New Jersey Gets a New Attorney General.

Richard G. Jones, "Corzine Chooses His Chief Counsel as Next Attorney General," The New York Times, August 25, 2006, at p. B1.
"Patterson School Contractor Sentenced," The New York Times, August 25, 2006, at p. B4.



"Governor Jon S. Corzine on Thursday named as his next attorney general Stuart J. Rabner, his chief counsel and a former federal prosecutor known for the vigor with which he has pursued public corruption cases."

Mr. Rabner will need that "vigor" if he is to to put a stop to the rampant corruption in New Jersey. He will take office in the aftermath of an ugly and contrived (somehow "successful") effort to "produce" the resignation of his predecessor, Ms. Zulima Farber -- who is still insulted in the media by New Jersey's "legislators," often with a hideous chuckle -- as they devote themselves to "business as usual." "Business as usual" in New Jersey politics is what is known as "theft" everywhere else.

New Jersey has become synonymous with corrupt public institutions and dishonesty in government. It has been suggested that things will be easier if public officials in Trenton will simply wear a price tag, so that the public will know exactly how much it will take to bribe each of them, whether with money or future political favors: 200+ convictions so far and counting! "New Jersey -- Come See for Yourself!"

I appreciate the concerns for my safety and for that of my family members. I cannot live with the thought that children will reach adulthood in a society governed by some of the people in power (or controlling "elected" politicians) in that notorious jurisdiction -- where cancer cells and greedy politicians reproduce happily, like "bacteria under optimum conditions." (I am indebted to Gore Vidal for this highly apt phrase.)

On the very day when Mr. Rabner was named as the new candidate for New Jersey Attorney General, a federal prosecutor was needed to indict and convict yet another example of New Jersey's governmental corruption problem:

"A contractor who pleaded guilty to making payments to Patterson school district officials to obtain construction work was sentenced to two years in prison yesterday in Federal District Court, prosecutors said. The contractor, Carl Babb, of Elmwood Park, pleaded guilty on April 14, 2005, to making the payments and mail fraud, said Christopher J. Christie, the United States Attorney. Mr. Christie said Mr. Babb also admitted overcharging for the work. In addition to the prison sentence, Mr. Babb was ordered to pay $750,000.00 in restitution to the school district prosecutors said."

Questions concerning Mr. Rabner center on whether his alleged political ambitions (he is said to hope for a Supreme Court position) will inhibit his pursuit of corruption cases, since he may need the south Jersey machine's support to be confirmed for a seat on the state's highest court. I fear that these concerns may have become a sad reality. Also, as a product of Princeton and Harvard Law School, many suggest that Mr. Rabner will be a "Mr. Clean"-type "fixer for the establishment." (See the Tarantino film, Pulp Fiction.)

This appointment could be about cutting a deal between rival factions that will allow "business as usual" to continue -- ensuring that New Jersey's residents, in the elegant phrase of Saddle River's own Richard Nixon, "get shafted." And how.

Trenton's notorious political Syndicate has yet to be heard on this candidate's prospects, though everyone is saying nice things about him -- publicly, that is -- at this point. It is always good to hope for a pleasant surprise. Keep your fingers crossed. Better yet, hang on to your wallet.

Daniel Dennett, Freeman Dyson and the Science of Religion.

Daniel Dennett is a philosopher I admire. As a participant in discussions on a PBS television program examining ideas for a popular audience, he was witty and engaging, displaying an attractive screen personality representing philosophy for a large audience. Dennett is someone whose works I will continue to study because we disagree about many things, while (I suspect) also agreeing about others.

Our political views are probably similar. We are both feminists, advocates of democracy, Constitutionalists, best described as religious agnostics, some would say atheists. I am not one who accepts the rules or strictures of any organized religion, political party, club or organization, except for the United States Constitution, which allows me to be different. I should note that those rules are not, in my opinion, what is essential about religion.

I like Dennett's pragmatism and his concern -- this is an indication of his aesthetics -- to write well, clearly and elegantly, which he does. Concerning his writings, Dennett may well agree that form and substance are not easily separated. It is always a pleasure for me to read Dennett's prose and that is an important inducement to study someone's written work in this age of distractions. (Excuse me, my phone is ringing.)

