Helen H. Moore's Blog, page 683
August 20, 2016
The case for a single-payer health plan: Aetna shows how insurers are avoiding the sick
(Credit: Reuters/Jonathan Ernst)
This originally appeared on Robert Reich’s blog.
The best argument for a single-payer health plan is the recent decision by giant health insurer Aetna to bail out next year from 11 of the 15 states where it sells Obamacare plans.
Aetna’s decision follows similar moves by UnitedHealth Group, the nation’s largest insurer, and Humana, one of the other giants.
All claim they’re not making enough money because too many people with serious health problems are using the Obamacare exchanges, and not enough healthy people are signing up.
The problem isn’t Obamacare per se. It’s in the structure of private markets for health insurance — which creates powerful incentives to avoid sick people and attract healthy ones. Obamacare is just making the structural problem more obvious.
In a nutshell, the more sick people and the fewer healthy people a private for-profit insurer attracts, the less competitive that insurer becomes relative to other insurers that don’t attract as high a percentage of the sick but a higher percentage of the healthy. Eventually, insurers that take in too many sick and too few healthy people are driven out of business.
If insurers had no idea who’d be sick and who’d be healthy when they sign up for insurance (and keep them insured at the same price even after they become sick), this wouldn’t be a problem. But they do know — and they’re developing more and more sophisticated ways of finding out.
It’s not just people with pre-existing conditions who have caused insurers to run for the happy hills of healthy customers. It’s also people with genetic predispositions toward certain illnesses that are expensive to treat, like heart disease and cancer. And people who don’t exercise enough, or have unhealthy habits, or live in unhealthy places.
So health insurers spend lots of time, effort and money trying to attract people who have high odds of staying healthy (the young and the fit) while doing whatever they can to fend off those who have high odds of getting sick (the older, infirm and the unfit).
As a result we end up with the most bizarre health-insurance system imaginable: One ever more carefully designed to avoid sick people.
If this weren’t enough to convince rational people to do what most other advanced nations have done and create a single-payer system, consider that America’s giant health insurers are now busily consolidating into ever-larger behemoths. UnitedHealth is already humongous. Aetna, meanwhile, is trying to buy Humana.
Insurers say they’re doing this in order to reap economies of scale, but there’s little evidence that large size generates cost savings.
In reality, they’re becoming very big to get more bargaining leverage over everyone they do business with — hospitals, doctors, employers, the government and consumers. That way they make even bigger profits.
But these bigger profits come at the expense of hospitals, doctors, employers, the government and, ultimately, taxpayers and consumers.
So the real choice in the future is becoming clear. Obamacare is only smoking it out. One alternative is a public single-payer system. The other is a hugely-expensive for-profit oligopoly with the market power to charge high prices even to healthy people — and to charge sick people (or those likely to be sick) an arm and a leg.
August 19, 2016
I don’t want “mom friends”: As a new parent, I need my old friends now more than ever
(Credit: Dmitry Zimin via Shutterstock)
On a recent Saturday morning, I took my 14-month-old son to the park. Two other mothers, sans partners, were already in the middle of a conversation when I walked up to the swings. “August is such a pretty name,” one said, facing the other with a smile. “Thank you. We didn’t want to be too different, you know? But we didn’t want him to be like everyone else, either.” They gave each other a nod, their sons sailing through the air with the same rhythmic squeak. Part of me was envious that they seemed to actually want to participate in such small talk — and part of me was relieved that they had each other, so that I didn’t have to.
By the time I gave my son his fourth push on the swing, however, August’s mom looked over at me. “How old is he? Walking yet? Such an interesting age, right?” Over the course of the next 20 minutes, I answered her questions and returned similar ones, all while smiling politely in between. By the time my son and I returned home, I was drained. More than that, I felt lonelier than I had before I had left my apartment.
It’s safe to say that I’m not the target audience for mommy groups, mommy meetups, mommy blogs, mommy conversation. Don’t get me wrong. I understand their function. Especially in the first six months of first-time parenthood, there’s a need to consult, commiserate, do anything to ease the near-mental breakdown after having no sleep and attending to the 24/7 care and feeding of a helpless human. A person cannot prepare for the exhaustion and stress and no one else really understands other than a fellow parent.
But for me, a lot of this mom-confabbing became more about feeding new-parent anxiety than quelling it. If I ever wanted to have some sense of normalcy or free time again, I had to stop searching blogs about whether my son was taking in enough breast milk or checking in with a mom friend whose kid was developmentally leaps and bounds ahead of mine. For all practical purposes, my life needed to move away from neurosis and fear and toward finding a space to incorporate my other identities that I had long adored and missed — as partner, writer, editor and friend.
I have learned to juggle these roles somewhat so that every once in awhile I get a waft of fulfillment and no one gets totally pissed at me. But there are other days when I have an urge to say, “Fuck all this” and run.
Not to the bar like I did in my 20s (my hangovers are too atrocious these days). Not to my parents’ house like I did even through my 30s (though their fridge is still better stocked than mine) but to my best girlfriend’s apartment, the way I would when I was 22 or 31, before I owed anything to anyone outside myself and my friends. When I could text, “I’m outside your door,” stumble in, land in her lap and dissect the actions of some flakey dude I was dating in one breath and Lindsay Lohan’s sex list in another, and then watch “Six Feet Under” in silence over a pint of chocolate chocolate chip.
See, I’m not looking for any new friends now that I’m a mom. I just need my old ones more than ever.
***
If I could describe motherhood in one word, it would be overwhelming. In two, I’d say lonely. Or rather a consuming, intense love and ferocity to protect not just my child, but abstractly, all children, which is kinda cool.
But back to the lonely part. When someone goes through a major life-altering event, their friends will often adhere to accepted social mores, however unintuitive they may be. Like sending condolence texts when someone loses a loved one, or bringing food after the arrival of a first baby. But as time passes, the gestures taper off. People forget. I may have been relieved that my kid was crying less and sleeping more at 5 months, but every month that followed turned into a pile of evidence that I was never going to live in the same breathable, choice-directed space that I had spent most of my 38 years. Even though I was not the first person ever to raise a baby, and even though I’m very fortunate to have a supportive partner, and even though I do have friends who happen to be moms whom I can talk to about mom stuff, adding defending a defenseless being to an already crowded plate of duties left me with a sensation of drowning. Not gasping-for-air drowning but feeling like I’m a tiny dot in an ocean of nothingness and if I think too hard about how solitary I am out here, I will panic and sink.
“Motherhood is a deeply personal and isolating thing, and people don’t talk about the most difficult parts about it,” said Stephanie Sprenger, co-author of the book “The HerStories Project: Women Explore the Joy, Pain, and Power of Female Friendship” and the blog Mommy, for Real. “Even if you have someone you’re going to stroller exercise class with, you may not be talking about the really difficult emotional components. So even if you’re not socially isolated, motherhood can be a very emotionally isolating experience.”
