August 9, 2018--Incels

Those who follow this know I am a poor sleeper and one way I try to get to sleep is to bore myself to exhaustion with late night radio talk shows. From sports talk (WFAN in New York City) to Coast To Coast AM, which focuses on various forms of the paranormal (ESP) with special emphasis on flying saucers, and Red Eye Radio, which offers mainly political talk from a right-wing perspective, primarily to long-haul truck drivers. 

I am not alone (I am not speaking extraterrestrially)--many millions tune in to one or more of these shows. We are a nation of insomniacs. 

The other night I encountered the Incels--Involuntary Celibates. Never having heard of them, I found them so complicated that I listened for at least two hours. 

After leaning about them and their history, rather than dropping off,  fitfully I tossed and turned for additional hours, wondering about the many varieties of human experience and reminded about the tortured inner lives of some of those who walk among us.

From Wikipedia--

Insels are self-identifying members of an online subculture who define themselves as unable to find a romantic or sexual partner, a state they define as inceldom. Incels are mostly white, male, and heterosexual. 

Discussions in incel forums are often characterized by resentment, misanthropy, self-pity, self-loathing, misogny, racism, a sense of entitlement to sex, and the endorsement of violence against sexually active people. 

The Southern Poverty Law Center describes the subculture as "part of the online male supremacist ecosystem . . ." People who have either self-identified as incels or who have mentioned incel-related names and literature in their private writings or Internet postings have committed at least four mass murders in North America, resulting in 45 deaths . . . [including Nikalos Cruz, who murdered 17 people and injured 17 others in 2017 in a mass shooting at Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida].

Further, I learned that members of the incel communities use jargon to communicate among themselves. They frequently refer to women as "femoids"; "stacys" are attractive, sexually active women; and "becky's"--less attractive, sexually active women. "Chads" are sexually active men. "Looksmaxing" is an attempt to enhance one's appearance by dressing nicely or having plastic surgery. 

"Volcels" are voluntary celibates; "marcels" are married people; "nearcels" are those considered close to being incels; "hicels" are thought to have high standards because they are picky when dating; and "fakecels"are those pretending to be incels but in fact have had sex recently.

There are also variations of the term "incel" when referring to people who believe their race is the reason behind their inability to find a partner.

"Currycels" are South Asians and "ricecels" are those of Chinese or Southeast Asian ancestry.

They need help. We all do.


In the meantime, I think it's time for me to consider moving on to Ambien.

September 7, 2017--Audiologist In Search of an Author (Part 1 of 2)

Dr. Schwartzberg sent me an email after meeting with my friends John and Allan for John's monthly hearing aid adjustment. 

Joe told me they spoke mainly about his devices but also about the audiological stories I've been writing. So I wasn't surprised when Gary wrote to me, saying--

"I confessed to John and Barbara that there are times you are making me question reality. Thinking to myself--'Wait, did that happen?'"

"Well," I wrote back, "you may not believe this, but there are times that I've been wondering the same thing about you. 

"Let me give you an example: In the most recent story about the so-called sonic attacks in Havana, to protect his privacy, I made up the name of your patient, a CIA agent or something, who in various ways was involved with countering the Cubans and, to help him, because of your counterintelligence background, how he drew you into the stealthy process and how in turn, though I was unaware that any of this was happening, how this also came to involve me.

"I called him 'Andrews,'" I continued, "and when you read the first part of the story told me, to quote you--'Believe it or not, I have two patients with that name!'"

Distraught that I had misstepped, I responded to you immediately--

"I'm changing the 'Andrews' name to 'Anderson.' I don't want your two Andrews clients to think you're talking inappropriately about them. You're already in enough trouble with your former clandestine colleagues. Now you're seeing how it feels to live in a world of alternative facts."

Still upset with myself, I wrote to Gary--"I was mortified that I had inadvertently violated doctor-patient confidentiality and that I was a party to getting you into further complications and so I rushed to change the CIA guy's fictional name."

