Kellyanne Conway Mentions -- TODAY -- That She was Sexually Assaulted

A couple of hours ago, if you had asked me whether I'd ever immediately be suspicious of a woman who'd claimed to have been sexually assaulted, I probably would've said no. Then, on this Sunday morning's political-talk TV, Kellyanne Conway said she'd been sexually assaulted.

The woman who over the past 2 years has been the 2nd most-notorious, most-shameless, most-obvious and most-disgusting liar in the entire world, closely following the man she's been working for for those 2 years, The President of the United States, who has bragged about assaulting women, and then lied and said he never bragged about it, after we all heard him on tape bragging about it.

You may have heard the story of the boy who cried wolf. The point of the story is not whether wolves actually showed up or not. Wolves do show up in the story. The point of the story is that when they did show up, nobody believed the boy who was trying to warn them about the wolves, because the boy had proven himself to be a lying sack of crap.

On CNN this morning, on Jake Tapper's "State of the Union," in a conversation about Brett Kavanaugh’s controversial nomination to the Supreme Court, Conway said, “I feel very empathetic, frankly, for victims of sexual assault and sexual harassment and rape. I’m a victim of sexual assault.”

First and foremost: if Kellyanne said that the sky is blue, I'd have to go outside and check, because it had been Kellyanne who said it. Secondly, she's claiming NOW that she has been assaulted. The same woman who has been trotted out over and over by the Trump administration during their frequent sexual-harassment and assault scandals in order to criticize the press for using the issue of sexual harassment and assault politically.

But she didn't stop by claiming, TODAY, that she has been sexually assaulted. Tapper, quite naturally, pointed out that this is the first time that she has publicly mentioned being assaulted, and that she works for a President who says that every single woman who claims that he has assaulted them is lying. Conway responded by saying:

"Don’t conflate that with this and certainly don’t conflate that with what happened to me. It would be a huge mistake, Jake. Let’s not do it. Let’s not always bring Trump into everything that happens in this universe. That’s mistake number one."

This is another example of the sheer head-spinning depth and shamelessness of Conway's dishonesty. If she didn't work for Trump, you and I would never have heard her name. If Kavanaugh, the President's nominee for the Supreme Court, weren't under very serious suspicion of multiple acts of sexual assault, the same as the President himself and many other men close to him, nobody would've been talking about sexual assault on the Sunday-morning political-talk shows today. Tapper didn't bring Trump into this conversation: Trump was already right in the middle of it, of his own doing. But today, as always, no matter what the topic, Kellyanne tried to make it sound as if Trump and those with Trump were being persecuted for reasons of unfathomable, unreasonable, fanatical partisanship. As if his critics, and not Trump, were the one doing violence to truth and integrity.

Well, you know Kellyanne: just chock-full of shit, right up to her chin, today as always.

Ronald Syme Redux

Seven years ago, I published on this blog a post in which I declared, among other things, that I found the prose of Ronald Syme to be unreadable.

In that post, I jokingly speculated whether there had been something wrong with Syme's medulla oblongata, and mocked his prose style thusly:

"Syme irritates me with the over-use of periods. Which unnecessarily breaks up medium- to long-sized sentences. Into smaller ones. Which in turn leads to the above-mentioned conjecture. About the poor man's lower brain stem. A medical speculation not necessarily to be taken seriously. And not the only stylistic affection of Syme's which annoys me. But to find the others, I'd have to read more Syme. Which I really don't want to do. So suffice it for now to say that the turnip would use twelve periods after the last semicolon above. By the time I would use one. If I were not mocking him."

Ronald Syme, for those of you still wondering, lived from 1903 to 1989 and was among the the 20th century's most prominent Classical scholars and historians of ancient Rome. In fact, in the years since writing the above-mentioned dismissal of him on the grounds of unreadability, I kept coming across his name in the work and footnotes of other scholars, so often and with such positive remarks that I finally decided, quite recently, that I had to try again to read his work, that I had no choice, that surely the problem was with me and not with the way Syme wrote.