I wish to comment on an exchange between Dennett and Freman Dyson in recent successive issues of The New York Review of Books. The Review is the one journal of opinion to read, whatever your interests may be, since the quality of the writing alone justifies doing so. I discovered many of my favorite writers and areas of intellectual concern in the pages of this journal of ideas, literature and politics. Mr. Dyson reviews Dennett's recent book Breaking the Spell, [NYR, June 22]. Dennet objects to the following (I think) roughly accurate assessment of his views by Dyson:

My view of religion and Dennett's are equally true and equally prejudiced. I see religion as a precious and ancient part of our human heritage. Dennett sees it as a load of superflous mental baggage which we should be glad to discard.

Dennett claims that he does not hold a position such as Dyson attributes to him. He admits that religion does much good as well as harm in the world. Dennett's pragmatism shows in this observation:

People who would otherwise be self-absorbed or shallow or crude or simply quitters are often ennobled by their religion, given a perspective on life that helps them make the hard decisions that we all would be proud to make. [NYR, August 10, 2006.]

Dennett is saying that religion "works," that the ability to improve or benefit "some" people is what justifies religion, to the extent that it can be justified rationally, which is a very American view of the "cash value" of religious ideas. I think that this capacity to "improve" people is mostly incidental to what religions are about. Such material improvements in people's lives might be accomplished equally well by secular-minded social meliorists. Before getting to what, I think, religion is about, let's give Dennett a chance to make himself clear on the "issue," as lawyers say:

... my plea for an objective approach to religions -- in which we reverse engineer their many design features to see how and why they work -- is directed as much to those who would strengthen, reform, and preserve their religions as to those who would hasten their extinction. I declare myself still agnostic about these alternatives, since I don't yet know enough -- and nobody else does either. That's why I wrote the book.

Let's begin with the idea of an objective approach to religion. Let us suppose that you come upon a man who is in agony. He is writhing on the floor. You kneel down and say to him: "The cause of your suffering, my good fellow, is a spike that is protruding from your foot. Have no fear, in due course, a medical person is bound to arrive and take you to a hospital where, with appropriate medical treatment, the spike will be removed. Assuming you have not lost too much blood, of course, it is likely that you will recover and the pain will be eased."

Suppose this unhelpful Samaritan, then explains (in tedious detail) the scientific basis for the sufferer's predicament. I suspect that the person in pain will not find this discussion very helpful. Eventually, the arrival of medical people may result in saving his life. This will involve science applied to his predicament. But if that spike was hammered into his foot by a torturer, then the suffering will not be eased by relief of his physical pain. Spiritual agony, outrage at injustice, insults and slights, denigration and dehumanization are forms of MORAL harm, damaging both psychologically and spiritually. Think of what racism does to people, how it hurts all people, worst of all racists.

What racists often fail to appreciate is that racism is a mechanism of control through division of persons with shared economic and social interests -- like blue collar and poor people in America whose economic concerns are nearly identical regardless of ethnicity or race.

Suppose that human life in our time and place -- maybe always -- involves, for many or most people, coping with the equivalent of a spike in one's foot. For some people there are many such spikes, everywhere in their bodies. Suppose that these spikes cannot be removed by physicians. Suppose that people even understand (scientifically and in other ways) the causes of their spikes and wounds: childhood deprivation, loss, cruelty, physical abuse, other forms of abuse, poverty, hunger, cultural displacement, separation from loved-ones, rape or other sexual violations, along with many other continuing horrors, like torture and the torture of loved-ones, especially children -- all of these things resulting from unsought encounters with evil persons, together with the challenge of finding meaning and a reason to live with such pain, every day.

Do you think, Professor Dennett, that an "objective" approach will be the best or most "useful" way of coping with people's spiritual needs? It is a very American confidence in us which seeks to "solve all problems," preferably by means of scientific or technological innovations. Do you, Professor Dennett, think that a new gadget will solve the problem of human affliction and suffering?

What if tragedy is inherent in the human condition (has anyone read Miguel Unamuno lately?), so that no amount of improvement will alter the reality that persons must suffer, morally and spiritually, whatever the material circumstances of their lives? Do you think that debating the improbable nature of religious stories has any bearing on the comfort and meaning provided by such stories, to those who can read them as symbols?