I also said, "When you saw my emails you wrote back that you have six patients with the name Anderson.

"I can be a little slow but it finally dawned on me that as I was playing with you you were playing with me.

"So I wrote--

"And here I trusted you. In case you actually have any Andrews as clients, I changed his name to Anderson, and in an attempt to lighten things up, added, "I'm sure you have at least two Andersons as clients. On the other hand," I passed along, "Rona suggested I call Andrews-Anderson 'Ginsberg' since it's unlikely you have any of those."

"I'm getting a headache from this," Dr. Schwartzberg wrote back, "Andrews, Anderson, and now Ginsberg. To tell you the truth you're the only person in the world who cares about any of this. I'm just a simple audiologist trying to serve my patients and send my daughter to college."

"That's what I used to think about you," I wrote in a return email, "Hiding out here in Maine after making your escape from super-heated New Jersey. You know," I said, "I have wondered why you found your way to a small town in Maine. You're super smart, terrific at what you do, have the capacity to build a large and thriving practice, but here you are. All hunkered down. I would have thought . . ."

"This is the perfect place for me," he wrote, this conversation was all via email, "To tell you the truth, I've had plenty of pressure and excitement. Enough for a lifetime. You don't know the half of it. And, as they say, 'If I tell you, I'd have to kill you.'" I could imagine him chuckling at that.

"Thanks for that," I wrote, "I mean, not having to kill me. But I have another story for you. Maybe not unrelated."

"Shoot," he fired back, adding, "Sorry for the violent reference." 

"You know I'm a fitful sleeper. Actually, more an insomniac. I listen to late-night radio to distract myself from anxiosizing. And to bore me which helps put me to sleep. I listen to some sports talk and a mix of talk shows. Mostly rightwing stuff because that seems to be what's on the air in the middle of the night. The Mark Levin Show, Red-Eye Radio, what I call the flying saucer show, Coast-to-Coast AM where most of the callers talk about their contact with extraterrestrials. I also tune in to an assortment of local talkshow hosts from around the country since late at night AM radio signals bounce off the ionosphere. So, one of my favorites is out of Detroit. I don't even know what it's called or the name of the host.

"The other night, I think it was Tuesday, I was listening to him and his callers. I can't remember what they were talking about but as it was approaching 5:00 am, a new show started and on it you'll never believe what happened. Actually, as I suspect you'll see, you probably do know exactly what I'm talking about.

"The guest was an audiologist. Nothing too strange about that because many of these after-midnight programs are devoted to medical talk, like about cyberknife surgery for prostate cancer. I'm sure most of the listeners are at least my age since older folks are notoriously poor sleepers. We lie awake all night thinking about illness and, of course, death.

"But when I heard the show was about audiology, my ears perked up. Pun intended. Here's what to me was strange. The audiologist was saying the exact same things you've been saying to me as you tested me and then fit me for hearing aids. And what you say each week about what's going on when I come in for an adjustment."

I cut off there and sent this email off to Gary. I was curious to see how he would respond with incomplete information. I suspected I was hitting close to home with him or stumbled on to something unusual since two days later he called. Talking on the phone is something we rarely do. Our relationship is more about my coming to his office or us communicating via emails.

He said, "This does sound strange to me. Not that I listen to any of these shows. Thankfully I sleep pretty well. If I need a little help sleeping a beer or two is all I need to put me out."

"You know," I said, not able to contain myself, "Since I wrote to you about this I've been trying without success to tune in again to that Detroit station. I wasn't able to connect. Likely, I thought, because of problems with the atmosphere. I wanted to be able to figure out how to find out who his audiologist guest was. Also, the more I replayed the tape of the interview in my head, not only did he say the same kinds of things you said, though I assume some of it is standard-issue audiological talk, he used some of the exact same words you used when I first became your client and, this is the strangest part, he sounded just like you. I don't mean he sounded a little like you but he sounded just like you, including some of your quirky expressions like 'I want you to have very high expectations and to expect excellent results.' On the show, if you can believe it, just like you, the guest audiologist tore up some paper to show the listeners how it sounded to them. Sort of for diagnostic purposes. And so," I said, "I began to think the guest on the show in Detroit was really you." 