Whatever my problem was, it's now gone, to my amazement. I now find that my above-quoted satire of his prose is quite unfair, because far from all of his sentences are extremely short, and those which are I now find to be justifiably so. I now find Syme's prose quite good, witty, extremely erudite, polished, elegant -- in short, suddenly, my opinion of his writing now much more closely resembles the opinion of the rest of the world, and my earlier distaste is now mysterious to me, as it surely must have been to anyone else who'd noticed it.

I had two of Syme's books laying around, The Roman Revolution, first published in 1939, and Ammianus and the Historia Augusta, first published in 1968. I devoured the former with great delight and am now struggling, with just as much delight, with the subtleties and many, many footnotes of the latter. I had already begun to, as Edward Gibbon put it, "dive into the ocean" of the Historia Augusta. Now, unlike Gibbon, I have the very best guide to the flora and fauna of that ocean.

As has the rest of the world, for the past half-century. I apologize to the rest of the world, and to Syme's memory, for taking so long to catch up.

In case you're wondering what the Historia Augusta are: they are a collection of biographies of 2nd- and 3rd- century Roman Emperors, purported compiled by six authors writing in the reigns of Diocletian and Constantine. Or, as the world has gradually been figuring out since Hermann Dessau had a major breakthrough in the late 19th century, they are a parody of biographies of 2nd- and 3rd- century Roman Emperors, written by one jokester in the late 4th century or later. Back when they were considered to be historical writing, the more perceptive of later historians, such as Gibbon, were constantly cursing them for the many errors they contained. Now, when they're seen as historical fiction with a satirical bent, as many papers and volumes and conferences are devoted to them, as speculation rages about who actually wrote them and when, we're able to see more and more delicious jokes in them. They are, as Syme says, a "garden of delights."

Jane Fonda, Donald Trump and "Radical Kinship"

Jane Fonda wants us to express "radical kinship" for Donald Trump and his supporters, according to Politico. I'm not sure exactly what she means. She talks about caring about a person, our crazy President in this case, who clearly shows the psychic scars of a cruel upbringing.

If we can express this concern by getting Trump out of the White House and into a locked psychiatric facility where he can finally get the help he so clearly needs, I'm down with it. Is this what Jane has in mind? The 25th Amendment is there, all we need are Republicans with balls. But we don't have those. Do we. So we need a "#HugeBlueTsunami and impeachment and removal. I know, removal will take 67 votes in the Senate, and we won't have that many Democrats even with a clean sweep of the mid-terms, but with a majority in the Senate and a huge majority in the House, there will be all kinds of ways to pressure Republican Senators to do the right thing. Including making them think -- AT LONG FREAKING LAST -- about how many Republicans have lost elections for supporting Trump.

Great Caesar's Ghost

I began to feel a little bit of polylinguistic sophistication when I discovered -- don't ask me when. I'm terrible when it comes to remembering when various events of my life happened. It could have been 20 years ago, it could have been 30 -- not only that "Kaiser" was the German word for "Caesar," but that the Germans, although spelling it differently, were pronouncing the name correctly, while we Anglophones, with very few eccentric exceptions, were not. It was around the same time that I learned that both the Greek Byzantine Emperors, from the 4th century until 1453, and the German Holy Roman Emperors from 800 to 1806 called themselves Caesar, as did the Austrian Emperors from 1804 to 1919, and the German Emperors -- often the only ones meant by English-speakers when they say "Kaiser" -- from 1871 to 1918.

Some time after this discovery -- do not ask me how long after -- I learned that "Tsar" was Russian for "Caesar." Still later, I learned that the rulers of Bulgaria called themselves Tsars from the 10th to the 14th century, and then again in the 20th century, and that the last reigning Tsar of Bulgaria, 80-year-old Tsar Simeon II, who ruled as a minor in the 1940's and was Bulgaria's Prime Minister from 2001 to 2005, has not yet formally renounced the title of Tsar.