For most of the people of the world such a "scientific" approach to religion is insane. Americans are often perceived as capable of stunning insensitivity and stupidity about such spiritual matters. After all, not everyone is as tactful and intelligent in pursuing such inquiries as Professor Dennett. In discussing delicate emotional and spiritual matters, which are regarded in other cultures as anything but scientific subjects, feelings are as important as thoughts. For most people in the world, religion is the opposite of a subject-matter for university studies. These differences in cultural attitudes are relevant to many of our difficulties in the Middle East.

"Love is a defense mechanism," psychobabblers say. We all nod with agreement. I can only hope that someone -- an artist maybe -- will step foward and explain to social "scientists" that there may be more to love than that.

Whatever science tells us about religion, I promise you that there is more to religion than "compensation" or any other one word motive. If you see the Cuban film Buena Vista Social Club, a single gesture by a man wiping away a woman's tear -- whose smile does the same for him -- is a complete definition of religion.

We are obligated to do everything in our power to improve human lives by making use of science, technology and anything else that we can find or create. We must make things better for our children, knowing that the gift of life to them is also an introduction to pain and mortality. We kiss them gently on the forehead knowing that they will age, that loving others will be (at best) horribly painful for them. Yet love is the most important and good thing in their lives (love's absence is infinitely worse). We know that they will be prey to monsters of depravity, political evil, social injustice, torture, deprivation and hunger, sometimes resulting from the actions of persons claiming to act "for their own good." We say (sincerely) that life is good. Why? What makes life good? Your answer to these questions will contain your understanding of religion. See Roberto Benigni's film, "Life is Beautiful."

What is it that makes life good if not love and the struggle to find or create beauty and meaning? Religion is essential to loving (it teaches us what love is) and to the creation of meaning and beauty (it teaches us what is possible with love).

A single act of love and compassion, of self-giving in choosing to share the pain of a fellow human being in extremis will reveal more about religion than all the books seeking objectivity, as opposed to real theological insight, which is intuitive and impressionistic, like philosophical insight. (See Bernard Lonergan's writings on "insight.")

Feeling (religious devotion, compassion) and mind (philosophy, science, theology) are all paths to religious wisdom and insight, forms of resistance to injustice, besides whatever other benefits result from these endeavors. Hegel (mind) and Kierkegaard (feeling) embody these options in Christianity, but a single gesture or symbol will explain religion, if it is properly understood. Recall the Buddha's holding of a single flower as the totality of his sermon to bewildered acolytes. There was nothing more to say. The flower "is." So are you. End of sermon. You cannot defeat these ancient forms of wisdom and meaning in human life by altering my writings. ("Drawing Room Comedy: A Philosophical Essay in the Form of a Film Script.")

Point to a crucifix. Point to a Star of David above a synagogue in New York with barricades in front of it to protect it from terrorists. Sadly, this need to protect religious structures is something that I have experienced. I was searched when entering a house of worship. This was painful because I know that my Jewish friends have to live with these reminders of hatred when they seek to worship. Listen to the call to prayer as the sun sets in Egypt. See the people kneeling and bowing towards the East and Mecca, in a single act that is both a display and reminder of humility before the enormity of life and the universe, as well as before the God many intelligent and educated persons believe keeps all in balance. This is because such a God is balance. God is the "peace" sought in Islam. Dennett writes:

... we should brace ourselves and set aside our traditional reluctance to investigate religious phenomena scientifically, so that we can come to understand how and why religions inspire such devotion, and figure out how we should deal with them all in the twenty-first century.

Notice the assumptions being made by this highly talented philosopher:

... my book strenuously seeks to avoid both biases -- and I think it succeeds -- in the only way we have ever found to explore any complicated and controversial phenomenon objectively: by adhering to the methods and working assumptions of science, expanded to encompass the work of historians and other investigators in the humanities. ...

Become "child-like," Professor Dennett, and you will understand what is religion. Leave your lab coat at home, then volunteer to work with a charitable religious order, while living in poverty for a year. You will write a very different book at the conclusion of that year. Forget Quine and Ayer, think Spinoza and Kierkegaard.