After that burst I finally stopped rattling on.

Dr. Schwartzberg then said, "I don't know how to put this, but I'm a little concerned about you."

"Concerned?"

"You seem to have become obsessed about all things audiological. Don't get me wrong, I'm obsessed too and I like having a patient, a client who's as interested in the subject as I. But in my 25 years of practice I've never had anyone as into it as you. That's my first point." He paused to gather himself, "But then there's this Detroit business. Most concerning is your feeling that the person being interviewed was me because . . ."

"I'm sorry about that," I interrupted, "I know that was ridiculous. It's just that . . ." I began to stammer.

"I need to tell you that I did some research and could not find a late-night, early-morning local talk show in Detroit of the kind you described. All their AM stations broadcast your Red-Eye or Coast-to-Coast shows." 

He waited for me to say something and when I didn't, said, "And I even called an audiologist I know in a Detroit suburb and he knew nothing about any of this. And so . . ." He let his thought trail off.

"So are you saying--I don't know how to put this--that because of my obsession I'm making this up? Or suffering from hallucinations? I mean, we're talking about the middle of the night with me hooked up to a radio and listening to all this craziness." I was feeling quite agitated, worried that over time, if this persisted, I'd have even more difficulty sleeping.

"We've come a long distance from my 'Mr. Andrews,'" Gary said with a hint of irony.

I tried to joke, "Or your Mr. 'Anderson.'" 

I was feeling more and more rattled. What was happening to me? Was I losing my mind? Was I being taken over by malevolent forces? I'm not at all inclined to think that way. I think of myself as totally rational. I pride myself on not being in any way superstitious or subject to believing in the occult, spirits, or anything remotely like that. No matter what I hear from all the deluded people on Coast-to-Coast AM who call in from flying saucers.

"Well," Gary said, "I have patients waiting. You'll be OK. Oh, I forgot to mention, since you still have that loaner hearing aid, until you return it to me, I'd stop using it. In case . . . Just the one for the right ear should get the job done."

"What you're now saying makes me anxious," I said, "Why are you telling me to do this? Is there something you're not telling me about it because . . ." 

The line was dead. He had hung up.

To be concluded tomorrow--

July 12, 2107--Smoking Cannon

Some wag said, "It's not a smoking gun, it's a smoking cannon."

He was talking, of course, about the most recent bombshell about Donald Junior's dealings with the Russians. His pathetic attempt to give his daddy a present--the presidency.

Present delivered, but at what an ultimate cost.

Anyone with the last name Trump (or Kushner) needs more than a squadron of lawyers--he needs medication and a get-out-of-jail-free-card.

I'm not sure any of that will help.

Yesterday, when Little Donny was forced to release his e-mail stream about the meeting in June at the Trump Tower, no less, regarding a deal to secure Russian help in getting "dirt" about Hillary ("I love it!" Junior chirped), as of yesterday, a week short of the six-month anniversary of the Trump presidency, was the official beginning of the end of the Don's reign.

The Don is not an inappropriate moniker for him as Trump is more the boss of a political crime family than a credible commander in chief.

What to them is most worrisome (and if you have been following my scribbling on the subject I have said this many times) is the drip, drip, drip fear. In this case that Paul Manafort, who at the time of the meeting was still Trump's campaign manager, Manafort, the playmaker in the dirty dealmaking, who was at the meeting and I'm sure others equally damaging which will soon come to the light of day, will throw Donald Junior and Jared under the bus rather than spend the rest of his adult life in the slammer, while the two boys, tempted like Oedipus to blow the whistle and worse on their father/father-in-law, will have to suck it up and get ready for incarceration.

Unless Daddy pardons them, which I predict he will do within a year as he moves toward resigning.