After the conquest of Constantinople, the Ottoman Sultans included among their titles "Qaysar-i Rūm," "Caesar of Rome."

To be clear: all of those leaders, those of Byzantium, of the Holy Roman Empire, of medieval and 20th-century Bulgaria, of Imperial Russia, of the Ottoman Empire, and of the Austrian and German Empires of the 19th and 20th centuries, called -- and in at least one case, call -- themselves Caesar, not because they thought the named sounded cool or anything like that, but because they, and probably others of whom I am still unaware, were quite seriously claiming to be the political heirs of Julius Caesar.

Why? In this case, as with most questions to do with politics, there are few logical reasons. Julius Caesar was the sole ruler of Rome for less than 5 years. Ah, but his actions as ruler were unique? Name one. We'll wait.

Caesar's successor, his actual heir Octavianus, who changed his named to Augustus, and added Caesar to his name, beginning a long-lasting custom, was the sole ruler of Rome for over 40 years, and ruled in a much more absolute manner than Caesar had. Caesar's predecessors Sulla and Pompey each ruled longer than he did.

I think the first first part of the reason for the lasting nature of the power of Caesar's name has not to do with his rule, not to do with his life at all, but with his death. He was stabbed to death in the Senate, by Senators. Assassinations don't get much more dramatic than that. Augustus used that drama, as he so skillfully used so many things and so many people, to increase his own power. Augustus, without a doubt, ended the Roman Republic and founded the Roman Empire. It has very often been remarked that Augustus ended the Republic while constantly insisting that he was upholding it, fooling no one from his time to our own while achieving tremendous feats of change. If political titles were distributed logically, then thousands of years' worth of monarchs would have been known as Augustus -- and it's true that many of the Caesars were also called Augustus, but, with a lack of egotism quite rare among emperors, Augustus saw to it that Caesar's name was going to remain the most prominent.

Why? perhaps because, with an even greater lack of ego, Augustus saw that Caesar had been charismatic, and that he himself was not. This gave him the opportunity to enhance his own power by glorifying someone else. How many great politicians have ever been able to choose between power and glory? That choice is more one for a monk than for a politician.

But I'm just guessing, just as one has to guess whether Augustus foresaw the pax romana and valued an end to civil war over his power. Just as one has to guess so often about his motives.

There was a sphinx on Augustus' signet ring and in official portraits of him. Was this to commemorate his victory over Cleopatra? Yeah, maybe.

Great Big Fat Guy, Day 846

Left home at 11:52:30 AM.

Walked directly 2.7 miles to a hospital scale, arrived at 12:43 (3.2 MPH).

Weight: 298.1 lbs. But wait! That was after I removed my glasses, wristwatch, wallet, coin purse, notebook, pen, smart phone, keys, shoes and T-shirt. Then I put all that stuff back on again, so that I was wearing everything I'd been wearing in the middle of an approximately 5-mile walk 5 days ago, when I weighed 300.5 pounds, and again 3 days ago, in the middle of a 5.4 mile walk, when I weighed 300.5 pounds again. Today, wearing all that stuff, I weighed 301.9 lbs in the middle of a 5.4 mile walk.

I've been taking a 5-mile walk every other day, and gaining weight.

Arrived home at 1:55, walking very slowly.

When I got home, I googled can an obese person lose weight by walking. The results were encouraging.

In the past 12 days, I've walked 1.6 miles 4 times, approximately 5 miles once and 5.4 miles twice. That all adds up to 22.2 miles, 4 miles short of 1 marathon.

Today is exactly 6 weeks after my operation, which means that I can (officially) lift more than 10 lbs, which means that I have no more honest excuse to make my brother come over to my house and do my laundry. I can also (officially) do all sorts of exercises now. (Unofficially, I didn't wait the entire 6 weeks. Don't tell anyone.)

I want to continue to increase the distance I walk. Over 30 miles a week would be good. At some point, I may add running to the walking. And I will be doing other exercises. Excuse me for just a moment.