I am called a "fool" -- among other things -- because of my respect for the truth and wisdom in religion, despite being a doubter. I recognize the irrefutable ethical truth (about which I have NO DOUBT) at the center of all three of the great religions of the West: love and compassion is what we are here to learn. Love is the only source of meaning and redemption in this world of shadows, where suffering, pain, loss and death as well as joy, meaning, achievement, beauty will be found in all of our lives. We are meant to love -- and should learn to love more -- through these contradictions and sufferings. If we do not learn this painful lesson, then I think that we will be quickly destroyed.

Whoever you are, I promise you that both pain and joy will be in your future. As Norman Mailer once said of death, "there is something out there looking for you and it's not fooling." I think great suffering, especially spiritual suffering, can be a revelation. There is always a glimmer of light that ends the dark night of the soul. If there is such a thing as religious perspective, then it must include a willingness to die for what we believe and those we love, which is another way of describing the achievement of our humanity. (See my story "The Soldier and the Ballerina.")

Professor Dennett's confidence in his methods is more than understandable. After all, science has provided so many "miracles" already, but morally and spiritually the human condition has not changed. Individuals make progress and learn; humanity is essentially the same in every historical age, apart from improvements in external conditions, which are cumulative.

Professor Dennett is a highly fortunate human being: born in a rich country, into a comfortable segment of the population, well-educated, ethical, humane, civilized and scientifically literate. No doubt he is dismayed by ordinary people's belief in myths that are ancient, whose understanding of the world belongs to the dark ages. He wants to help them "move on."

Suffering destroys the possibility of moving on. The misery and affliction of most people's lives -- pain for billions lacking education and struggling in desperate poverty -- forces them to seek religious understanding and meaning, much more than factual knowledge. Science cannot help them with such objectives. Art and religion can and do help people to cope.

I knew a man who was sent to a political prison. He told me that at one in the afternoon, some of the professors who were in this prison for their ideas would lecture on various subjects, inmates would discuss things in whispers. Some took mental tours of European capitals, knew the streets of Paris, could see them, though they had not left their cells.

All of us are in prisons of one kind or another -- including Dennett -- while religions offer us mental tours of Paris. It is love which opens the prison gate for each of us. The very worst prisons are built out of an inmate's own hatred. Love, when it is expressed and received in turn, is a tour of Paris, wherever we happen to find ourselves. Such love is the fulfillment of religion's promise.

Neutrality is not an option. It is merely another kind of bias. Find yourself at the mental equivalent of Auschwitz, Professor Dennett, then see whether neutrality is an option. It is good to understand what makes persons or societies descend to such levels (Nazism), but science will provide little assistance in this effort because it looks at people and phenomena from the "outside," whereas the deepest understanding of both will only come from the "inside," from PARTICIPATING in the human condition, in dialogue with and recognition of as well as empathy for our suffering neighbors. Think again about how Dennett is using the word "objectively" in the quotation that appears above. Can you think of another way to use that word? ("David Stove and the Critique of Idealism" and, once more, "Drawing Room Comedy: A Philosophical Essay in the Form of a Film Script.")

Imagine a God who understands this human pain, teaching wisdom and compassion by becoming human, sharing in mortal agony. Imagine a God who chooses a people for moral edification by means of unprecedented tragedy, who permits slavery and evil -- as human choices, not His choices -- as our self-imposed cost to achieve humanity for ourselves (which is freedom that allows for either love or evil), so that with freedom, all persons may learn to come closer to God. The way we come closer to God is by loving. Loving is not "supernatural." Yes, these are metaphors. Whenever you are asked whether you believe in God, it is a good idea to respond by asking in return: "What do you mean by 'God'?" (See my short story "Pieta" and "Is it rational to believe in God?")

I might go on pointing to doubtful statements in Professor Dennett's response to Mr. Dyson's review. Mostly they suggest a misunderstanding by Dennett of religion's purpose. It may be best to thank Professor Dennett for his work, as always, and to offer by way of conclusion a quotation from Oscar Wilde's De Profundis.