To see how this is playing in TrumpLand I spent a lot of time last night, late last night, tuned in to talk radio, particularly Red Eye Radio, where the two hosts did their best to chuckle their way through the damning news, making as light of it as possible. To laugh it off, it seemed, was their idea of the best way to trivialize it and make it go away.

But since even they knew that wouldn't work, they turned to the Rush Limbaugh talking-points-of-the-day memo--if all else fails, blame Hillary.

So, I heard a lot again about her server, her e-mails, her own Russian connection (remember the uranium business?), and of course, the chart-topper, Benghazi. Resurrecting Benghazi more than anything else tells you how desperate they are.

As I said, drip, drip, drip.

September 29, 2016--Sidney Blumen-Who?

During the last half hour of Monday's presidential debate, moderator Lester Holt asked Donald Trump the inevitable question about his many-years-long campaign to call into question Barack Obama's citizenship and thus eligibility to be president. The Birther business. And by posing it during the segment of the debate devoted to race, Holt upped the ante.

Rather than just apologizing for pressing the issue so hard for so long in an attempt to move on--as Hillary Clinton successfully did when asked about her emails, saying--"I made a mistake,"which effectively ended the matter--Trump stumbled on and offered an incoherent and defensive response that on reflection was interesting because of what was largely ignored--his mumbling something about "Blumenthal." Seemingly suggesting that "Blumenthal" had something to do with raising the Birther issue.

Neither Clinton nor Holt followed up vigorously, wisely in its own way as Trump was on his own momentum twisting in the wind.

I was half-asleep by then and did not think that much about it.

But later that night, on one of my after-midnight talk shows--"Red Eye Radio"--a caller referred to Sidney Blumenthal, a close Clinton aide, as the progenitor of the Birther movement. A movement, so called, populated mainly of middle-age racist white men. That must have been, I thought, what Trump was trying to say.

I remembered Blumenthal as a senior advisor to Bill Clinton during his presidency. I knew Clinton trusted his political instincts, especially when it came to launching political attacks. This very much included Blumenthal's trying to help Bill thread his way though the cyclone of the Monica Lewinsky affair.

I also remembered that the Obama administration would not allow Hillary Clinton, when she was named Secretary of State, to hire him as one of her senior advisors. David Axelrod and Robert Gibbs, for example, indicated they would resign their White House positions if Blumenthal was appointed.

Call me foolish, but also from the talk-show world, I thought this had to do with rumors that Hillary and Sidney were fooling around and Obama didn't want any of that going on on his watch.

To check my recollections and to see what Trump might have been attempting to say during the debate, I googled "Blumenthal Birther" and within a microsecond there was all sorts of stuff, ranging from ratings from the lunatic fringe to other postings that appeared credible. Especially one from McClatchy News' Website of September 16, 2016--a few days before the debate.

For the uninitiated, McClatchy is a major publisher of daily newspapers, 29 at the moment, including a number that they secured from the Knight-Ridder company. They have won 9 Pulitzer Prizes and the first  I.F Stone Medal for Journalistic Independence. So they are far from ideological.

Since before the 16th Trump yet again made Birther noises and mentioned Blumenthal, who since 2008 has been a close advisor to Hillary, on its Website on the 16th McCaltchy posted a piece about its role in the Birther controversy.

It appears that during the run up to the Iowa caucuses in 2008, before Trump was questioning Obama's legitimacy, when Clinton was opposing Obama for the nomination, a staffer from Iowa approached McClatchy with a tip--she claimed that Obama was not born in the United States. When the word about this got out she was quickly disavowed by the campaign and summarily fired.

Closer to the point, then McClatchy Washington Bureau Chief James Asher, at that same time was approached by Sidney Blumenthal with the same "news." They refused to run it but again the word began to leak out.

Then this past Friday, and then again on Monday, Asher was quoted as saying that, "Blumenthal did spread the story to him, and that he assigned a reporter to check it out."

Though this may appear to be a posting about Trump with the implication that he was doing his version of a good citizen's due diligence, it is anything but.