I'm back. I just did my first 30 crunches in 6 weeks. As I expected, it felt like I hadn't done crunches in a while. But I didn't expect to be able to do 30.

And now I'm going to eat something. I know, I know, the reason I'm gaining weight is because I'm taking in more calories than I'm burning off. I know. I'll try to control myself.

Great Big Fat Guy, Day 841

300.5 lbs.

That's what the scales said today, when I weighed myself for the first time in about a month. In the past week I've gone for 4 walks of 1.6 miles each, and then today I went about 5 miles, and during that walk I weighed myself at the hospital, because I can't weigh myself at home because my house tilts and that makes scales unusable, and I'm still on the ugly side of 300. But just barely. I didn't walk all the way home. I took the bus for the last 1.3 miles because my feet were killing me.

I was so hoping I was going to break 300 today. I was so sure I was going to do it. Well, if I walk to that scale and back home 5 or 6 times a week, I'll break 300 at some point, surely.

I don't know exactly how far I walked because I got lost on the way to the hospital and for an unknown distance I was walking in circles. Straight to the hospital scale I used and straight back home would've been 5.4 miles.

Socialism in the US

Some of the Democratic candidates in the 2018 mid-terms, most prominently Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, are referring to themselves as socialists, which is freaking some people out.

Although this is a huge problem, it's a purely semantic problem.

Part of the problem is that anti-socialist propaganda has been extremely successful in the US, and Americans have been very effectively cut off from news of socialism in the rest of the world, so that people in the US often lose their minds as soon as they hear the word "socialism." Socialism has functioned perfectly well in the UK (where it's called the Labour Party), France , (West, and then reunified) Germany, Italy and the rest of Western Europe, but in the US, it faces unique obstacles. For example, all of the Americans who "hate Marx" without ever having read anything written by Marx. Many Americans "hate socialism" without knowing what it is. It's basically what the Democratic Party stands for: good wages, health care, a clean environment, good and affordable (or free) education, etc. It's help for people who actually need help, instead of for the rich people who already own most of the US and are outraged that they're not allowed to pollute more and pay their workers less.

Part of the problem is that for the moment, in the US, the term "socialist" has been partially monopolized by Bernie Sanders, who is no more socialist than the left wing of the Democratic Party, and whom people dislike for all sorts of perfectly sensible reasons which have nothing to do with socialism. Basically, Bernie is the worst thing to happen to the Democratic Party since Ralph Nader. Bernie, a socialist? It's a joke! He's too anti-social to have belonged to a political party for most of his career, until he joined the Democratic Party in time to ruin things for Hillary, to help Trump get elected, and, above all, to feed his seemingly insatiable ego. He moved from multi-cultural Brooklyn to lily-white, affluent Vermont, where they use a lot of green power, which is good, but don't participate very much in the actual socialist (that is, working-class) struggles going on the US.

Socialism is as American as FDR and LBJ -- even though both of them, unfortunately, avoided the label and left it to be used as a weapon against them by their libertarian rivals. It's as American as FDR's cousin Theodore breaking up the biggest companies in the US in order to stop them from taking over the US. Hopefully, soon, Americans will finally learn what the word means, and realize it's something they know and have been voting for all along.

A Message to the Political Big-Shots

POLITICO reports:

Vice President Mike Pence, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats are publicly denying that they are the author of an anonymous New York Times op-ed detailing a "resistance" movement inside the Trump administration, in an extraordinary demonstration of how the editorial has rattled the highest levels of government.

Someone in the White House, possibly the Secretary of State, possibly the Vice-President, says that there's a movement within the Trump administration which has been secretly doing what most of America has been openly doing -- resisting Trump and his unhinged, anti-democratic policies.

On the one hand, yeah, this is a bombshell, and it's nice to have some confirmation -- I should say: some more confirmation, since this is not the first report of its kind -- that not even all of his own administration is with Trump. On the other hand: aren't you sick of how almost all comments by big-time Republican politicians saying what we all know are anonymous, off the record? Haven't you had enough of this attitude of: "Yes, he's a dangerous psycho and an out-and-out sociopath -- Buuuut, instead of doing something about it, let's just ride his administration out, as long as it may happen to last"? Not to mention all the speeches by both Democrats and Republicans at the very highest levels up to and including former Presidents, "clearly indicating Trump, without mentioning his name..."?

