April 13, 2018--Post-Privacy

More than usual people are concerned about privacy. This the result of the news that Facebook did not prevent the sharing of very personal information about 87 million of us. In fact, they sold it to Cambridge Analytica, which, in turn may or may not have used that data in shady ways to support Donald Trump's run for the presidency.

What did people addicted to Facebook (me included) think they were doing with all the data about our intimate selves we so casually handed over to them? 

Facebook makes billions every month but doesn't charge users to use their "platform." What was Facebook's business model that yielded so much money? If we had paused for a minute to think about how Instagram's and Google's and Snapchat's and YouTube's and Twitter's business models make a fortune but do not charge users we would have realized they made their money by selling us out to marketers and political consultants. 

So all the outrage directed toward Facebook sounds a little self-serving and inauthentic. My bet is that hardly anyone will as a result stop using Facebook or the others.

And, it seems to me, that very few people care profoundly about this. I want my Facebook; I don't want to pay to use it; and I don't care very much, perhaps not at all, about losing my privacy.

After all, don't the social network platforms depend upon us eagerly wanting to surrender our privacy? Aren't they ultimately narcissistic-enabling vehicles for us to let it all, or much of it, hang out for "friends" and friends of friends and friends of friends' friends? Isn't the dream of much of this to have one's postings widely shared, go viral? How else can that happen unless we put it all out there to be passed around?

Years ago I had early glimpses of how people were moving to sacrifice privacy for the sake of convenience and expediency. Though at the time I really didn't get it.

About two decades ago I was online at Citibank (not on-line) waiting to deposit a check. This in the day before there were ATMs. Ahead of me were two women who were talking at full volume. One was worried about her daughter, "I'm afraid she's becoming addicted to cocaine," she said loud enough for everyone on line to hear. "I don't know what to do with her. I can't afford to pay for a recovery program. I suppose I just have to hope for the best."  

Her friend put an arm around her and, changing the subject, began to talk, equally audibly, about her boyfriend, "He punched me the other day. We were having an argument and he got violent. Slapped my face hard enough that I think he loosened a couple of my molars." She opened her mouth wide and showed her friend the two teeth. Her friend leaned closer to examine her teeth.

Thankfully, they soon got to the head of the line and were summoned by one of the tellers. The memory is still vivid for me.

A few years later, walking home on Broadway, there was a young woman who appeared to be talking to herself in a very loud voice. Another crazy person, I thought. So young to be talking to herself, I thought. But as I moved quickly to pass her, I realized she was speaking to someone on her cell phone, talking into the wire attached to the phone on which there was a small microphone. Again, without needing to strain to pay attention I could hear every word she said. They were talking about meeting that evening at a local restaurant. All very benign, but evidence that the culture was shifting. I realized we would soon have no need for the phone booths with accordion doors that were still common on urban streets.

Some time after that I was in Washington for a meeting with Alaska Senator Ted ("Uncle Ted") Stevens. He was the chair of the all-powerful Appropriations Committee and I was, I confess, seeking his support for a $20.0 million earmark for a promising public school reform project that, to lubricate the process of seeking his help, we were more than willing to bring to his state.

He was about to be term-limited out of the chairmanship so the timing was urgent. 

We spoke about the project (which he later arranged to be funded) and then he told me that as a consolation for losing the Appropriations chair, he was to become the chair of the Senate Commerce Committee. He wasn't, to tell the truth, happy about this. It was a much less powerful position.

"One thing I'm concerned about," he said, "is the responsibility for protecting internet security. Really, privacy. And to be honest with you, I'm 82 years old, and don't know anything about the internet or, for the matter, computers."

"So, what are you going to do?" I asked.

"I'll tell you what I already did," he said, smiling, "I asked my youngest staffers to do a little looking around and see what they could learn about me on the internet. You know, when and where I was born, where I live, who I'm married to. Things of that sort. I told them to get back to me in a week or so and they said no problem."

"I think I know where this is going," I said.

"Well, later in the day, the same day, they appeared in my doorway holding stacks and stakes of paper. 'What's all that?' I asked them. They told me it was what they had already come up with on the internet. You wouldn't believe what they found in just a few hours."