I remember when I was at Oxford saying to one of my friends as we were walking round Magdalen's narrow bird-haunted walks one morning in the year before I took my degree, that I wanted to eat of the fruit of all the trees in the garden of the world, and that I was going out into the world with that passion in my soul. And so indeed, I went out, and so I lived. My only mistake was that I confined myself to the trees of what seemed to me the sun-lit side of the garden, and shunned the other side for its shadow and its gloom: failure, disgrace, poverty, sorrow, despair, suffering, tears even, the broken words that come from lips in pain, remorse that makes one walk on thorns, conscience that condemns, self-abasement that punishes, the misery that puts ashes on its head, the anguish that chooses sackcloth for its raiment and into its own drink puts gall: -- all these were things of which I was afraid. And as I had determined to know nothing of them, I was forced to taste each of them in turn, to feed on them, to have for a season, indeed, no other food at all.

Wilde explains the need for an experience of darkness as well as light, of the ways in which artistic and religious development come together in afflicted souls. Perhaps this "insight" is not all that different from what Hegel means by "the beautiful soul":

... the artistic [and spiritual] life is simple self-development. Humility is ... frank acceptance of all experiences, just as love in the artist is simply the sense of beauty that reveals to the world its body and its soul.

Recall the Eucharist held high by the priest in the Catholic mass. Think of the lifting of the Torah in a synagogue. Picture the huddled worshippers in a Mosque listening to the Imam read from his people's Holy Book. For Wilde, Christ's passion explains religion. I agree, for Christ in the Scriptures ...

... understood the leprosy of the leper, the darkness of the blind, the fierce misery of those who live for pleasure, the strange poverty of the rich. [Christ's lesson is] ... whatever happens to another happens to oneself, and if you want an inscription to read at dawn and at night-time, and for pleasure or for pain, write up on the walls in letters for the sun to gild and the moon to silver, "Whatever happens to another happens to oneself."

New Jersey's Attorney General Forced to Resign.

Laura Masnerus & David W. Chen, "Corzine Attorney General Out in Ethics Breach," in The New York Times, August 16, 2006, at P. A1.


New Jersey's Attorney General, Zulima Farber, was evidently getting too close to arresting important behind the scenes hoodlums in New Jersey, so she has been forced to resign. Neither she nor her partner were issued summonses of any kind after a recent traffic stop. Her mere presence at the scene, allegedly, created the "appearance" of "impropriety."

All allegations concerning traffic offenses arising from or concerning this incident are unsupported by any conviction. They are, legally, meaningless. Strangely, however, they continue to be repeated in the press. This incident has now resulted in Ms. Farber's resignation from office.

Ms. Farber has been smeared and (allegedly) "disgraced," by being forced to resign because of an "ethics breach." The implied threat to Corzine and Menendez -- the latter was curiously absent from the scene -- is obvious. Has there been a change of sides by one of these gentlemen? Is there a secret deal that we should know about? "On the one hand; but on the other hand ... " Menendez said.

This confirms my suspicions that the entire situation in Fairview was a set up, aimed at getting the A.G. in an awkward position. Gratuitous insults of Ms. Farber were provided, as salt on the wound, after Ms. Farber's resignation. John H. Adler, a Democrat from Camden County (need I say more?) -- with an unpleasant lack of gallantry -- slurred into a microphone:

"I'm glad we can put this sad chapter behind us and look for an Attorney General of the highest intelligence" -- implying that Ms. Farber is not too bright -- "competence and integrity [this means that Ms. Farber, unforgivably, was actually seeking to do her job and put an end to corruption!] to restore a department that once again has been disappointed by failed leadership."

It is the people of New Jersey who should be disappointed by "failed leadership" and the Beirut-like dual sovereignty afflicting that much-suffering state, where elected officials act only at the behest of behind-the-scenes operatives and bosses, who call the shots -- shots that are aimed at the few honest public officials left in this most "hapless jurisdiction" (New York Times) that is home to organized crime and exploding cancer rates.

Mayor Healy and now Ms. Farber have been subjected to suspicious attacks in the press, after bizarre encounters with local police. I wonder who is next? Perhaps former Newark Mayor Sharpe James can be made both a scapegoat and distraction by the Trenton gang, through their friends in the media. Are reporters paid under or over the table by the Jersey boys?