Which is why it’s kind of strange that contemporary American parenting culture places so much emphasis on moms’ finding mom friends — incorporating equally tired strangers into an already hectic life to then make polite chitchat with during a time when a woman can barely remember how to communicate her basic needs. But hey, maybe that pal from the Golly Gee Gator singalong will want to talk about the sinking abyss in her anxiety-riddled gut too? Maybe?
In the mommy blog canon, there are endless posts about “speed dating for mom friends,” “the Tinder for mom friends,” “Facebook groups for mom friends in your area,” and numerous, numerous how-tos about ways to hunting down mom friends. (Hint: Go the nearest park.) But few to none discuss the upside of longtime friends or childless friends or plain ol’ friends. Again, I get it: For stay-at-home parents especially, there is a legitimate need for companionship and adult conversation, even if it has to be about a baby — plus it’s nice to have someone who understands what a mother’s daily life is like.
But these new acquaintances who talk about latching and teething aren’t meeting the same needs that an old friend who deeply cares would. This is a surface relationship (which is great because there is a purpose for those, too). But when blogs talk about making connections by chatting up another pregnant women in the OB waiting room, this is surface stuff. Society needs to acknowledge that new parents still desire emotional support from people who already love them, from people who have the energy to give it.
Sprenger said mom friends fulfill “a need for validation, a need to feel less alone in your circumstances,” but new parents still have a “craving for that deeper connection for the people that make you feel like yourself.” Of the mom friends she made after her children were born, maybe only one of them stuck, she said.
“Motherhood devoured so much of my identity that I needed my close friends to remind me who I was, because I was exhausted and making food to feed another person with my body,” Sprenger said. “When you’re reduced to a string of minutia, you need to remember that you’re a human being who existed before your children’s birth, that you used to do things. I feel like that my closest friendships are crucial ties that keep me grounded as who I am as a person.”
Science backs up this physical and psychological need that women have for intimate friendships: In a UCLA study, researchers found that reaching out to others is a biological response and a natural stress reliever for women, as they release the calm-inducing hormone oxytocin when they seek out and engage with fellow ladyfolk. And a 2006 study of nurses with breast cancer found that women with close friends were four times as likely to outlive those without a social circle. Friendships can even alleviate the chances of someone catching the common cold — because, again, less stress.
Many would guess that during intense life transitions like new parenthood, a person’s biggest emotional support should be a romantic partner. But what no one will admit is that this is inherently impossible in those fraught new-parent years. My husband is a wonderful man, full of patience and compassion, but he and I are deep in this same war together, trying to get through the endless responsibilities of the day without driving each other crazy. We can be each other’s best practical support, but not each other’s best refuge. Not now, not yet.
Friends provide a healthy escape that child-rearing partners cannot. When I meet a friend for dinner, we talk about the latest Netflix show, dumb celebrity bullshit, the summer stench of New York City and our futile attempts to stamp out the patriarchy. I remember that I’m funny sometimes, that I have opinions about things other than what my son should eat for lunch. It is with my closest friends that I feel like the self I most enjoy.
But while I’m gabbing and swigging, sometimes I’m forgetting about the flip side to this need to be filled back up: I also need to unload the sadness and grief that is burrowing in my same-but-different person. It is essential for my health, for my survival, that I fall apart.
***
The unfortunate paradox of wanting to turn to friends during times of stress is that stress is one of the biggest tests of friendships. I may yearn for them, but it doesn’t always mean my old friends are super into me, Jessica, preoccupied mother and sometimes a downer. Most understand I’m going to be MIA, that there’s an undercurrent of zombie about me; others probably wish I was more present even when I am physically in front of them. But if I’m being really honest, in the few friendships that have taken a hit, the holes were already there.
One of my closest friends started to noticeably pull away when I was pregnant — to the point where our interactions resembled the forced kind you have with an acquaintance whose feelings you don’t want to hurt by turning down an invitation for coffee. When I approached her about the awkwardness, she told me that she had been through some stuff, too, and I felt guilty and awful that I hadn’t been there for her. And when I said I wanted to make it up to her, she told me that it was cool. “We’re just on different paths now.”
My path to motherhood and hers to not-yet motherhood wasn’t the direct cause of our rift, though. Instead it was instead likely the nail in our friendship coffin that was already covered in smaller nails that I’d failed to notice. The little nail when she ghosted a long-planned date, the little nail when I was five days late returning a voicemail message. Add to that, one party suddenly being devoured by a screaming baby, and the work needing to be put into a friendship, from both ends, might not seem worth it.
But this is #notallchildlessfriends. Being a mom or not being a mom is not the best signifier when it comes to which friends are all-weather, which friends can hear each other and which friends will put in the effort to stick things out. If anything, becoming a mom is like all major life transitions that require some major inventory-taking: When people are in the depths of undergoing great change and feeling self-conscious about falling into such depths, they’re forced to figure out which friends they can still really connect with.
I asked the friend I see the most, my BFF whom I often turn to for those nights of goofy, stimulating conversation (who also happens to be kid-free) if I’ve become a shittier pal and how I could be better. I expected her to say that I wasn’t around as much, but I didn’t expect her to say this: She was hurt that I hadn’t taken her up on her multiple offers to watch my kid. She knew how stressed out I was and thought, because of my rejection, I didn’t trust her.
Oh boy, was that ironic. There was nothing I wanted more than to have someone unload my burden, but I’d assumed her offers came from politeness. During our nights out, I barely touched upon my feelings of drowning, how desperate I was to break down. I didn’t want to be the boring mom friend who complained too much. I wanted to be the adult who got herself into this mess and would handle it alone. But the one thing I needed, the one thing I was afraid to show — that I needed a space to fall apart because I could not do it all — had put a silent wedge in our friendship, and it was the thing she was willing to give.
“To survive friendships, you’re gonna have to have these difficult conversations,” Sprenger said. “‘I’m self-conscious about what motherhood has done to me, or you’re not calling me because you’re assuming I’m too busy.’ Women, in our romantic relationships, many of us will belabor all the insignificant tiny points with our significant others, but we don’t do that with our friends because it’s uncomfortable.”
It seems that what I wanted and what my BFF wanted were basically the same thing: the unwavering, gushy, messy part of friendship that exposes all of our greens and grays — not just the catching-up over drinks or random texts.
Women can forget that our friends can be a safe haven for our vulnerability. We just have to be willing to go there. In those younger years of perusing sex lists over Häagen Daaz, we were a little less concerned with boundaries and looking like we had everything under control. We could say, “Girl, you hurt the shit out my feelings,” or rub each other’s backs in comfort without uttering a word. As unwillingly responsible adults, though, we’ve become so busy with life. We try to coast where we think we can. But all relationships take work, even friendships.