"I would," I whispered. He was on a roll and I didn't want to interrupt him.

"You know I have six kids. Well, not only did they find out everything about Cathy-Ann and me but also about them. Where they were born, how old they are, where they went to school, what they studied, and what they did after college. Also, where they live, and if they owned a house how much they paid for it. They even knew about their student loans and any mortgages on their properties."

He shrugged his shoulders, "And that's just the tip of the iceberg. It's enough to say that everything's out there to be found by anyone who knows how to do that. And my staffers told me how easy that is. From what they explained to me I understood why it only took a couple of hours to gather all that information."

"This is terrible," I said, "And so as the about-to-be chair of the Commerce Committee what are you thinking about doing?"

He stared off into space, "Probably nothing."

"Nothing?" I was incredulous. Remember, it was years ago. For most of us knowing about the power of the internet was rather new.

"It's too late," he said, "No one in Congress cares anything about this. They think it's good for business. No one gives a rat's ass about privacy. As I said, it's all over."

This was 2005 and from an 82-year-old senator from Alaska who never turned on a computer. He was still able to see the future.

"It's over. It's all over," he said as I thanked him and turned to leave.

Senater (Uncle Ted) Stevens

February 1, 2018--What Hillary Should Have Said

"Dismayed?" How about "infuriated" or "outraged?"

Dismayed is how Hillary Clinton said she felt when she learned in 2008 that Burns Strider, her "faith-based advisor," had been sexually harassing one of the women who was a part of the staff attempting to help Clinton secure the Democratic nomination for the presidency. 

Clinton's campaign manager at the time recommended that Strider be fired. Clinton did not agree, but instead docked him a couple of week's pay and required that he get counseling, which he never did. In the meantime, the accuser was "reassigned." Her harasser wasn't. Strider continued to send Clinton daily scripture readings.

In the first of two Internet postings this week, Hillary tweeted about the story, 10 years after it leaked out, she wrote--

I was dismayed when it occurred, but was heartened the young woman came forward, was heard, and had her concerns taken seriously and addressed.

"Heartened?" Her "concerns taken seriously?" This translates into not getting fired for blowing the whistle but, as often happens to women who raise these kinds of issues, she, not he, got "transferred."

This extra-carefully constructed reaction caused a groundswell of criticism, not from Republicans but mainly from progressive women.

For example, New York Times columnist, Gail Collins wrote--

Here's where I'm coming down: Hillary Clinton was the first woman to run for president on a major party ticket, and when she did it, she won the popular vote. She's broken a trillion barriers. She's also done enormous good work to improve the lives of women in this country. 

But she's never been at her strongest when it comes to men on the prowl. While her faith advisor wasn't anywhere near the level of a Harvey Weinstein, she did hang out with Weinstein, too, cherishing him as a beloved donor. And some women have never gotten over the fact that she did not leave her husband when she discovered he was having an affair, in the White House, with a girl far too young and powerless to be a genuinely willing partner. 

Because sexual harassment is so much on our national mind right now, we'd like her to be a heroine on that issue, too. But if there is anything we've learned in all our years with Hillary Clinton, it's that you can be both great and deeply imperfect. Even if right now we really wish she'd fired the faith advisor.

Thus chastised, five full days later, this Tuesday evening, minutes before President Trump delivered his State of the Union address so as to bury it in the news cycle, in damage-control mode, Clinton, on her Facebook page, finally wrote--

The most important work of my life has been to support and empower women. I'm proud that it's the work I'm most associated with, and it remains what I'm most dedicated to. So I very much understand the question I'm being asked as to why I let an employee on my 2008 campaign keep his job despite his inappropriate workplace behavior. 

The short answer is this: If I had it to do again, I wouldn't. 

I didn't think firing him was the best solution to the problem. He needed to be punished, change his behavior, and understand why his actions were wrong. The young woman needed to be able to thrive and feel safe. I thought both could happen without him losing his job.

I've been given second chances and I have given them to others. I want to continue to believe in them. 

Better, but still not impressive. She continues shifting about in an attempt to smother the firestorm of criticism and, as always, to avoid having to apologize, all in order to clear the way for her to resume her self-appointed role as feminist-in-chief. 

