Still Misfitting

My reaction to Mel Gibson’s abusive tirade (that his opportunistic, manipulative girlfriend recorded in an intentionally passive-aggressive form of blackmail) was a visceral shock of ugly memories and cast a new light on Oksana Grigorieva as somewhat less sympathetic than her press would have us believe. No, I’m not blaming the victim, here. I’m merely pointing out what few mainstream sources are willing to admit: Oksana Grigorieva knew exactly what she was doing the entire time she was involved with Gibson and expected, if not designed, this outcome.

When I listened to the tape, I was struck by the familiarity of Gibson’s invective: his rage and machine-gun insults were so similar to those I heard from partners of my tragic romantic past. I was ashamed for him and myself – him for being such a jerk and me for ever putting up with someone like that. What was it about me that accepted such unwarranted abuse? Thousands of dollars and dozens of hours on the therapy couch helped sort out some of my questions, but what was a girl like Oksana Grigorieva doing with a jerk like Gibson? That Gibson was a bigot, a mysogynist, and a mean and violent drunk was no secret long before Grigorieva seduced him. Perhaps it was all a very careful plot hatched by a very patient opportunist. Grigorieva probably got more than she bargained for (and the consequences have yet to play out, since she does have a child with this man), but she ultimately achieved her aim: to destroy Gibson’s reputation and career in eight minutes of paint-peeling malignant narcissim.

Gibson will never change, and he won’t really suffer the way you and I would suffer after this sort of mortifying revelation. He’s still a billionaire, he’ll always find some willing woman to step into the inverted narcissist role; and this, like all Hollywood scandals, will fade from front-page interest soon enough. Gibson’s fall from grace has supplied some delicious shadenfreude to his detractors (see Frank Rich’s recent column), and hasn’t done the conservative religious “traditionalists” any good. Nonetheless, the larger point will be lost on the masses: what does his behavior demonstrate about our culture, and how is it still even remotely acceptable for a woman to tolerate physical, mental and emotional abuse for months or years and emerge characterized as a patient, sensible saint? Grigorieva was a willing participant, and I’m certain that if Gibson had videotaped some of her tantrums and unscripted dialog, we’d see a different side to the story. Frankly, they deserve each other.

The Gorgon in Tights, of course, and her accolade on the right, Mean Girl, Amy Alkon.

*******

One of the blogs I read daily, Sadly, No! often introduces me to many right-wing columnists and bloggers I would otherwise never encounter. It helps me to learn how the other side thinks, and the wingnuts often provide great comedy fodder. The Sadly Naughts are like the Misfits used to be back in the Dibble Days. Ahh. Good times!

In one of his recent entries, Tintin at Sadly, No! wrote about a blogger/author, Amy Alkon, whose column I have read a few times and disregard as simply another vapid, mean-spirited, Coulter wannabe. Alkon is sort of the Kathy Griffin of Wingnut Mean (tacky, foul-mouthed, ADD, mostly stupid), but without being the least bit funny.

I made the careless error of posting a negative review on Amazon of Alkon’s book, I See Rude People, after reading about her overwrought reaction to one negative review on Sadly, No!. You can read excerpts of Alkon’s book on Amazon and Google Books. Essentially, it contains bullying, mean-spirited solutions to everyday rude encounters including tracking down telemarketers (who are just doing their jobs) and calling them at home to complain, stalking senior citizens and their families like an episode of “Dragnet” in order to prosecute them for scratching your car in a parking lot; and confronting people whose conversations you overhear in public places and ridiculing them. Fun stuff like that.

Alkon isn’t as mean or vile as her big sister, Ann Coulter, but her “research” is similarly narrow. She defends her behavior with pseudo-science from contributors to “Psychology Today” and various disparate articles from other mean people. The whole thing is simply ridiculous and I should have known better than to publicly offer my two cents.

Her reaction to my negative review and participation in the comment thread at Sadly, No! was to (in typical mutt fashion) post links to Muttville (from Googling my name) on her blog, and decry me as a horrible person trying to ruin her book sales/career. She managed to complain loudly enough for Amazon to delete most of the negative reviews, including mine. Wow! I wish I had that kind of clout at Amazon. She must know someone.

Not to be defeated that easily, I posted another review that I’m sure will stick. Meanwhile, Alkon was so flustered with the criticism and ridicule she was getting from Sadly, No! she spent the last three days, pretty much around the clock, attacking, defending, whining, hand-wringing, making frantic phone calls, no doubt sending frantic emails, posting comments on Amazon, and stalking and “outing” every negative reviewer.