Trump has been despicable throughout, including the other night when he appeared to stammer that he didn't do what he was accused of doing (wrong) and that he had not been pressing the calumny recently (again wrong, in fact that is blatantly untrue).

What is also despicable is the cravenness of moderator Lester Holt not knowing, or pretending not to know, the true genesis on the Birther slander with Sidney Blumenthal front and center.

Trump may have been the principal mouthpiece and self-promoter in promulgating the Birther lie but it did not begin with him. More truthfully, it may have originated with Hillary Clinton's closest advisor.

If it took me five minutes to get this straight. Holt with his squadron of producers and assistants could have done the same thing in half the time. And surely Hillary or one of her people could have, should have done the same thing.

None of this is impressive.

August 5, 2016--Area 51 and the New World Order

And here I thought that Area 51 conspiracy theories were just about alien invasions and psychic phenomena. Little did I know until the night before last that the military's ultra-top-secret weapons development facility hidden away in the Nevada desert is also where the New World Order is taking shape.

The U.S. government will only fess up to using Area 51 to develop and test aircraft such as the U-2 spy plane and the F-117 stealth fighter.

They deny dabbling in ESP experiments or consorting with aliens who conspiracy theorists claim have been arriving in the area for years, decades, centuries, even millennia.

(The latter limited, of course, to those who believe in Evolution and the earth being more than 6,000 years old.)

I've learned about this by listening to late night talk radio. In recent years especially to George Noory, host of Coast to Coast AM, which for four hours every overnight is devote to things paranormal. I am not alone among insomniacs. His show is carried by over 600 radio stations and listened to by at least 2.75 million.

The other night, needing a break from listeners calling in to report about being abducted by aliens, I switched over to my other favorite late night show--Red Eye Radio, pitched to interstate truckers, shift workers, and fitful sleepers. I of the latter category.

It is broadcast over 38 stations and attracts a nightly audience of perhaps a million. It is political in nature, no flying-saucer people, and hosted by Eric Harley and Gary McNamara, two reasonably intelligent and well informed conservatives who are sane and smart enough to be troubled by Donald Trump's candidacy.

In the midst of their angst about Trump, a caller, perhaps like me straying from Coast to Coast, brought up Area 51. Harley and McNamara moaned, sensing where this was headed--they've heard it all--but, gentlemen that they are, didn't hang up on her. It was as if they were saying--"OK, bring it on. You just got back from Mars and . . ."

She surprised them. She didn't want to report about being teleported from Cleveland to Roswell, New Mexico--she wanted to talk about the quasi-governmental New World Order.

This I knew something about from my interest in Millennialism. The belief that the world is nearing the end and when that is signaled by the Rapture, after a millennium of Tribulation, Christ will reappear and during this Second Coming will sort out who are going to heaven and who are going in the other direction.

Symptoms of the End Times include the emergence of a New World Order (some say the UN or the current American government is its progenitor) and the appearance of the antichrist (some say this is Obama, others that it is Hillary).

The caller had a different spin to share--it was right there in the Nevada Desert that the New World Order is being assembled. And here's the extraterrestrial connection--

It begins with the claim that aliens have been among us for at least centuries. The government knows this and through the deployment of "men in black" has been covering it up since they are collaborating with the aliens, who are manipulating developments in human society so as to be able to better control and exploit earthlings.

According to the caller, these aliens have shapeshifted into human form so they can move among us undetected. They are now close to taking control of our government and corporate and religious institutions and are as a result in the final stages of their plan to take over the world and impose a new order.

In return for the coverup, the U.S. government gets help from the aliens in the development and testing of flying-saucer weapons systems.

Quite a Faustian bargain, I thought.

Finally cutting her off, Harley and McNamara chimed in, "Compared to this, Donald Trump doesn't sound so bad."

October 14, 2015--Talk Radio

I'm a notoriously poor sleeper.

I manage to fall asleep without trouble, but it's the staying asleep that's the problem.