What she wrote two days ago still won't serve to rescue her reputation because it continues to reveal her as uncomfortable with the truth, inauthentic, and out of sync with the culture of the current generation of women.

Her disingenuous claim that what her aide needed was "to be able to thrive and feel safe" exposes the hypocrisy  Does anyone believe that what Clinton did was out of care for her young staffer when we know that the best way to help her feel safe would have been to get rid of the creep whose desk was pressed right next to hers? No, what Hillary did was to make herself feel safe--unexposed--at her aide's expense.

Hillary didn't asked me, but if she had here's what I would have recommended she say--

This time I really blew it. Big time. Considering my history, yes, my history, I should have known just what to do. Certainly not run away from the situation or try to spin or cover it up. Which I regrettably did. 

I should have personally investigated the charges and if they turned out to be true, I should have fired the bastard. Not docked him two week's pay. I should have arranged to pack him up and move him out. 

Speaking about my history, here's what else I should in real time have said, which might have been helpful to young women who for the most part feel estranged from me and my generation of feminists. 

This estrangement is understandable--over time the culture and causes and how to carry them out change and with that new ideas and leadership is essential. 

Those who are older need to step aside--still offering insights from their lives--so that new ideas and methods can flourish. 

The lessons I have to pass along involve those I acquired from my own hard-won understanding about issues in my own marriage. Many women, Gail Collins included, have wondered through the years why I stayed with Bill after he so brutally betrayed me. 

I do not have a good answer for that. Women of my era, even liberated ones, stood with their feet straddling two worlds--one in which women were acquiescent and, yes, stood unquestionably by their men, and the other world where we were striving to liberate ourselves from those sexist expectations. 

That was me--half bought into the conventional expectations that called for women like me to be acquiescent, making excuses for our husbands' bad behavior. Accepting responsibility if our men strayed while  very tentatively seeking for ourselves a measure of independence and efficacy. 

This is not a mix that has much chance of working out. It requires too much change on both sides. In my case, Bill needed to give up his old alleycat ways and become loyal to me. And I mean in more ways than just in the sexual realm. 

I also needed to find effective ways to assert myself. Hollering and throwing things was not going to get the job done. I tried that and it didn't. 

As neither one of us was capable of doing that--we were both too mired, constricted by what was expected of "men" and "women" at that time when we, or at least I, should have recognized that and moved on. 

Yes, Gail Collins, I should have left him. I lost what remained of my authenticity by not doing so and . . . 

I think I've gone way past my allotment of 140 Twitter characters and so I will end this. I think you may get my point.

Burns Strider

October 4, 2016--Donald: Alone In Trump Tower

Richard Nixon to me is the most fascinating of presidents.

Not best, not "near great" as historians rank chief executives and, as president, but if one can set Watergate aside, in many ways--with Russia and especially China--he was quite effective.

But, yes, it turned out he was a "crook," and during the last two years of his presidency, as his life crashed down upon him, like Lear, he raged at even the elements.

Thus, my favorite book about Nixon is Richard Reeves, Nixon: Alone In the White House, in which those final years are starkly and even poetically rendered.

We find Nixon more-and-more alone and isolated, ensconced in his Executive Office Building hideaway office, not sleeping, with the fireplace roaring even in August, brooding while drinking excessively, filling page-after-free-associative-page in his ever-present yellow legal pads. It is not difficult to imagine the thoughts that were tormenting him. All brought upon himself.

It is equally easy to imagine the thoughts now tormenting Donald Trump as his personal universe is imploding. Used to winning he is now losing with the cataclysm again mostly self-inflicted.

Not only did he lose the first debate to Hillary Clinton but as part of the bait she held out so subtly to entrap him, "to get under his skin," was her barb about his undue interest in beauty pageants and how he responded by making unmotivated, disparaging remarks about Alicia Machado, a former Miss Universe, while lacerating Hillary and commenting without foundation, libelously about Machado's "disgusting" weight gain and sex life.

Clinton's was an artful thrust calculated to distance him further from the few women voters who for some reason continue to say that they plan to vote for him.