New Jersey's Supreme Court justices are intimidated. I call that intimidation -- and a climate of fear and corruption in Trenton -- an "ethics breach." I will not be "anonymous," as I do so. I will not hesitate to speak out against corruption and the moral cancer that has devoured the Garden State's so-called legal system, which is more like a system of secret favors and deals.

"Have a nice day!" says a sign on the Turnpike, but only as fortunate drivers leave the state. They must have know something about the politics of their home state when they posted that sign, envying all of those persons lucky enough to escape it. The good people of New Jersey deserve better from political leaders. New Jersey's residents and those who care about them must continue to struggle to change that jurisdiction's dreadful political reality and permanently tainted reputation.

In the same issue of the newspaper it is reported that "several groups yesterday asked a Federal District Court in Newark to overturn an ordinance passed by the town of Riverside banning the hiring and housing of illegal immigrants. The groups including the National Coalition of Latino Clergy and Christian Leaders, assert that the town law unconstitutionally assumes powers rightfully handled by the federal government. The lawsuit seeks $10 million in damages." The New York Times, August 16, 2006, at p. B4.

Bogoda, New Jersey had very good community relations, until a recent English-only ordinance was passed. This sort of division between people is used by the Jersey Syndicate to distract voters, so that their pockets can be picked. Here is what a real "ethics breach" looks like:

"The former accounts manager of the Hoboken Housing Authority pleaded guilty to embezzelment in Federal District Court yesterday, prosecutors said. The former manager Eric D. Hurt, 38, of Jersey City, admitted writing 34 checks, totaling $111,083, to himself over two and a half years, said Christopher J. Christie, the United States Attorney for New Jersey. Mr. Hurt used the money to buy personal items, Mr. Christie said. He faces up to 13 years in prison at sentencing set for November 21." John Holl, "Former Manager Admits Embezzelment," in The New York Times, August 17, 2006, at p. B6.

Here is another little ethics breach that has put CHILDREN'S LIVES in jeopardy:

"Five days a week for two years, parents in this rural township [Franklyn Township] in southern New Jersey would drop off their children, some as young as 8 months old, at Kiddie Kollege, a day care center where these days wilted pansies go unattended outside the locked front door."

"But what the parents did not know was that the unattractive one story building, about 30 miles south of Philadelphia, was the site of a former mercury thermometer factory and that their children, who spent up to 10 hours a day there, were being exposed to what the Department of Environmental Protection described last month as unacceptably high levels of mercury."

"A third of the 60 children tested have shown abnormally high levels of mercury in their systems. And while experts have said the levels of mercury found in urine specimens are not high enough to indicate health problems, they are high enough to require long term monitoring, and the ultimate health implications will not be known for years."

Here is another of the real reasons for the Attorney General's forced departure:

"But what is clear, and what is now the subject of investigation by the state attorney general, is that the responsibility for cleaning up and inspecting the building slipped ... through the fingers of state agencies" -- I wonder why? -- "local officials and the building's owner [Who is that?] who in February 2004 allowed Kiddie Kollege to open."

Tina Kelly, "After Mercury Pollutes a Day Care Center, Everyone Points Elsewhere," in The New York Times, August 19, 2006, at p. B1.

It is unfortunate when discrimination and corrupt politics forces the resignation of an honest and highly ethical public official, like Ms. Farber. It is especially troublesome and damaging for the state's taxpayers to pay through the nose for politicians' illegal discrimination that is clearly aimed at Latinos and other immigrants, by shelling out millions of dollars in damages because of lawsuits. Maybe that is what it will take to end the corruption -- more lawsuits and protest.

I am sure that it is a great comfort to parents who may see their children become ill, as a result of governmental incompetence (or worse), to know that official portraits of their well-paid elected officials and/or judges will be high on any list of future priorities, along with the continuing "misappropriation" of public funds. (See: "Let's see what he's got under his fingernails" at Philosopher's Quest and "Is New Jersey Chief Justice Deborah T. Poritz unethical or only incompetent?" at Critical Vision.)

The recent media attention devoted to allegations that Sharpe James overbilled his city for some of his expenses is a predictable way for the the Trenton Syndicate to distract voters from their own much worse shenanigans. Mr. James is said to have overbilled, or inappropriately billed the city for some of his expenses -- many of which he reimbursed -- to the tune of thousands of dollars.

