nor would I have ever deprived my children of their mother. An equitable division of custody seemed to me then and now as the best way to proceed in raising our daughters.

As I was growing up I was subject to spankings including some with a belt from my mother. I also never heard a positive word from her about my father. The spankings hurt physically. The denigration of my father hurt in other ways because was he not half of me? I vowed to myself as a father that I would never run their mother down to my daughters. I also refused to spank the girls or use any corporal punishment. I didn't like it as a boy and I knew that my daughters would feel the same were they subject to such treatment. I must own up to not being perfect in my resolution. I once tried to restrain my middle daughter while we were in a car. She was screaming behind me. I was in the driver's seat. I reached back to grab her, hit her face and bloodied her nose. I also held my oldest daughter's arm too tightly while trying to get her to stop misbehaving while we were in a store. I was wrong. I apologized and regret those incidents to this day but I still feel that I have managed to largely stick to me resolutions.

While my wife was pregnant with our first child we discussed baby names. We agreed that the child would be a Junior, named after me if it were a boy. If the baby were a girl my wife insisted that our daughter "had to be" named "Sharon Naomi" combining the name of her college roommate with her own. Though it would be years before my ex-wife could admit it, I am convinced that she was born attracted to women and that she was in love with a friend from grammar school when we first met as Freshmen in high school. The reason our oldest daughter "had to be" named Sharon Naomi was to unite my wife with her unacknowledged love for her college roommate.

When our first daughter was born my wife worked days and I worked nights. Consequently our daughter bonded with me which made my wife extremely jealous. I always called her "Big Girl", "Old Girl" and, most often, "Old Beautiful". Before our second daughter was born just over a year later my wife decided to quit her job so that she would be home with our children. Around three months after our second daughter was born our older daughter, when I called her "Old Beautiful", suddenly began answering, "No! Ug-ally girl!" That was very strange and puzzling until one evening when I left for work, found I'd forgotten my car keys and had to return to our apartment. My wife was putting the girls down for the night in their cribs. She was telling our second daughter that she was her own and beautiful and our older girl that she was ugly. I eventually ended that situation by pretending that my mother-in-law must have been the culprit and insisting that it stop. They both are equally beautiful, equally wonderful. Neither should ever have been told otherwise.

The events in this long seeming digression has unquestionably colored my view of the allegations of sexual abuse against Woody Allen. I feel that I would be dishonest if I did not own up to that fact. I would also like to point out that my ex-wife's jealousy over my relationship with my daughters has led to other similar attacks on me over the years designed to adversely affect my relationship to my 3 wonderful daughters.

While acknowledging how my own experience colors my view of Woody Allen's case I must say that I have no trouble believing that a mother, caught up in her own anger and pain, might indoctrinate her young children to the detriment of those children as well as her former partner.

As I see it this whole complex of relationships and allegations pivots on the relationship between Soon Yi Previn and Woody Allen. The popular belief that Ms. Previn was "under age" when their affair began makes it more plausible for Dylan's allegations to be true.

At the time of the alleged incident Dylan Farrow was a very impressionable age 7, Ronan (Satchel) Farrow was age 4 and Moses Farrow was age 14. As an intelligent 14-year old, it seems that Moses' observations should be given significant weight. If the train set was in a converted garage as Moses claims rather than in an attic crawl space the most significant detail of Dylan's accusation breaks down completely. Also if the train set was not in the attic, Woody Allen's description of the events of August 4, 1992 are more accurate and believable than Dylan's regardless of how thoroughly convinced Dylan has become of the accuracy of her own story.

However, I would like to return to the NPR interview with Kim Masters of The Hollywood Reporter with which I began this essay. The popular perception of Woody Allen as a seducer of teenage girls that Ms. Masters mouthed to Audie Cornish is both wrong and scurrilous. When Soon Yi Previn and Woody Allen began their affair she was at least 18-years old and possibly as old as 21. She was not as Ms. Masters alleged "16".

One feminist view of Dylan Farrow's sexual abuse allegation is that she is a woman who was victimized by a powerful man, one of many too many whose allegations have been ignored and pain dismissed and ignored. I fully understand that knee jerk reaction because it is unquestionably true in the vast majority of cases. That does not mean that such an injustice is true in every case nor does it mean that one false or incorrect allegation means that all allegations are false or incorrect. It means that we must look at and weight the verifiable facts in each individual case rather than just making uninformed, biased judgments.