I told my friend that I had no idea that she felt that way. I had taken for granted that her feelings mattered, too. She responded immediately: “Let the village help you raise your child. Fall apart. Nap. Drink. Dance. Love your life, because it’s great, even it’s stressful.”
And with that, my face was flooded. A big messy skin pool of relief, joy, perspective — and disappointment that I still can’t be all the things to all my people. Friendship was another garden, among my many gardens, that I would have to keep tending to. But only a friend who really “gets” you could evoke a release of that strength and necessity. It’s a gushing that vastly surmounts going to the mom park and talking baby names.
Natalie Portman talks to Salon about her directorial debut: “I felt lucky to make the film in Israel because being a female director there isn’t unusual”
Natalie Portman in "A Tale of Love and Darkness" (Credit: Focus Features)
Natalie Portman has had a remarkable career ever since she impressed critics and viewers with her performance as a 12-year-old assassin in “Léon: The Professional.” As a teenager, she was marvelous in both “Beautiful Girls” and “Anywhere But Here,” films too few people saw.
Sure, Portman made some blockbusters — a pair of “Star Wars” and “Thor” films — as well as indie darlings such as “Garden State,” where she played a manic pixie dream girl. But she earned some serious cred (and an Oscar nomination) with the film “Closer” and delivered a strong performance in the ambitious action thriller “V for Vendetta.” She even made a rom-com with Ashton Kutcher (“No Strings Attached”) to show that she’s not always so serious.
Her versatility may be why visionary director Wong Kar-Wai cast her in his luscious film “My Blueberry Nights” and why she appeared in Terence Malick’s recent “Knight of Cups.”
Now the Oscar-winning actress of “Black Swan” has changed up her career again, making an auspicious feature-film directorial debut with “A Tale of Love and Darkness.” Portman also penned the screenplay, adapting Israeli writer Amos Oz’s autobiographical novel. In the film, Portman plays Fania Oz, who has escaped from Poland. She and her husband, Arieh (Gilad Kahana), are living in 1945 Jerusalem with their young son, Amos (Amir Tessler). The film, which is in Hebrew, alternates between past and present, telling the stories of both mother and son, mixing truth with dreams and fantasy.
Portman exhibits a distinctive visual style in “A Tale of Love and Darkness,” shooting a scene from under a table or bathing a flashback in blue light to create mood and atmosphere. A shot of birds filling the screen and rendering darkness is also effective as a visual motif within the narrative.
In bringing the novel to the screen, Portman has made an accomplished, provocative film about weighty themes — love and kindness but also the demons that haunt people. There are also many of Oz’s thoughtful observations about life and humanity that resonate.
The actress-filmmaker met with Salon to discuss “A Tale of Love and Darkness.”
What struck me most about your film is the beautiful storytelling. You create both a realistic world and a fantasy-dream world that convey so much about the characters. Can you talk about how you conceived the film’s narrative?
Storytelling is so central; it is how the characters are creating their identities — both their imagined world and their existing world. They are being informed by their stories. It was important for me to have the fantasy, the dreams and the stories look differently than the reality, which is very bleak in comparison with this richly imagined, romantic storytelling. The film captures the romantic melancholy that Oz writes — that his mother inhabited — and how [one’s] view of the world can be devastating when reality doesn’t match the dream.
Yes, it’s very multilayered. You get the emotion from how the two worlds compliment, contrast and create each other.
In Judaism, language creates reality. “Let there be light” is spoken, and then it happened. That was important for me to create; these are a people who have created themselves through storytelling and through words and language. At the beginning of the film, you hear them telling a story before you see an image. That was important to me because it is very much within this tradition — to create the world through language.
What was it about Amos Oz’s novel that made you want to adapt it?
It was really moving to see the creation and development of a writer through this fascination with his mother’s story, and having to tell her story — because his father is not telling him her story. In [Amos’] telling it, he becomes a writer. Part of that — I think he probably would have been a writer no matter what — accelerates the process. He has to tell his mother’s story.
Also, it’s such a wild moment in history because the Hebrew language was revived in this moment. All of a sudden, there is this biblical language that hasn’t been spoken in thousands of years, except in religious contexts. And they are using it to say very common things and having to update it. What an amazing time to be a writer! You could literally invent a word and it would enter the lexicon.
Oz talks about how his uncle was one of the modernizers of the Hebrew language. He was part of the academy. He came up with the word for “shirt.” If he didn’t come up with the word for shirt, we’d still be saying, “I put on a coat of many colors.” You were stuck with biblical vocabulary until someone updated it. How do you say “frustration” or “pencil” or “car”?
They are still updating it to accommodate “hashtag.” You are taking a language that hasn’t been spoken in so long.
There are often biases against actors who want to direct. Do you feel you had to work harder to prove yourself as a director, especially since you chose to shoot a film in Israel and in Hebrew? The degree of difficulty here is pretty high!
I definitely piled up the challenges but not in any conscious way. It was the story I cared about telling and I was passionate about telling it. That led everything. I felt lucky to make the film in Israel because being a female director there isn’t unusual. Because men and women serve in the military, men are used to having female officers and commanders, and there is no issue with being a female in charge.
That’s an interesting observation! Israel has some great female directors, like the late Ronit Elkabetz [“Gett”]. So yes, you’re probably right that Israeli society doesn’t have the gender bias to the degree America does.
I haven’t been a director in America, so I don’t know what it is [like] here, but I imagine — and I’ve heard from women, too — that it is harder here.
You were born in Israel and have been very vocal about being pro-Israel. The scene about the creation of the Jewish nation is a pivotal scene in the film. Can you talk about this sequence and its importance to you?
It’s one of those moments in history where everyone who was alive at the time remembers every detail and everything that happened. All of the sudden, this group of refugees who ran away to this desert were granted the right — for the first time after centuries of persecution — to have their own rule and to defend themselves. It was a life or death moment for people and a feeling of some purpose after so much suffering.
That tension of that moment — Oz describes it in his book as “they were screaming as if they sounded like all of the dead who ever died were screaming out together.” It’s just a totally emotional moment. All of the anguish of the Second World War for Jews — coming out of it and having a rebirth — the moment is so complicated. It was emotional to stage it and have people feel like they were living it.
Can you talk about the decisions you made in how you created the “look” of the film?
It was really lucky to work with Sławomir Idziak, my cinematographer, who is really a legend. He did Kieslowski’s “Blue” and “The Double Life of Veronique,” as well as “Black Hawk Down” and one of the “Harry Potter” movies. When he started doing tests in Jerusalem — and it was his first time in Jerusalem — he said the city didn’t look bleak at all. It looks totally rosy and romantic, and that’s not what we were going for. So he used a green filter, which was really wonderful because it drained the walls of the city, which is made of the same color of stone. It made the walls look much more washed out and bleaker.