In a state where $4.5 BILLION has disappeared from previous Administrations' budgets, where $100 MILLION was "misappropriated" from UMDNJ's budget, Mr. James is clearly being made a scapegoat. I wonder why they selected him for this fate? (See "Let's see what he's got under his fingernails" at Philosopher's Quest and "Badda-Bing, Badda-Boom" at Critical Vision.)

My suggestion to Mr. James is to be more careful around his so-called political "friends" than any alleged adversary. The Trenton boys like to have a lot of "buffers" available for sacrifice to the media and U.S. Attorney's Office, since they can count on the inattention (or worse) of New Jersey's Supreme Court. These are your tax dollars, folks. Are you happy about contributing to organized crime?

People are not going to be distracted from examining the real thefts in New Jersey by having the Syndicate's "friends" in the media focus on Mr. James. African-Americans in New Jersey have not wielded sufficient power for a long enough time to do half of what the boys in Trenton have done and are doing, which is making BILLIONS of government dollars disappear into their pockets.

I prefer almost any African-American politician in New Jersey -- and certainly Mr. Booker (a possible future Governor of New Jersey) -- to most of the old-time politicians in the Garden State. If Mr. Booker is elected Governor someday, guess what may happen to him? How much you want to bet that he'll be stopped in traffic and fined for urinating on the sidewalk?

Give 'em a call in Trenton. Tell 'em what you think. If only Jersey's politicians and their buddies were driving out of the state and country, I'd have no problem in wishing them all "a nice day."

It is another very sad day for New Jersey.

New Jersey Finally Limits Testimony by Hypnosis.

"The [New Jersey] Supreme Court [finally] ... banned witness testimony stemming from hypnosis in all criminal trials, except when the so-called 'refreshed' testimony comes from the defendant." 

Astonishingly, there was one dissenter. 

Presumably, "refreshed" testimony can only be obtained in the presence of counsel for the defendant -- counsel chosen by an unimpaired defendant, who is fully aware of such questioning, especially when this questioning is custodial. 

This says nothing about use of such testimony in civil proceedings -- like legal ethics litigation -- or the "secret" procuring of such testimony to confirm or obtain other evidence, so that the state does not have to reveal use of hypnosis as an investigative tool. 

Ideally, according to New Jersey's OAE, hypnosis should be part of secret proceedings, so that a victim's rights may be violated with little chance of discovery by that victim.

Opportunities for great evil exist as long as hypnosis forms ANY part of legal investigative methods in a free society. 

The boundary between physicians and therapists (who should be concerned with the welfare of patients) and state agents or torturers (interested in information-gathering) must be preserved, since these are contradictory and irreconcilable roles, except in New Jersey. I wonder if Terry Tuchin (a.k.a. "David" or "Arthur Goldberg") is getting this in lovely downtown Ridgewood, New Jersey?

No one can be both a state investigator and therapist at the same or even at different times with a single subject. You cannot claim to be a person's physician, then become his or her interrogator, only to become a physician again five minutes later. You cannot impose your therapeutic "services," secretly, on unwilling or unconsulted persons. 

Any such attempt at "double billing" is a criminal "conflict of interest" with potentially lethal emotional consequences for the patient-victim-witness. 

You taking notes, Terry? What's Diana up to? Is she still out there? ("Trenton's Nasty Lesbian Love-Fest.")

There is no such thing as "therapy by adhesion." To be called "therapy," a course of treatment must be chosen by a person in an unimpaired and fully-informed manner. ("Psychological Torture in the American Legal System.")

There should not be "anonymous," state-assigned "therapists" for patients, "therapists" who are rewarded for, unconstitutionally, procuring information from victims that can be used against them or others. 

Questioning that takes place, secretly, at irregular intervals over seventeen years is a little more than "questioning." 

Such questioning in an impaired state is a heinous form of torture and exploitation. It is a criminal violation of fundamental rights that is not compatible with the human dignity guaranteed to all under the U.S. Constitution. ("John Rawls and Justice.")