Trump, rather then letting that taunt go unresponded too--he could have righteously taken the high road, noting how it was beneath him to respond as it should have been beneath Clinton to raise while the country and world roil.

Instead, Trump, lacking impulse control, knowing no high road, took the bait and doubled-down late Friday night-very early Saturday morning, firing out tweets to his 12 million followers--

At 5:14 a.m. he wrote, "Wow, Crooked Hillary was duped and used by my worst Miss U. Hillary floated her as an 'angel' without checking her past, which is terrible!"

Five minus later, Trump posted, "Using Alicia M in the debate as a paragon of virtue just shows that Crooked Hillary suffers from BAD JUDGMENT! Hillary was set up by a con."

At 5:30 he mercifully concluded--"Did Crooked Hillary help disgusting (check sex tape and past) Alicia M become a U.S. citizen so she could use her in the debate?"

This says nothing about either Clinton or Machado but it is a window into Trump insomniac mind.

Or should I say soul?

May 13, 2015--Mother of Invention

"You haven't taken your nose out of that book all day."

"It's not a great book," I said, "But as you know, I'm fascinated by the Wright Brothers, and the new David McCullough biography is still fascinating. I mean, to me."

"Fascinating in what way?" Rona asked.

"You remember how about ten years ago we visited Kitty Hawk and were so impressed by what had happened there between 1901 and 1903, when the brothers were the first flew? The book is quite good on the Wrights' time there so that part is fascinating. The rest, only so-so."

"I do remember that. And though I hate flying in small planes I agreed to go up in a two-seater with you so we could fly over the same landscape where they had lived and worked. From Kitty Hawk to Kill Devil Hills."

"And then a few years later how, when in their hometown, Dayton, Ohio, we visited their workshop--a bicycle factory--and found the field not far from there--Huffman Prairie--where over the next few years in hundreds of flights they perfected their flying machine and learned more and more about controlled flight."

"So what do you think?" Rona asked, "Is their invention of the airplane the most important, world-changing invention of the 20th century?"

"One of them. To that I'd add electricity, the light bulb, radio, wireless broadcasting . . ."

"What about TV and, to me the most important invention of all, the computer?"

"Probably the computer. Not just the computer itself but the incredible software and peripherals that make the Internet, which we access with computers, so powerful."

"And," Rona said, "make social media like Facebook and Twitter possible. More than a billion people use them."

"Then there are the invented ways to access the Internet and all that derives from that--from clunky computers to all those so-called mobile devices."

"As with many others--all of these are powerful for both good and ill."

"Planes qualify as well," I said, "Only 12 years after the first flight, during the First World War, combatants of all stripes used planes for reconnaissance."

"And aerial bombing."

"All true," I said. "But back to inventions. We could have fun making a list of the most important ones of the past hundred years."

"But that would exclude the airplane since it first flew 102 years ago." She smiled at remembering that.

"Good point. Or we could see what we come up with if we tried to make a list of the most important inventions of all time."

"You mean like the wheel?"

"Yes, that's on many people's list as the single most important invention."

"How about the invention of democracy?" Rona asked, "Would that quality?"

"Sure. But maybe let's confine ourselves to material things like the plane and Internet. That feels like more fun."

"Well, we've already made a good beginning with the radio, TV, the light bulb and of course electricity itself."

"Though I'm not sure electricity is an invention. Doesn't it just exist and then people like Alexander Graham Bell and Edison figured out how to use it?"

"I'll have to look that up," Rona said, "And speaking about electricity, some would include the electric chair."

I looked at her skeptically. "Some saw it as more humane than hanging or the firing squad."

"I'll give you that one. But how about atomic energy?"

"Also it's maybe not an invention. But coming up with various uses for it certainly qualifies. Again for good or ill."

"If we want to talk about weapons, there have been hundreds of major inventions, including some--like say, guided missiles--that were world-changing."

"How about the printing press?"

"If you add movable type I think you've identified a paradigm-shifting one. With the ability to print books, periodicals, and newspapers maybe in its time it was as significant as the Internet."

"Then there's a very different category of inventions--musical instruments."

"Excellent point. Life would not be the same without the piano and violin and hundreds of others."

"What about in the medical field?"