I have found that one thing that interrupts my early morning obsessing and allows me to resume sleeping is listening to overnight talk radio. The shows tend to be so repetitive and inane that they literally bore me to unconsciousness.

Sports talk of the sort found on WFAN, where callers and hosts obsessively fret about the Jets, Giants, and Knicks gets me slumbering in less than half an hour.

And then there are the political shows. All right wing and full of hate (mostly directed toward Barack Obama) and paranoia (most fears and conspiracies attributed to Obama) and so predictable and repetitive that they too soon lull me back to dreamland.

Then there is Coast to Coast, a nationally syndicated show that is devoted to the paranormal. Guests and callers share stories about flying saucers and how they were abducted and poked in all their bodily cavities by Martians before being returned to Earth. The good news--no one on these shows seem much interested in the president. Though occasionally he is thought to be an alien.

Usually, if I manage to acquire a strong C to C signal, I'm snoring again in less than 15 minutes. There are just so many trips to Venus I can handle even when staring fretfully at the 3:00 a.m. ceiling.

It is interesting that with two exceptions, political talk radio is all so stridently conservative. The two exceptions are the Alan Colmes and Al Sharpton shows. The former has 1.75 million listeners while the Reverend typically attracts 1.0 million.

Compare this with the king of talk, Russ Limbaugh, who has 13.25 million followers; the prince of paranoia, Sean Hannity with 12.5 million; delusional Glenn Beck and Mark Levin with 7.0 million each; and the Michael Savage show that pitches to 5.25 mad-as-hell insomniacs.

All the latter specialize in savaging (pun intended) liberals and especially Obama, who, frequently, is thought to be the Antichrist or at the very least a Kenyan Muslim. Nothing he is doing or did in the past is without fault. The goal is to overturn everything he accomplished, especially Obamacare, and even to delegitimatize him. Yes, he was elected two times with majorities, but if he can be proven to be foreign born or the literal Devil, they can make him go away. It would be as if he never existed.

To give their assault on Obama and other liberals the patina of credibility, these hosts and their callers frequently make things up.

Since they cannot marshall facts to support most of their allegations and grievances, they create them, disproving Daniel Patrick Moynahan's oft-quoted assertion that we are entitled to our opinions but not our own facts.

One small example--On the well-named Red Eye Radio program the other night--a widely syndicated show pitched to truck drivers--they were ranting about Obama's intention to ignore the Second Amendment and to begin to confiscate everyone's guns. Even hunting rifles. That he was using the most recent campus slaughter in southern Utah as a "political opportunity" to justify his fascistic agenda.

"If he's in favor of more gun control," one of the hosts shouted, "why doesn't he come forward with detailed proposals? He talks in generalities but offers no specifics."

His cohost and a procession of folks called in agree.

In fact, three years ago, after the murders at the Sandy Hook School in Newtown, Connecticut, Obama proposed a full program of legislation to limit the size of ammunition magazines for automatic weapons, increased requirements for those who sell semi-automatic assault rifles at gun shows, and the like.

I thought, why aren't any people calling in to present these facts? Where are the liberals who care about these issues? Why are they, we, so passive when faced with the phenomenon of right-wing talk radio?

If we can't sustain shows that present a progressive perspective (including on television--MSNBC failed while Fox News is thriving) why not at least organize a campaign to flood the airwaves with callers who will take on the lies and vitriol of the Glenn Becks, Michael Savages, and Mark Levins?

Liberals recognize the influence and power of these shows on political life and their ability to articulate a vision for the extreme right. A segment of the activist population that is more and more influencing and even shaping the Republican agenda.

Why have we ceded this on-air ground to the untra-conservatives? Even if these shows' producers began to screen out liberal callers, that in itself would make quite a story when publicly exposed.

It is curious that progressives spend passive time tuning in to the Jon Stewarts, Steven Colberts, and Bill Mahers, but are not motivated enough to get up off the couch to take on the calumnies of Limbaugh and Hannity.

Sorry, but if we don't get mobilized, we will get what we deserve.