There are many great lines in the film, one of the best being “No one knows anything about anyone. It’s better to live without knowing anything than to live in error.” How do you, as a writer, adapt such a rich work and capture the voice of the author but also make it your own?
The book was so rich. You have so many beautiful things that you have to figure out how to squeeze them in. Some of the process is determining what is the arc of the characters and what are they going through? Which ideas, poetic words and ideas can we put into actual scenes? Are these things that people can actually say to each other in conversation or are they in voice-over reveals? Or is it just not possible, and they should they stay in the book and be appreciated in the book? It was a process to go through.
That piece about not knowing others is so moving because I think there is this childhood fantasy of marriage and soulmate and all of that. Of course, it is incredible when you find someone, but ultimately you never know another human being. As [Fania] says, you never know yourself fully. We surprise ourselves with some of the things we do. How could we possibly know another person? There is this “surprise of loneliness.”
Your character, Fania, suffers. She hits herself, which her son copies later; she has headaches; she is melancholic. How did you approach playing her and making her sympathetic?
Amos, when I met him and he agreed to let me make the film of his book, asked me, “Don’t try to explain Fania. That was the error people who wanted to adapt this before you have made.” That was important to me. Fania is a mystery for Amos, too. It’s something he thinks about growing up and his whole adult life. I wanted to bring romanticism to it.
I think it is interesting that there was a cultural tendency — there was a wave of women who suffered melancholia. My own grandmother, who was Romanian, had that Slavic tendency — that in the middle of a sentence she would drift off and have a weepy moment. Very dramatic . . . very “Karenina,” looking out the window wistfully with the landscape going by.
Did you base your portrayal of Fania on your grandmother?
No. I based it more on the character that I imagined while I was reading the book. My grandmother was the exact same generation and similar background, though.
Another line that resonates is Amos’ line about fulfilled dreams being disappointments. Do you feel making this film was a dream fulfilled? Was it disappointing?
[Laughs] It’s bittersweet. I would modify that statement to say “not disappointing but so different than your expectations.” That can be really hard to deal with, but I think what separates the healthy and the unhealthy is how you deal with that difference. It’s universally true that you can’t expect what actually comes.
So how do you deal with it?
Every situation is different, but when you accept that there is a difference, you adjust your expectations. You try and work to make the reality more like your dreams. That’s an optimistic person’s way of dealing with that dissonance.
My dad’s first Paul McCartney show: Why his concerts are the perfect intergenerational family outing
Paul McCartney (Credit: Reuters/Benoit Tessier)
Today, an artist signing a record deal isn’t generally that newsworthy. However, when Sir Paul McCartney makes a move, it merits attention. On Wednesday, the Beatle inked a deal with Capitol Records for his “entire body of post-Beatles work, from his 1970 ‘McCartney’ album, through his decade with Wings, to the dozens of solo and collaborative works.” The gesture seemed sentimental as well as pragmatic: “This is genuinely exciting for me,” McCartney said. “Not only was Capitol my first U.S. record label, but the first record I ever bought was Gene Vincent’s ‘Be-Bop-A-Lula’ on the Capitol label.” The release also noted that not only is Macca working on a new studio album, but “a comprehensive plan for the artist’s catalogue is being conceived” by the new label “in conjunction with the artist and his management team — and will be implemented beginning July 2017.”
Since large portions of McCartney’s catalog have been reissued in recent years, it’ll be interesting to see what shape this plan will take. However, Macca has always been an exceedingly careful shepherd of his own music, especially since his publishing share of the Beatles’ catalog has eluded him to date. (That should change in 2018, thanks to U.S. copyright laws.) Perhaps that’s also part of the reason why, at age 74, he continues to tour so steadily: He believes — not incorrectly — that he’s the best person to preserve these songs and keep them alive, so they remain part of cultural lore passed on through the generations.
Back in the ’60s, the Beatles were part and parcel of the rock ‘n’ roll revolution that separated parents and their children. But by the time the band’s fans came of age and started having kids, the sharp demarcation between musical movements had blurred. And so as the years wore on, McCartney shows especially have become a family activity, something parents wanted to make sure their kids experienced. In fact, when McCartney performed at Busch Stadium in St. Louis last weekend, my entire Facebook feed was filled with friends there with families. Parents brought their elementary and junior high school kids — some of whom are also Beatles nuts — to glimpse a legend. Other friends took their parents, paying forward gratitude to the people who likely originally introduced them to the band.
When McCartney landed in Cleveland for two shows this week, the scenario repeated itself: My husband and I took my dad to the first show. (Father’s Day gift, sorted!) Growing up, my mom was an über-Beatles fanatic — she still has all of her newspaper clippings, including a healthy bunch from a Liverpool pen pal — but declined to go to this show, since she saw the real thing back in the ’60s. My dad, however, was game to see McCartney — his first time catching the legend. And he was clearly impressed, singing along to the Beatles’ “We Can Work It Out” and “Love Me Do” — “I know all the words,” he told me — and taking video of the panoramic, starlight-studded stage scenery and crowd singing during “Let It Be.” He was also startled by the rather impressive display of pyro during Wings’ “Live And Let Die.” (Which was completely understandable: Not only was it loud, hot and sudden, but it was pervasive on the stage, rivaling that of a metal show. Well played, Paul.)
As an adult, I cherish being able to share a concert like this with my dad. Growing up and carving out your own life and family changes your relationship with your parents. Revisiting (and reconnecting with) your common ground is a powerful thing, especially when it involves music. The medium is a great equalizer: My dad’s experience with the Beatles and Wings is vastly different than mine, since he grew up with them, but our different perspectives converge seamlessly when hollering along to “Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da” or “Band On The Run.” In the coming years, when classic rock, country, folk and jazz legends start retiring from the road, these opportunities are going to become few and far between.
It also helps that a McCartney concert looks back without using nostalgia as a crutch. His song selections on this tour are a big part of that: Turns out the synth-perforated “Temporary Secretary” was decades ahead of its time, while the Beatles’ “Being For The Benefit of Mr. Kite!” clearly spawned countless modern indie bands. McCartney is also playing a healthy amount of stronger recent material. (Yes, even “FourFiveSeconds,” his collaboration with Kanye West and Rihanna, came off well.) And the members of his long-time touring band — guitarist/bassist Brian Ray, guitarist Rusty Anderson, drummer Abe Laboriel Jr. and multi-instrumentalist Wix Wickens — are ace musicians. (They’ve all also never lost the “Holy shit, we’re playing with a Beatle!” vibe and urgency, either.) The harmonies on “Eleanor Rigby” were haunting and elegiac, while the anthem “Hey Jude” ended in a bluesy, rickety jam.