It’s deja vu all over again!

If you visit “The Advice Goddess” blog, you will find many, many bigoted, mean, irresponsible, judgmental, and snarky posts. What you won’t find is anything funny. How this woman is billed as “comedy” is beyond me.

Among other deplorable and ignorant opinions, Alkon presumes to judge, rather harshly and consistently, single mothers and, in particular, single minority mothers with multiple children. Now, if Alkon had ever raised a child, I would give her opinions slightly more credence. Here is a never-married, childless woman insisting that (based on the statistics that more criminals come from single-parent homes than not, which are valid facts but not the entire story) women of any age who have children out-of-wedlock are selfish and should be condemned.

It’s opinions like these that give me pause as to the real motives of both Coulter and Alkon. Why would they have such loathing for single mothers? It’s surprising that Coulter and Alkon managed to avoid unplanned pregnancies in nearly half a century of femalehood. Either they are extremely infertile, lucky, still virgins, or terminated one or more inconvenient little “crotch fruit” (as Alkon so colorfully describes babies). As far as I’m concerned, the multiparas Alkon and Coulter berate are no more promiscuous than the Mean Girls; they just have more evidence.

There are many important issues about which to be passionate, but the bizarre campaign to vilify single mothers seems strange coming from barren women. I also find it very mean-spirited, unfair, and in many ways preposterous.

But, I guess Mean is the new Black.

Take it from your friendly neighborhood insurance agent: if Rush Limbaugh was not a millionaire or he was not employed by a company with a group health plan, he could not afford to pay the bills he would have acquired from his recent visit to an emergency room in Hawaii.

If Rush Limbaugh was not gainfully employed, he could not afford the health insurance premiums at age 58 with his conditions (obesity, history of substance abuse), and now that he has had a series of tests and treatments for potential heart disease (a pre-existing condition), he would be subject to denial or rescission. He couldn’t buy health insurance at any price.

From an AP news article:

Limbaugh couldn’t resist a few political comments during his short news conference at the Honolulu hospital.

One appeared to be aimed at health care reform, when he said he got the best health treatment in the world “right here in the United States of America.”

Incidentally, Hawaii is considered “right here in the USA” when Rush is visiting, but it’s considered ”foreign” and ”exotic” by right wing pundits when Obama visits.

I don’t think there’s one thing wrong with the American health care system,” Limbaugh said. “I got no special treatment other than what anybody else that would have called 911 and had been brought in with the same kinds of symptoms.”

Perhaps; however, “anybody else” had better have a low deductible or decent insurance or the bills would be astronomical, Rush. Sure, Limbaugh could afford to self-insure, but the cost of the treatment he enjoyed would be a severe hardship for the majority of his listening audience.

Limbaugh called his health scare a “blessing in disguise.”

“It takes things like this in life maybe to prepare you for the eventuality that you are getting older, you’re not as young as you were, and not as invincible as you once thought you were,” he said.

What would really be a “blessing in disguise” and a valuable life lesson for Rush and his ilk would be if they had to experience a severe health problem *without* the benefit of good health insurance and then have to scramble to find any company willing to insure them after this type of event; never mind having to pay the tens of thousands of dollars in subsequent bills.

Dr. N Buster returns for a guest post to explain the mystifying behavior and popularity of ex-drunk demagogue, Glenn Beck.

Recently Beck appeared in an interview with Katie Couric where his answer to her direct and persistent question as to what exactly constituted “white culture” – that which he claimed President Obama detested, was unresponsive and incoherent. How is it he can get away with this mumbo-jumbo?

Like all typical narcissists, Beck is a habitual and unrepentant liar. It’s not only that his personal reality is distorted and self-serving, but he is patently unaware of the consequences of his behavior and how his unsubstantiated and often ludicrous accusations affect public discourse. When challenged, he feels no responsibility to defend his reckless fear mongering and considers himself entitled to say and do whatever he wants. He does not adhere to any social or ethical mores; they don’t apply to him. He operates from a consistent double standard and seems oblivious to his hypocrisy.

Is Beck’s schtick for real or is he faking his outrage and pathos?

It’s obvious after several painful episodes that Beck is faking virtually all of his emotions; his affect is uncontrollable and bizarre. His main emotions that he understands and doesn’t fake are rage and fear. He operates from a core of unnatural paranoia, which could be the result of brain damage he did while an admitted drug addict and “raging alcoholic” for years, or is simply the way he has been hard wired all his life. Only his family and oldest friends can attest to how he behaved before he became a drunk. I suspect the alcohol and drugs merely exacerbated his personality.