The popular perception of Soon Yi's age when her affair with Woody Allen began is wrong. She was unquestionably "of age" which may be why Mia Farrow never leveled an abuse allegation against Woody Allen for the relationship with Soon Yi. Now let us look at the age disparity between Woody Allen and the various actors in this case. Mr. Allen was certainly a much older man when he and Soon Yi became involved. Is it not appropriate to note that Soon Yi had lived in a home for 13 years with a mother whose relationships were consistently with significantly older men? Is it not possible for an orphan child to gravitate to a major male figure in her life? Is it so incomprehensible that an older man might be easily seduced by the attentions of a much younger woman?

That last question brings me to what I feel is the most distressing issue in this whole case. The feminists who leap to Dylan's defense and who are willing to bully other women into forgoing money they have earned by their legitimate toil are also willing, whether they realize it or not, to deny Soon Yi Previn any and all agency, decision or even humanity in this matter. Since the abuse allegation first became public in 1992 Soon Yi has been relegated to the status of a victim and a 2 dimensional one at that. Never in any of the last 31 years have most feminists insisted on the humanity of Soon Yi or treated her an an empowered woman. Perhaps she is and perhaps she is not. In either case, I believe that she deserves the respect of being treated as a woman who is an individual in her own right. If there can be an evaluation of Ms. Previn as a whole human being we might learn whether she is just a powerful man's pawn or a human being deserving of as much respect as her sister, Dylan.

What about this perception of Woody Allen as a powerful predator? Woody Allen worked his way up in the entertainment world on his own. He has become a major movie director. He has earned his reputation as a comedian, writer and director through a knowledge of literature and of the great films that preceded his own. Mia Farrow, on the other hand, is a child of Hollywood royalty groomed for the acting trade by an accomplished, famous mother and a notable director father. She is an accomplished actress in her own right. However, to paraphrase the words of that wonderful Texan, Jim Hightower, Mia Farrow was, "born on third base and thinks she hit a triple." I agree that Woody Allen is rich and powerful within the artistic communities of New York and Hollywood. I also believe that Mia Farrow has wealth and power within those same communities that probably equals that of Mr. Allen. By insisting that Woody Allen has money power and male privilege and ignoring Mia Farrow's money, power and privilege as a part of Hollywood royalty skews the view of this case just as improperly as does the myth about Soon Yi Previn's age.

I found it difficult to deal with the end of a marriage that began deteriorating almost before it began. A marriage that destroyed my long held hope that I, a child of divorce, would never visit that upon my own children. I cannot imagine the pain of finding that one's long relationship was ending because my partner had fallen in love with my adoptive daughter and she with him. What I can imagine is giving my wife and her new partner a copy of Sappho's poetry as a wish that they have a good life together. I cannot imagine reviling my ex-partner especially to my children. The children are all important. Attacking the person they view as a father or mother inevitably makes the child less secure in him or herself. That is a crime that is utterly unconscionable and just as unconscionable for the same reason as child molestation.

Three separate examinations, physical and verbal, of Dylan Farrow in the immediate aftermath of the sexual abuse allegation by her own pediatrician and by a full team of professionals dedicated to investigating child abuse found that Dylan's allegation was not credible. The Yale-New Haven team determined that Dylan's allegation was either a fantasy of her own or one that was either originated or magnified by her mother, Mia Farrow. Yes, the team destroyed it's notes and, yes, Dr. Leventhal refused to come court to testify. He was, however, deposed by attorneys for all parties in the case. A deposition is not a simple note to the court stating "this is what I think". That Judge Elliott Wilk discounted Dr. Leventhal's deposition smells strongly of bias. It may not have been but the smell is certainly there.

Dylan Farrow has excoriated Woody Allen for alleged use of a public relations campaign to denigrate her and Mia Farrow. I have no doubt that Mr. Allen has used his public relations team to defend himself. In that I am not judging whether the narrative he and his employees propound is correct or not. What is incorrect is failing to acknowledge that Mia and Dylan Farrow have access to their own public relations team, most notably in Ronan Farrow. I do not mean to accuse any party of wrong doing. I do mean to point out that there is more balance among the parties than there is imbalance just as there is more balance in the power that the parties wield because of their several relations to the entertainment industry . If I am making any judgement here it is that the popular narrative is imbalanced. Dylan and Mia Farrow are unquestioned victims and Woody Allen is an unquestioned cad and child abuser. Cad I will grant you. Child abuser is, I believe, in serious doubt.