Plus, it’s clear that McCartney still really enjoys performing live. He was in a jubilant mood in Cleveland, punctuating familiar stage stories (Jimi Hendrix learning “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band” and playing it live two days after the LP’s release; performing in Russia and hearing that government bigwigs learned English from Beatles LPs) with more animated gestures and embellishments. He did little dance moves that resembled a prize fighter, soaked up the crowd’s adoration and cheers with gratitude and confidence, and made charming comments about some of the many signs fans had brought. (One that received many laughs: “My divorce is final. Free as a bird. Sign me!”) And after “Love Me Do,” he told a touching story about cutting the song with the late producer George Martin, and how he can still hear the nerves in his voice on the record.
Throughout, McCartney largely didn’t need to mention last names or utter “The Beatles” — simply saying “we” or “my friend John” was enough, as it’s a universal language he knew everyone there spoke. As it should be, the spirits of the members of the Beatles universe who are no longer with us are never far away during a McCartney show. Last night’s version of “Here Today” — the conversation McCartney wished he had with John Lennon before the latter died — in particular was striking. McCartney performed the song solo with acoustic guitar, perched on an elevated platform so that even the upper reaches of the arena could see him. The audience was rapt and silent; it felt like McCartney was playing in a tiny, intimate club. In this song, life’s fragility never felt more palpable.
And there were more reminders of fallibility. Live, McCartney’s voice is more ragged on certain songs and sounded hoarse during stage banter. (As the night went on, he sounded better and stronger, however.) Vocal changes are a natural byproduct of age that have felled dozens of lesser musicians. McCartney is a notable exception, of course: Not only did he do a two-hour, twenty-minute main set with no pauses — and didn’t seem to break a sweat — but he incorporated his changed vocal timbre with grace. The added wear gave “Maybe I’m Amazed,” a song dedicated to Linda — again, no last name needed — a misty, sentimental edge, while the civil rights-inspired “Blackbird” felt like a sign of solidarity with what’s going on in today’s society. And the show-closing trio of “Golden Slumbers,” “Carry That Weight” and “The End” was even more devastating because of the weathered tone. Macca’s fluttering vocal edges gave the show’s last lines — “And in the end/The love you take/Is equal to the love you make” — a sense of finality, but also optimism.
And let’s be clear: This McCartney show was perfect and life-affirming — well-sequenced, well-paced and incredibly satisfying. (It was so good, in fact, that we made a last-minute decision to buy tickets for night two, which might have been even better.) With this year’s loss of Prince and David Bowie, it feels more urgent and necessary to see music legends when they come around. As McCartney alluded to after “Here Today,” telling the people you love that you care, while they’re still here, is also important. That’s perhaps why a McCartney concert has become such a magnet for families: There’s an unspoken, intertwined thread of mortality and celebration throughout the night that served as a reminder of how precious and fleeting life really can be. Enjoying every moment of it with those who mean something to you is the most any of us can ask for or strive to achieve.
The Ocean is “Endless”: Frank Ocean’s new visual album is a heroic read on digital culture
In Foucault’s “Panopticon,” the philosopher describes an 18th century precursor to today’s modern prison system — a tower manned by a watchman, surrounded by a circular corridor of cells. Although it is impossible for a single figure to watch all the cells at once, the idea that a prisoner is being watched by the all-seeing eye of the building’s core psychologically dictates prisoners modify their behavior in response to the tower’s watchful presence. But the uncomfortable brilliance of this structure, the portion often ignored in Foucault’s text, is that the prisoners need no watchman in order perform as if there is one. So powerful is the mind’s ability to project consequence, that a person will modify behavior to fit the context of contained space.
Social media is Panoptes — the hundred-eyed giant from which Foucault’s panoptic essay gained its name. In order to survive the reign of the giant, it is nearly impossible for a person to go through a moment without response to the hundred eyes — to snap, to tweet, to flutter off our existence in image and meme — as if our very lives depend upon it.
In this world of the giant and the giant tower, Frank Ocean was almost a casualty. Since first mention of “Boys Don’t Cry” and its expected July 2015 release date, the internet has buzzed with news about Frank Ocean’s next move. In the year that followed, Frank Ocean, heightened anticipation with posts on his Tumblr page — a shot of “Boy Don’t Cry” magazine, poignant condolences during the loss of Prince, responses to tragedies in Ferguson and Orlando, and, most recently, a library due date card that referenced the album’s speculative release dates with ironic playfulness.
As the month of July 2016 progressed, the internet salivated an ocean of expectation for the impending album’s release, but July passed. August (almost) passed. A year past due and there was still no new album from Frank Ocean.
The danger of existing in the body of a multi-eyed giant is how little we see when we expect we are looking at everything. With one hundred eyes, it assumes what happens in its periphery does not exist. The internet did not anticipate the release of a Frank Ocean album on Thursday, August 18. The all-seeing internet did not anticipate Frank Ocean’s next release would be the visual album “Endless.”
“Endless” begins in near silence, Frank Ocean sitting down on a workbench, removing a pair of gloves. A second Ocean emerges, an unnerving echo of the caption at the bottom of Frank Ocean’s 2015 “Boys Don’t Cry” Tumblr post (“I got two versions. I got twoooo versions.”). The footage cuts to reveal the many-eyed boombox Frank Ocean tunes in the corner while the other Frank Ocean fiddles with his hands.
The silence is broken by a voice installation, “Device Control.” It is followed by “At Your Best (You Are Love),” Frank Ocean’s cover of the famous Isley Brothers song. “At Your Best” was originally released by Frank Ocean on the internet, as a tribute to Aaliyah on what would have been singer’s 36th birthday. The specter of Aaliyah’s fallen star haunts the music of other contemporary male voices, from Drake to J. Cole, but Frank Ocean’s tribute reads as a response to the pressure young artists encounter to produce too much, too quickly, to treat themselves as commodity for the sake of maintaining a place within our fleeting gaze. When paired with the lyrics to “Device Control,” “At Your Best” offers an arresting portrait of the artistic challenges Frank Ocean faced in the wake of releasing new music:
With this Apple appliance
you can capture live video,
still-motion picture
at high-frequency,
blurring, blurring the lines…
“Device Control” reports with cold, calculated automation. Credited to German visual artist Wolfgang Tillman, “Device Control” calls us to task for our reliance on smart devices, the concept of ‘capturing live video’ providing a direct parallel to the adaptation of the Panopticon in contemporary prison systems — in which cameras have replaced the eyes of a single watchman—our reliance on appliances “blurring the lines” between being watched and being real. With “At Your Best” Frank Ocean both literally and figuratively restores the voice of reason, parsing out the lyrics with prodigious timing.