"Probably as many inventions as for weapons. From anesthesia to . . ."

"Huge."

"To penicillin and then antibiotics. Also, vaccinations, pain killers, and tranquilizers."

"And testing techniques like all those for analyzing blood and MRIs. All inventions."

"For surgery alone there are hundreds. And don't forget the Pill. That changed the way we live as much as anything."

"How about in astronomy? Telescopes, satellites, and such? They also allow for accurate weather forecasting, which in itself is another invention."

"Related to that, there are all the navigation tools like the compass, which I'm sure some would say also changed the world. And of a very different sorry, how about air conditioning? One of my favorites," I said.

"Maybe I'd agree to refrigeration being on the list of top 25 or so, but not the AC, though I know you say you can't live without it."

"True. And to me personally at about the same level of importance, I'd add ATM machines--I hate standing on line at the bank."

"That's silly."

"Admittedly, but I'd also add another of my personal favorites."

"What's that?"

"The E-ZPass. I also hate waiting on line at toll booths."

"Time for you to stick your nose back in the book," Rona said. "The Wright Brothers are beckoning."

"Wait, one more, how about you--you couldn't live without your blowdryer."

February 2, 2015--Halftime Show

Rona growled, "I just read they used 108 footballs in the Super Bowl. A separate one for each play."

"I wonder if they were all legally inflated."

"I think the NFL cared more how much they could sell them for as balls that used during the game."

"Everyone of them is a so-called 'game ball.'"

"Do you think they collected all the uniforms and sneakers and--"

"Jockstraps," I added. "And are selling all of that junk on eBay?"

"The same article said that balls from last year's Super Bowl XLVIII are selling on the secondary market for about $180 each so the bottom line of all this nonsense is not that huge considering the billions in other forms of revenue the Super Bowl generates."

"It's just a game but has become the single most-viewed event in America, sort of a national holiday."

"The cheapest tickets on StubHub were going for $7,000 each. And others sold for upwards of $40,000."

"Insane."

"I'll tell you what's really insane," Rona said, "More than 115 million viewers tuned in, though for sure it was a great game."

"Even crazier, 117 million watched Katy Perry during the halftime show. That's an even bigger mega-event."

"No surprise. She has more Twitter followers than anyone else in the world. Sixty-four million."

"Unbelievable. Who's second and third?"

"Justin Bieber has 60 million followers and the person in third place you won't believe."

"Taylor Swift?" I guessed.

"She's fourth. Guess again."

"Madonna?"

"Wrong again. She's sixth. In third place, with 54 million Twitter followers, is Barack Obama."

"I don't know if I should be depressed about this--especially the Justine Bieber numbers--or impressed that so many people know who the President of the United States is."

"Maybe," Rona quipped, "they think he's a rapper."

"Speaking of Barack Obama, do you know how many watched his recent State of the Union Address? All the networks, even Fox, carried it."

"About 52 million. I think I know where you're going with this."

"Maybe yes, maybe no."

"If more that twice as many watched Katy Perry than the SOTU, why not next year begin the halftime show with Lady Gaga or Rihanna and--"

"That would assure another 'wardrobe malfunction.'"

Ignoring me, Rona said, "And after the music and costume changes, have Obama deliver the State of the Union and--"

"And three-quarters of the 115 million viewers would take a bathroom break."

"Not if they showed a few Budweiser commercials with the Clydesdale horses and that cute lost puppy."

November 5, 2014--The New Mediocre

As if we didn't have enough to complain about. We need to make it worse?

That's just what Vanessa Friedman did in a column in last Sunday's New York Times Review, "Mired in Mediocrity."

The title of her piece says it all--things globally, but especially in the United States, are stalled out because we are accepting, even embracing what she calls "the new mediocre."

Her bonafides? She is the Times' chief fashion critic and fashion director. More about that in a moment.

Let me summarize her indictment--

The idea that mediocrity is "the new normal" originates, Friedman claims, with Christine Lagarde, director of the International Monetary Fund, who applied that term to the global economy. It could use a jolt, Lagarde correctly suggests, to get it going, mired as it is, "muddling along with subpar growth."