Why is he so popular and how did a guy like him get his own cable TV show?

Beck articulates and sanctions the fear, anger and superstitious belief system of a minority of hardline wingnuts, probably the infamous 27% that continued to support George Bush and currently believe the President was born in Kenya and that our country is simultaneously fascist, communist and socialist, regardless of how impossible and ridiculous that would be. Beck gives credence to crazy, deluded people whose worldview is based on willful ignorance, deep-seated bigotry, and sour grapes. Clearly, Fox sees the commercial potential of tapping into this loyal base and through repetition, shock jock style, and publicity, enables the manifestation of this fringe group into mainstream consciousness. In addition, Beck is homely, unthreatening, not very bright, emotionally infantile, prone to irrationality – thus appealing to the lowest common denominator.

How does one defeat this Flim-Flam Man?

Exposure is greatest way to defeat any narcissist. Their greatest fear is to be revealed as a sham, liar, fraud and con, and their ideas to be shown as unoriginal, preposterous and mendacious. As long as the 27% tune in, the powers that be at Fox give Beck a platform, and MSM covers him like a celebrity, he will continue to spread his toxic waste. If more reporters and commentators exposed and ridiculed his fraud (rather than only Keith Olbermann of MSNBC and Rick Sanchez of CNN, and occasionally Fox’s own Shep Smith), he would eventually retreat in shame. Apparently, even losing over 60 corporate sponsors to his show has not deterred Fox, but we can hope that sensible viewers prevail or that Beck will self-sabotage in a Cecil B. DeMille fashion as all textbook narcissists do, eventually.

Two interesting news stories appeared recently that vividly contrast the difference between what women do versus what men do when royally ticked off by the opposite sex.

Our first story comes from the heartland of Fond du Lac Wisconsin where a less amusing, more bizarre, trailer-park-trash version of the bondage scene in “Nine to Five” occurred:

A criminal complaint says four women, including the man’s wife, were charged in Calumet County last week with being party to false imprisonment after the man was tied up and his penis was glued to his stomach at a Stockbridge motel. One of the women was also charged with fourth-degree sexual assault. Authorities say three of the women were romantically involved with the man.

In sum: a philandering husband, using the narcissist’s handbook, romances and exploits at least three women simultaneously and when meeting one at a motel for, presumably, a little afternoon delight, is tackled, blindfolded, hogtied and superglued by his harem. We have to laugh, because we know that for a narcissist, having your current or former lovers compare notes would be a nightmare in itself, never mind the glue. Three of the four women involved (one his wife) were romantic partners, while one was merely the lookout girl, one of the scorned women’s sisters.

The women have been charged with an array of scary felonies and may do real prison time for this caper. Meanwhile, it turns out that the victim, Steven Klein, has been arrested for allegations of “child abuse, theft, unlawful phone use and harassment with a death threat in a domestic abuse investigation.”

Charming.

Our second story is significantly more tragic and horrible: 48-yr old man George Sodini from a small town outside Pittsburgh, walked into a health club and opened fire on an all-women’s Latina dance class, killing three and injuring 15 before blasting himself into smithereens. His rationale was documented on his eponymous web site (now unavailable):

[Sodini] kept a Web page in which he wrote about years of rejection by women and an earlier plan for violence at the gym in which he said he “chickened out.”He complained of not having a girlfriend since 1984, not having a date since May 2008 and not having sex for 19 years.

“Women just don’t like me. There are 30 million desirable women in the US (my estimate) and I cannot find one,” he wrote. The page ended with the words “Death Lives!”

So, let’s compare: the women’s weapons of choice were handkerchiefs and superglue, they inflicted relatively minor physical damage (but the acetone must have stung a little), and they face prison sentences if convicted. If I were them, I’d take my chances with a jury of my peers. Sodoni, on the other hand, chose automatic weapons. He won’t have to face a trial (and may be in a very warm place, now) yet leaves a trail of devastation and blood in his wake. For what, exactly? Because he was too socially inept to maintain a relationship? Because he hadn’t been laid in 19 years? And this is the fault of a group of unrelated middle-aged women why? What has our culture taught him that he believed he had a reasonable motive?

I’m also curious to see if Steven Klein winds up on the talk show circuit like John Wayne Bobbitt.