His voice is serene. Frank Ocean pursues the lyrics to the Isley cover like a love letter to both critics and fans, asking us to examine the years spent in anticipation of this moment; our belief that Frank Ocean’s new album was imaginary:
When you feel what you feel,
how hard for me to understand,
so many things have taken place
before this love affair began
Frank Ocean has always been a character, not just in the imaginations of his fans but also in its projection as the stage name for Christopher “Lonny” Breaux. In the time since “Channel ORANGE,” Frank Ocean took the time to materialize—legally changing his birth name to his pseudonym.
But if you feel like I feel
confusion can give way to doubt
for there are times when I fall short
of what I say, what I say I’m all about…
Yeah, Frank Ocean croons in his adaptation of the song’s third verse, I know you’ve been expecting an album. But in the midst of giving you one I thought I’d give you more—learn carpentry, clone myself… is that alright (#sorrynotsorry)?
In the first five minutes of “Endless,” Frank Ocean offers a response to years of speculation and ridicule. Frank Ocean, apparently, has been watching us. But unlike the digital panopticon, he recognizes our defiance to his cause as well-intentioned:
At your best, you are love.
You’re a positive motivating force
within my life.
If you ever feel the need
to wonder why, let me know.
While the song plays, Frank Ocean gracefully drives plywood through a table saw. Another Frank Ocean checks his phone. In a moment of art imitating life, Frank Ocean’s “Endless” calls technology to task for the pressures put upon his album’s release while subtly acknowledging Ocean’s reliance on digital communication as a source of connection between himself and his fans. “Look beyond your world, try to find a place for me,” Frank Ocean pleads in the closing verses of the song. A third Frank Ocean appears in the workshop. He rubs his hands together before donning a pair of safety goggles. Sparks fly into the face of the camera as Frank Ocean cuts steel bars, the core of his work of art.
To witness “Endless,” one must be as patient as Frank Ocean has been with his music. The songs that follow the video album’s inaugural homage pieces are challenging and autobiographical—all the things we came to expect from Frank Ocean after the release of his two EPs (“The Lonny Breaux Collection” and “Nostalgia, ULTRA”) and were a promise paid-in-full with the confessional lyrics and liner notes of his full-length album, “Channel ORANGE.” However this kind of truth-telling is a phenomenal turn when compared to most digital era music-making. Most of Ocean’s contemporaries have built lucrative careers off grandly autobiographical early albums that taper into sophomoric collections of radio-ready pop hits with mere glimpses of personhood. With “Alabama,” Frank Ocean punches the internet’s hundred-eyed giant in the gut. Not only was “Endless” never expected, it will also not play into the trope of the expected album. Frank Ocean opens his chest and fights the many-eyed giant for our undivided attention: “What could I do to love you / more than I do now?” he asks.
The panoptic giant of the digital web may be mythic, but it is also myopic. In our haste to say something about Frank Ocean, we ignored how little we have to say about Frank Ocean. Frank Ocean is the boy we fell in love with in pieces. He wooed us with the intimacy of his music but gracefully curated our glimpses into his personal life. We felt a kinship with the singularity of his story, his unparalleled ability to weave a narrative frame around his love (for his family, for his lovers, for himself) that was clear enough for us to believe we knew him, but mostly taught us about ourselves. The media frenzy surrounding “Boys Don’t Cry”’s impending release was mostly stirred by our belief that we needed more. We needed Frank to follow house rules, to feed the many-eyed giant with more images, more tweets, more news. However, in the quest for Frank Ocean, the knowledge we truly sought was a better understanding of ourselves. Why do we want Frank Ocean, an artist whose career has been both subtle and brief, to put out new album? What are we expecting to gain from the album’s release?
“Endless” climaxes as two Frank Oceans converge to stack the wooden building blocks of his earlier tasks. “Hublots” plays in the foreground. Ocean scrutinizes the insatiable hunger of digital culture. Over sparse instrumentals he sings of a world “pacified” by panoptic devices; he describes their recreation as “versions of madness.” All the while, on screen, two Oceans stack the blocks he built into a two-story spiral towards the sky. The structure complete, Frank Ocean stands back, one Ocean left to admire his handiwork. The jubilant “Slide on Me” plays as Frank Ocean steps upward, revealing the spiral of blocks to be staircase. The camera closes in: as he ascends his masterpiece, we can only see his feet.
What if, instead of late, Frank Ocean’s current album is early — exceptionally self-aware, an extension of his strategic use of social media — a performance both meta and macroscopic?
The high-contrast studio space is staged like a wood-worker’s version of heaven. Through track after track, Frank Ocean toils away, fabricating portions of a structure we do not see until the film is two-thirds done. In its final moments, when the audio returns to Tillman’s “Device Control” (and a scene of two Oceans from the beginning of the time-lapse footage) we are left with the prescient eyes of the Ocean replacing one hundred panoptic eyes, narrowly focused.
Perhaps Frank Ocean was waiting for a time in which we could be reflective, the kind of audience he knew this work would need. The 45-minute film’s quiet release gives us more Frank Ocean than we have ever witnessed before. With his thoughtful lyrics and the artist in three forms, Frank Ocean presents a person who is generous and unselfconscious. Ocean asks us to think not of the music but the legacy. In the midst of all we can record, what do we actually see?
All this time, while we were waiting for Frank Ocean, Frank Ocean was waiting on us. The era of the digital panopticon has desensitized us to life outside the camera. “Endless” asks us to question our imprisonment to a constant stream, a dizzying array of device footage blending everything from the foods we eat to the death of citizens into one innocuous film reel. In a world in which all can be streamed, our hunger for the next moment prevents us from digesting the last one. Our desire for a new Frank Ocean album almost prevented us from our ability to hear it.
Pew poll: Majority of American men, 63 percent of Republicans believe sexism is over
This April 23, 2016, file photo, a person displays their t-shirt outside of the Utah Republican Party 2016 convention, in Salt Lake City. Donald Trump has shattered the normal Republican consensus in Utah even more so than he has nationwide, activating fault lines under a normally stable electorate largely unified by a single religion. (AP Photo/Rick Bowmer, File) (Credit: AP)
Pew surveyed 4,702 adults from June 7 to July 5 on their attitudes about sexism in America.
According to the survey, 56 percent of American men believe that “the obstacles that once made it harder for women than men to get ahead are now largely gone.” By contrast, 63 percent of women believe that “significant obstacles still make it harder for women to get ahead than men,” only 41% of men felt similarly.
Party
Unsurprisingly, Pew also found a partisan divide regarding attitudes towards sexism:
Nearly seven-in-ten Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents (68%) say there are still significant obstacles for women, compared with just 35% of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents.