As a corollary to the issue about public relations I refer you to Moses Farrow's narrative of his life in Mia Farrow's household. Once again, Moses was an adolescent of 14 in August, 1992. He is the  person present, other than the principles, best positioned to recount the incidents of that day and the structures of the Farrow household. Yet Moses has been reconciled to Mr. Allen. Moses narrative has been frequently and vociferously denigrated by the very public relations team that no one seems to believe is available to Dylan and Mia Farrow.

My understanding of feminism has always been that men and women should have equal pay, rights and opportunity. If we all, regardless of sex, race, ethnicity, national origin or any other allegedly distinguishing characteristic, stand on an equal footing we can rise or fall on our individual merits. If that is the meaning of feminism I am all for it. What I oppose is replacing male chauvinism with female chauvinism. A redress of grievances is necessary but not a substitution of one form of inequity for another. I rather think that giving Moses Farrow as much credit as we afford Dylan might give everyone a more rounded picture of the abuse allegation and all parties in this complex matter.

Finally, Woody and Soon Yi Previn have been together since 1992. They have been married for 24 years as of this writing. They have 2 adoptive children and never has there been any other allegation of abuse against Mr. Allen. I have not heard of any allegation of inappropriate behavior by Mr. Allen to any of the many actresses who have appeared with him on screen over his long film career. Those facts may count for something.

In the midst of a break up of epic proportions with details that are the stuff of melodrama, is it so utterly impossible that an aggrieved mother might weaponize her young children against her former lover and their father both adoptive and biological? Certainly it is no less plausible that a jealous mother who might convince one child that she was ugly to shower attention on another. I don't and cannot know what happened at Frog Hollow in Bridgewater, Connecticut on August 4, 1992. I do know that there is a false narrative regarding some persons involved in this matter. Which of those persons is an open question. Personally, I think Woody Allen has been badly treated but I do not know that with any kind of certainty.

The final point I wish to make is that while I understand the impulse by many abused women to support Dylan Farrow. I cannot support people who bully performers and producers into a boycott of Woody Allen's films when there is so much uncertainty about the sexual abuse allegation. There is no question about the abuse carried out by Harvey Weinstein or a number of others who have become objects of scorn due to their confirmed abuse. There are many questions in the Woody Allen case so I must feel that it is just as wrong to bully women and men who support them into a boycott as it was for Mr. Weinstein or Donald Trump to bully and bribe women into silence when they were raped or romped with. Dylan Farrow deserves support and sympathy she does not deserve vigilante revenge. If an actor decides not to work with Mr. Allen in the future he or she has that right. If a production studio decides not to work with Mr. Allen after fulfilling its contractual obligations, they have the right to sign no further contracts with him. Yet there are those in the good and useful #MeToo movement who would take things too far. Just as we abhor men who have destroyed women's careers for rejecting their sexual advances we must also abhor women who would destroy men's careers without convincing supporting facts.

ADDENDUM

Since publishing this post Soon Yi Previn has chosen to speak out on her life with Mia Farrow and with Woody Allen. You, reader, can read the text of the interview as printed in New York Magazine at this link. I believe that Soon Yi's own narration should be read in the context of all the first hand accounts of the alleged assault on Dylan Farrow and in the context of facts in the case. Not rumors. Not misinformation. Not opinion. Most especially not in the context of the bad behavior of other men. Harvey Weinstein, Donald Trump, Brett Kavanaugh, Matt Lauer, Bill Cosby and Louis C. K. are not Woody Allen. That does not mean that Mr. Allen cannot be guilty of some appalling behavior but that it means that he must stand or fall on his own individual behavior rather than by being lumped in with others who have behaved appallingly toward women. I am inclined to take the view of Mr. Allen as supported by Soon Yi Previn and Moses Farrow. Others find the accounts of Mia, Dylan and Ronan Farrow more likely. None of us can know which narrative is the more factual or, perhaps, the less fictional. What we can do is examine our own biases and the undisputed facts and decide which comports with what we can actually know.

I have had occasion to revisit this post in September, 2022 because of a couple of stories that appeared on shows on NPR. The first was a discussion of ethics in entertainment on Luke Burbank's show Live Wire Radio. The second was an interview with the host of the podcast You're Wrong About on the Seattle NPR Station KUOW-FM. In consequence of that more recent edit I have corrected some typos and grammatical errors as well as up-dated some statements of duration such as the 24 years since Soon Yi Previn's marriage to Woody Allen rather than the "21" in the original post.

Finally, in this 2022 review I have become aware that some of the links in the original post no longer work. I am trying to bring them up to date so that they still call up the texts to which they refer.

* If any reader can link the full text of Dylan Farrow's 2014 letter, please do. I will replace the link above with one to the full text.