GROW A PAIR AND SAY IT RIGHT OUT LOUD IN PUBLIC: TRUMP IS MENTALLY UNFIT TO BE PRESIDENT, AND HE'S ALSO A CROOK, AND HE'S PLUNDERING THE COUNTRY AND CAUSING WIDESPREAD SUFFERING! THIS SHIT HAS GONE ON WAY TOO LONG!

That is my respectful message to the biggest political big-shots in the US. This is supposed to be a democracy. In a democracy, the important things are supposed to be handled openly. Publicly. I know they're not handled that way, but this would be a glorious opportunity to start to change that. Do what all of us little guys have been doing: say Trump's name when you say what you honestly think of him. Say it on the record. Say it on TV. The left wing of the Democratic Party and Steve Schmidt can't do this all by themselves. (God bless you, Mr Schmidt, btw.)

Well, since the Republicans who have had the power to remove Trump from office haven't been taking any action at all to do so, one can only hope that, after November, when the Democrats have the power, they will use it. It's true, the Democrats won't have 2/3 of the Senators after November, but they will have a majority, with which they will be able to put pressure on those Republican Senators who are awake enough to have noticed how supporting Trump's political career has tended to cause their own political careers to go down in flames.

Great Big Fat Guy, Day 835

As faithful followers of this blog know, exactly one month ago, August 1, 2018, Great Big Fat Guy underwent surgery during which his right kidney and a huge cancerous tumor were removed from his body. Today, Great Big Fat Guy went for a walk which lasted exactly 30 minutes and covered 1.6 miles.

I (also known as Great Big Fat Guy, also know as The Wrong Monkey, also known as Steven Bollinger) was planning to take a route which covers 2.1 miles, but a little past the 1 mile mark, I was feeling exhausted and decided to take a short cut home. There was one steep hill on the route, by Ann Arbor standards. (By Knoxville, Tennessee standards, there were no steep hills on the route.) (The distances were calculated with Google Maps.)

I tend to write these Great Big Fat Guy posts right after doing some cardio, so maybe they're 100% written under the euphoric influence of endorphins. However, right now, there's one big buzzkill that's cutting right through the euphoria: before the surgery, I weighed 320 pounds. That's too much for me. There may be some guys who stand 6'3" and are actually so full of muscles that they weigh 320 pounds and are not fat, but I can't kid myself into thinking that I'm one of those guys. 220 pounds would be much more like it, and 180 would probably be better than 220.

I hadn't been weighed in 2 years (which is a very convenient sort of thing if you'd rather be in denial about what kind of physical shape you're in), because I hadn't been to see a doctor in 2 years, and my house is tilted so a scale isn't accurate inside it. I used to walk to the hospital just to weigh myself, which is about 2.5 miles each way, 5 miles round trip, and when I did that, I weighed a lot less than 320 pounds, and it wasn't a coincidence. When I weighed 180 or less, I often walked more than 30 miles in a day -- are you starting to see the pattern here?

Time for Great Big Fat Guy to spend a lot of time being Great Big Sweaty Guy. I want to start a new series of blog posts replacing the Great Big Fat Guy posts, with titles like Big Tall Guy, Not Particularly Fat, Day 45, or Slender Guy Breaks 20 Minute Barrier in 5K.

PS, 2 September 2018: One day later. Same 1.6-mile course. 30 seconds faster: 29 min 30 sec. Just like yesterday, I left home intending to walking the entire 2.1-mile course. Just like yesterday, I chickened out and took the shortcut home. Unlike yesterday, today it was cloudy for much of the walk, making it much cooler and easier. I thought I was going to beat yesterday's time by more than 30 seconds. Oh well. At least I actually got out and walked two whole days in a row.