Only 35% of Republicans believe that discrimination still holds women back, but that number drops to less than a quarter of Republican men. Republican women are more than twice as likely as Republican men to believe in sexism, though half of Republican women and three-quarters of Republican men think gender-related obstacles to women’s success are “largely gone.”
There’s a smaller gender gap among Democrats when it comes to believing that sexism is a thing. Of Democratic women, 74 percent think gender-based barriers still exist, compared to 60 percent of Democratic men.
Democratic men in all age groups are between two and three times more likely than their Republican counterparts to agree that “significant obstacles still make it harder for women to get ahead than men.”
67 percent of respondents who denied the role of sexism in America indicated that planned to vote for Donald Trump, while only 27 percent of those who acknowledge sexism as a problem said they are voting for the controversial Republican nominee.
Age
Republican men over the age of 65 were more likely than any other age group in their demographic to believe in sexism. Older male Democrats were also more likely to believe in sexism than younger ones.
The 2016 Pew findings echo a 2013 Pew survey of Americans that found millennial men are the group most likely to say that all necessary changes to bring about equality in the workplace have already been made.
By contrast, 78 percent of liberal women aged 50 to 60, and 81 percent of liberal women older than 65 believe sexism still holds back women.
Moreover, in a 2014 survey of more than 2,000 U.S. adults, Harris Poll found that young men were less open to accepting women leaders than older men were. Only 41% of Millennial men were comfortable with women engineers, compared to 65% of men 65 or older. Likewise, only 43% of Millennial men were comfortable with women being U.S. senators, compared to 64% of Americans overall. (The numbers were 39% versus 61% for women being CEOs of Fortune 500 companies, and 35% versus 57% for president of the United States.)
[H/T: Jezebel]
Baltimore ends contract with lawyer linked to neo-Nazis who defended cops in case against wrongfully imprisoned black man
Glen Keith Allen (Credit: YouTube/Beowulf Alfredsson)
The city of Baltimore hired a Nazi-linked lawyer to work in its law department. He was defending the Baltimore Police Department in a lawsuit alleging that it had wrongfully imprisoned a black man for 19 years.
That is, until this week. The Southern Poverty Law Center, the leading monitor of hate groups in the U.S., revealed on Wednesday, Aug. 17 that attorney Glen Keith Allen, 65, was a longtime donor to and former member of the National Alliance, a neo-Nazi hate group.
The next day, the office of Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake announced that it had ended its contract with Allen.
Allen was working in Baltimore’s Litigation and Claims Practice Group, which the SPLC called “one of the most aggressive and successful defenders of police misconduct in the country.”
Records obtained by the Southern Poverty Law Center, or SPLC, show that Allen has been involved with white supremacist groups since the 1980s.
The lawyer claims he is no longer a white supremacist, but he agreed with Baltimore’s decision to let him go.
“The city should investigate the way they’re bringing people into the department, who they’re recruiting and how they’re vetting them, because this is a problem,” said Heidi Beirich, the director of the SPLC’s Intelligence Project and the author of the study on Glen Keith Allen.
“It’s not like Allen’s involvement in these groups was hidden. You could have googled him and found out about it,” Beirich told Salon. “There was a lot of information about him out there.”
Allen was a dues-paying member of the neo-Nazi National Alliance for years. Receipts show he subscribed to the hate group’s racist publications, bought a Holocaust denial DVD it sold and paid for entrance to its Holocaust denial conference.
“Glen Allen, thank you for your support and for contributing to a brighter future for our people,” one of the receipts reads.
Allen was also mentioned in a letter by William Pierce, the founder of the neo-Nazi National Alliance, whose white supremacist novel “The Turner Diaries” helped inspire the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing.
FEC records cited by the SPLC show Allen made political contributions to the far-right political party the American Eagle Party. A post on the neo-Nazi forum Stormfront identifies him as an officer in the party.
The neo-Nazi Vanguard News Network also identified Allen as an attorney for the National Alliance.
In March 2015, Sabein Burgess sued the Baltimore Police Department and city of Baltimore. Burgess, who is black, spent 19 years in prison for a crime he says he did not commit. In 2014, he was released, and the murder charges against him were dropped. His lawsuit accuses the police of withholding and fabricating evidence against him.
“We’re glad to see Baltimore took this action,” Beirich told Salon. “We have obvious concerns with a person like Allen, with his extreme views, being involved in the Burgess case. It was the right thing to do.”
Beirich said it was neglectful on the part of the Baltimore government to hire Allen. “It’s weird that you wouldn’t do some kind of basic background check on him,” she said.
The city of Baltimore said it is investigating the case.
Baltimore has become a key city in Black Lives Matter protests against police brutality and systemic racism. Massive demonstrations erupted in 2015 in response the killing of unarmed black man Freddie Gray in police custody. His spine was 80-percent severed at the neck and his death was ruled a homicide, but the charges against the six police involved in the case were all dropped.
A 2015 ACLU study cited by the SPLC analyzed 109 police killing incidents in Maryland between 2010 and 2014 which found that black Americans were significantly more likely to be targeted. Only two police officers were ever charged in these 109 cases, and one was acquitted by a jury.
Allen told the New York Daily News that he was approached and hired by Baltimore’s city solicitor.
Beirich said the SPLC called Baltimore’s law department, the communications staff at the mayor’s office and others, but no one would speak on the record or return her calls.
“I wanted to get information about the vetting process, but no one would talk to me,” she explained.
In an interview on Friday, Allen distanced himself from hate groups and insisted he is not a white supremacist. He did, however, say he thinks “it’s healthy to identify with your racial past, your ancestors,” adding, “I do think there’s an amount of identity, pride in your race, that’s not permitted today.”
Allen also attacked the Southern Poverty Law Center, which he called “a pretty disgusting organization.” The SPLC is frequently the target of far-right conspiracies.
Beirich noted that it is hard to tell how widespread the problem of right-wing extremism is in the U.S. government.
“There are racist extremists in positions of power and have been — in police departments and other places, without a doubt judges — and so we shouldn’t be naive that these ideas are only in the stereotypical white trailer park. That’s not the way it is,” she explained.
The SPLC researcher also warned that, in the past 16 years, there has been a huge increase in the number and activity of hate groups in the U.S.
“With the Trump campaign this last year, and with white supremacists being particularly emboldened and excited, we’re going to have more hate groups,” Beirich said.
“Trump is appealing to that nativism and xenophobia and it’s a serious problem that we’re going to have to address.”