Fine. But to generalize this to just about everything else is questionable. I do not want to come a across as Pangloss, seeing everything to be the best in "this best of all possible worlds," but to see everything to be the worst in this worst of all possible worlds goes way beyond the defensible and slips more into whining than legitimate analysis.

When she sees the newly emboldened Republicans putting forth an economic agenda that is made up of "a compendium of modest expectations," Friedman sees this this to be a manifestation of "the new mediocre."

Ranging far afield, she sees Twitter losing participants and thus income not because as a fad it is fading but because it has become an example of "the new mediocre."

"Old-guy action films" and "comic-book-hero" flicks that are predominating at the box office, squeezing out higher-quality art-house Indies, is yet more evidence that the the movies that are thriving--what else is new--are yet more evidence that "the new mediocre" is all-pervasive.

And then there is clothing, fashion, Friedman's expertise. Here she sees the same thing--mediocrity.

Enduring the recent spate of fashion shows in New York and Europe, she sees little evidence of new ideas among designers. Rather, she unhappily reports, everything seems deja vu--1960s-style "rock chick dresses," 1970s "flared trousers," 1980s "power jackets," and even 1920s "flapper frocks."

It doesn't get any worse than this, in this worst of all possible worlds.

I've been hearing from disillusioned and generally despondent friends that the Friedman piece sums up what they have been thinking and feeling about the contemporary world. That we are in fact mired in mediocrity. That this not only explains what they are seeing but also helps reconcile themselves to their own unhappy and frustrating circumstances. "It's not my fault," they are in effect saying, "but the larger world's."

I have been pushing back, claiming that though there is much to not feel good or optimistic about, to balance things, one could contemplate making a case in opposition to "the new mediocre" in support of "the new excellent."

A list of things to feel optimistic about would include--

All the advances in medicine and healthcare. Yes, the system for its delivery is deeply flawed, but if one has various types of cancer or needs life-saving, minimally-invasive surgery, with any good fortune, methods and tests and medications are now available that a scant few year ago were only dreams. "The new excellent."

If one is fortunate enough to be in the top 25 percent academically, public education capped by still the best higher-education system in the world could be considered an example of the new or continuing excellent.

Then there is Google, wirelessness, iGadgets, the Internet itself and all the possibilities that these enable--more "new excellent."

Evidence-based philanthropy, best exemplified by the Gates Foundation, which just last week announced it is stepping up its promising efforts to eradicate malaria, is, as part of "the new excellent," making progress on many fronts from environmental conservation to potable water to sustainable economic development. Yes, I know the counter list, but the picture is more balanced than the "new mediocre" people are claiming.

Even in regard to military hardware, while waiting for peace and sanity to break out in the world, drones, as one example of excellence of its own sort, enable battles to rage that inflict fewer civilian casualties than conventional methods. I know many of my anti-war friends (include me among them) will blanch at this, but in realpolitik terms this represents "progress."

At a different level of things to feel good about is the New Brooklyn, ATM machines, E-ZPasses, and the ubiquitousness of really wonderful coffee--my counter case to worrying too much about power jackets and flapper frocks.

One reason to consider the excellent to be at least as pervasive as the mediocre is that it can motivate one to shake the funk, get up off the couch, turn off the TV and iPhone (at least for a few hours a day), and look for ways to become engaged with making things a little better for yourself and the larger world. To take the opposite tack is to me to waste one's life.

October 24, 2013--"You're Fired!"

As The Donald likes to say, "You're fired!" But in Washington, in this White House, those words are rarely spoken.

No one was fired for the killings at our consulate in Benghazi. No one was terminated for the Wikileaks leaks. No one for the Edward Snowdon N.S.A. disclosures. And no one from the Justice Department for likely illegally obtaining private telephone records for Associate Press reporters.

Basically, no one is ever fired for anything.

This, by-the-way, has been true for all recent presidents--who did Ronald Reagan fire? George H.W. Bush? Bill Clinton? George W. Bush? Pretty much no one.

A few were asked to resign, which is very different than being fired for good cause, and those who did invariably claimed it was so that they could spend more time with their families.