NBC knows who to blame for poor Olympics ratings — millennials and their “Facebook or Snapchat bubbles”
FILE - In this June 11, 2016, file photo, Usain Bolt, of Jamaica, wins the 100-meter final ahead of Yohan Blake and Asafa Powell, both of Jamaica, in the Racers Grand Prix track and field event at the National Stadium in Kingston, Jamaica. We'll finally get our chance to see the fastest man in the world. Bolt, the two-time defending champion in the 100-meter sprint, takes to the track for his first heat of the games Saturday, Aug. 13 . The Jamaican athlete (and self-described entertainer) set the world record in 2009 and the Olympic record in 2012 (London) breaking his previous record set in Beijing in 2008. (AP Photo/Collin Reid, File) (Credit: AP)
After the Super Bowl, the Summer Olympics have long been considered the safest bet in television, which is why NBC and its parent company, Comcast, paid $12 billion for exclusive broadcast rights to them through 2032.
The problem for NBC is that broadcast rights don’t produce the same revenue streams they once did, especially not among that most coveted 18-49-year-old demographic. As Bloomberg’s Gerry Smith noted, NBCUniversal’s CEO Steve Burke joked in June that his Olympic nightmare would be to “wake up someday and the ratings are down 20 percent.”
“If that happens,” he added, “my prediction would be that millennials had been in a Facebook bubble or a Snapchat bubble and the Olympics have come, and they didn’t know it.” Ratings are only down 17 percent from the London Olympics, so his nightmare scenario is technically incomplete — but that’s the equivalent of claiming a dream in which your teeth are falling out while standing naked before a classroom doesn’t qualify as a “nightmare” because you’re not also being chased.
NBC foresaw this possibility, and charged up to 50 higher rates to online advertisers — but the problem isn’t necessarily the platform, as 98 percent of those watching the Olympics are doing so on traditional television.
The problem NBC faces is a general disinterest among members of the non-traditional television-watching demographic for sporting spectacles. This apathy could be because of the rise of alternative viewing options — Netflix, Amazon Prime, and Hulu have each grown substantially in the years since the London games — or it could simply be that the nature of NBC’s coverage doesn’t resonate with the younger generation.
Every athlete is introduced according to the conventions of programming that doesn’t appeal to millennials — a “Dateline”-esque account of triumph in the inner city, for example, or a heartwarming “Hallmark Hall of Fame” tale about losing a parent at a young age. It’s difficult to capture an audience by selling it a product it’s already indicated an unwillingness to buy.
In the end, what cannot be doubted, only lamented, is that on the night Usain Bolt — widely considered to be one of the last “must-see” draws of the 2016 games — won his 8th career gold medal, NBC’s rating among those between 18 and 49 dipped to 7.0.
Joe Scarborough: Trump “playing a role” when he “gets behind microphones at political rallies”
Joe Scarborough, Donald Trump (Credit: Reuters/Jonathan Ernst/Brendan McDermid/Photo montage by Salon)
On Friday’s “Morning Joe,” eponymous host Joe Scarborough claimed GOP nominee Donald Trump’s fire-breathing rhetoric is all an act.
“Anybody that knows Donald knows that that Donald last night was closer to the Donald Trump that we’ve all known for decades than the character he’s playing,” Scarborough said of Trump’s unusually scripted speech on Thursday night — which some called a pivot-point. “Because … make no mistake of it, this loud, screaming, racially insensitive, at times race-baiting buffoon that gets behind microphones at political rallies, that’s Donald Trump playing a role.”
“I’ve always found him to be charming, smart, generous of spirit if you ever called him up,” guest Donny Deutsch said of Trump, whom he said he knows personally well. “Having said that, this man I’ve seen up on the stump is repulsive to me.”
Scarborough’s stance on Trump, however, has been consistently inconsistent — channeling Sam and Diane from “Cheers.”
Way back in December, Scarborough heatedly cut to commercial during an on-air interview with the then-long shot GOP candidate, who wasn’t allowing Joe and co-host Mika Brzezinski to ask any questions.
In May, he defended Trump after The New York Times ran its profile of the mogul’s pattern of allegedly sexually harassing his female employees.
In early June, he revoked his endorsement of Trump, who he said, “destroyed our party.”
Two weeks later, he likened Trump to “a guy training for a marathon and, five weeks before the marathon, all he’s doing is sitting on his couch drinking beer [and] bragging about how great of a runner he is.”
Catch Scarborough’s latest stance below, courtesy of MediaMatters:
“Manafort overboard”: Twitter reacts to Trump campaign chairman’s resignation
Trump Campaign Chairman Paul Manafort walks around the convention floor before the opening session of the Republican National Convention in Cleveland, Monday, July 18, 2016. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster) (Credit: AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)
Paul Manafort, GOP nominee Donald Trump’s controversial campaign chairman, resigned from his post on Friday morning.
News of the shake-up is far from shocking, as just last weekend, Trump hired Breitbart News’ Stephen Bannon and GOP pollster Kellyanne Conway as his campaign CEO and manager, respectively.
With Manafort’s resignation foreboding and the Trump campaign’s turnover rate as rapid as it is, the overall tenor of Twitter responses was appropriately jokey:
Paul Manafort has resigned from the Trump campaign, citing a desire to spend more time with Ukraine.
— Sam Adams (@SamuelAAdams) August 19, 2016
Manafort is done. (Or is it Donetsk?) With these serial firings, the @realDonaldTrump campaign is beginning to feel like The Apprentice!
— David Axelrod (@davidaxelrod) August 19, 2016
Paul Manafort definitely took the copper wire out of the walls before he left
— Bobby Big Wheel (@BobbyBigWheel) August 19, 2016
Heavenly Father, I have one request. Keep me alive long enough to see the first Manafort/Lewandowski segment on CNN.
— Sopan Deb (@SopanDeb) August 19, 2016
Manafort overboard
— Adam Servianski (@AdamSerwer) August 19, 2016
Manafort will be replaced by the exhumed corpse of Joseph Goebbels
— Jesse Singal (@jessesingal) August 19, 2016
Breaking: Manafort resigns, pledges to spend more time with his family at their dacha.
— Warren Leight (@warrenleightTV) August 19, 2016
Manafort loses 2nd Orange Revolution job
— John Hausman (@JohnSHausman) August 19, 2016
There are, though, some of examples of how not to respond.
Exhibit A) The reactionary Hillary Clinton supporter whining about media persecution:
Could you imagine what kind of hay the media would make of this if it were the Clinton campaign? https://t.co/7sLDI3hGm0
— Carissa Snedeker (@bluelyon) August 19, 2016
Exhibit B) The Trump apologist thanking a shadowy lobbyist for his service:
Looks like Manafort will step aside. His role in getting Trump nominated was completed. Thank you Paul! We all owe you!
— Bill Mitchell (@mitchellvii) August 19, 2016
Exhibit C) Nationalist bidding adieu to seemingly the only member of the campaign who kept Trump on-script:
Fact is, Manafort weakened Trump
Glad he's gone
— Viktor Fiel (@ViktorFiel) August 19, 2016