General Stanley McChrystal is the only Obama person I can think of who was out-and-out fired. For indiscreetly criticizing President Obama to a Rolling Stone writer. Compare that to President Truman very publicly firing General Douglas MacArthur in the middle of the Korean War.

But now we have another who was fired by the Obama White House. According to the Daily Beast, a national security official was fired last week for issuing two-year's worth of tweets in which he made insulting comments about Obama administration officials.

He is Jofi Joseph, who has been secretly tweeting under the moniker @natsewonk. Up until last week he was part of the team working on negotiations with Iran.

For the past two years he posted insults about the intelligence and appearance of top White House and State Department officials.

"I'm a fan of Obama," he tweeted, "but his continued reliance and dependence upon a vacuous cipher like Valerie Jarrett concerns me."

On another occasion, he wrote, "Was Huma Abedin wearing beer goggles the night she met Anthony Weiner? Almost as bad a pairing as Samantha Powers [U.S. Ambassador to the UN] and Cass Sunstein [Power's husband and former Obama aide]."

General McChrystal and Jofi Joseph. A short and not very impressive list.

Americans understandable frustrated with our government would like to see officials held accountable. And fired if they foul up in big ways.

Case in point--while Jofi Joseph is looking for a new job (which I assume he is unlikely ever to secure), Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius still has hers.

Considering the importance of the rollout of Obamcare and the political capital Obama has expended to get it approved, funded, and defended, considering the software disaster that is making it almost impossible for people seeking to purchase healthcare insurance on line to do so, shouldn't the person in charge be held accountable? And be dismissed?

Hundreds of millions were spent on the design of the Obamacare website and it is virtually useless. Shouldn't Sebelius have been monitoring the situation daily while it was being constructed? And since she obviously didn't, shouldn't Obama do what The Donald would do?

June 14, 2013--Miley and Ashton

I was reading a piece in the New York Times about how various celebrities are getting paid by companies to sneak advertisements into their TV shows, movies, and Twitter pages.

The 20-year-old pop star, Miley Cyrus, for example, tweeted the following after flying to northern California to promote her new album--

Thanks @blackjet for the flight to Silicone Valley

This seems innocuous enough except that Black Jet is a company that arranges for private jets for rich folks; and, though Miley refused to comment when asked if she was paid for this mention to her 12 million Twitter followers, the company's CEO said, "She was given some consideration for her tweet."

"Some consideration," I assume, means money or free private jet travel.

When Demi's ex, actor and star of Two and a Half Men, Ashton Kutcher, served as guest editor for the on-line version of Details magazine and wrote favorably about a dozen companies in which he is a major investor, Details' executives didn't seem to have a problem.

Nor did the producers of Two and a Half when he pasted a bunch of labels for other companies he invests in on the back of his character's laptop. Kutcher presumably benefitted by doing this but the producers of the show got nothing.

And like Miley Cyrus, he has not been shy about plugging companies in which he has a financial interest on his Twitter page as a subliminal way of advertising them to his 14 million followers.

When I told Rona about this she just shrugged, as if to say, "What else is new," but she did ask how someone like Miley Cyrus could attract 12 million Twitter followers and Ashton Kutcher 14 million.

"You got me," I said, "I occasionally look at our niece's open-source Twitter postings and admire her enigmatic, often poetic tweets; but about everyone else, the whole tweeting thing seems to me to be superficial and usually downright silly."

"Before you're too condemning," Rona pressed me, "You should do a little more research."

She was right, and so I looked at some of Ashton's and Miley's recent posts.

Here are a few of Kutcher's--

I don't like to b*tch on here but does anyone else feel like all they do all day is charge sh*t?

Wonder what wooly mammoth meat would taste like? RT @pritheworld: Russian scientists discover a wooly mammoth

But, to be as fair as Rona would want me to be, he also has a serious side--

In recent news there's new news about the news

Miley, on the other hand, sent out the following to her 12 million faithful--

When I was a little girl I used to run around saying "I ain't scurred of nuffin"

Booty Tweet. Oopsie Doopsie

I did NOT get a tattoo of wings on my as hahaha

When I reported this to Rona, she sighed and said, "I can't imagine who these 12 or 14 million are who read this stuff. It just feels sad."