Hypnosis in police investigations has been found in most democratic societies to be violative of human autonomy and privacy rights. Use of hypnosis by state agents alone is a kind of torture. Hypnosis in a forensic setting is a denigration of human beings to the moral status of objects or non-human animals. It is a form of enslavement. New Jersey's own therapist-torturer "Diana" likes it that way because she enjoys wielding power over others "for their own good." She probably also gets her sexual thrills that way. ("Jennifer Velez is a Dyke Magnet" and "New Jersey Lesbian Professor Rapes a Disabled Man.")

New Jersey's long overdue (but still inadequate) ruling allows officials to continue torturing confessions "out" of people -- through the use of hypnosis and/or other psychological torture -- in civil or quasi-civil matters. ("Marilyn Straus Was Right" and "Diana's Friend Goes to Prison.")

This case seems to be silent on the "uses" of hypnosis, in other words, either as an investigative tool or as part of civil litigation. I have not read the decision, though I would like to, having studied only journalistic accounts of it. (See "Terry Tuchin, Diana Lisa Riccioli, and New Jersey's Agency of Torture.") 

What really happens in the Garden State has very little to do with laws on the books or Supreme Court opinions. ("New Jersey Lesbian Sends Nude Photos to Minor.")

Therapist-torturers have been known to abuse people in horrible and life-altering ways, traumatizing them for life, even raping persons, in order to get information that can be used against them -- sometimes these state crimes are committed when victims are not charged with any crimes. Victims may even be framed for some fault or subjected to false charges to conceal the responsibility of their torturers. ("New Jersey's 'Ethical' Legal System" and "Chomsky Publisher Charged in Turkey.")

"... the 6 to 1 ruling from the state's highest court allows New Jersey [at last] to join 26 other states that limit the admissability of ... testimony that is extracted under hypnosis. The Court, reversing a position it took 25 years ago, said it now agrees 'that hypnotically refreshed testimony is not generally accepted science.' The ruling stemmed from a 1986 rape case in which a woman testified against a defendant after undergoing hypnosis. Prosecutors said this would force them to drop the case."

"Testimony From Hypnosis is Curbed," The New York Times, August 11, 2006, at p. B6.

There are so-called "therapists" in the Garden State who specialize in hypnosis-based torture which is designed to get information from people (against their will) and not to refresh their recollections. 

Persons placed under hypnosis are highly suggestible. "Information" obtained under such circumstances is typically unreliable and frequently sheer fabrication.

The police's purpose in using hypnosis is to violate human rights while shielding violators from accountability to their victims for their actions. 

This purpose is often fulfilled, usually with tragic consequences for victims and the U.S. Constitution. 

I am confident that most victims will be members of minority groups. Protracted hypnosis alone is deeply harmful to the psychic system of the victim. 

Many of these techniques are still used "secretly" then covered-up with the help of tainted tribunals or other sold-out public officials. The harm done to innocent people, not just immediate victims, is incalculable. 

It appears that the defendant in that 1986 rape case was and is innocent of all charges. 

Families are destroyed and friendships are lost, life-saving relationships are destroyed for innocent people, by these so-called "therapists," whose services and opinions are "for sale" -- even in civil cases.

Torturers do not identify themselves to prospective victims, hiding from persons that they question, also hiding reports of their sessions -- even altering reports, allegedly, to meet the needs of paying customers -- so as to allow their subjects to appear guilty or not guilty, depending on who is paying their "consulting fees." 

"I'll go to bat for you," a torturer once said to me. "Most people want to be told what to believe."

These persons -- who have the nerve to call themselves "therapists" -- hope to avoid liability for their often tragic blunders. I like to call this horrible New Jersey practice the "Tuchin/Riccioli Torture." (See "New Jersey -- What's that smell?" and "What happened to the Constitution?") 

Hey, how are things in Ridgewood, Terry? How's the family? Everything hunky-dory? ("New Jersey Rabbi Charged With Child Molesting.")

Heightened suggestibility of persons under hypnosis makes it easy for prosecutors or others to get testimony that they desire from victims, regardless of the truth, often without a person even knowing that he or she has been interrogated. Abuse of persons rendered helpless by hypnosis is foreseeable and common. 

How many of you raped Marilyn Straus? Estela De La Cruz, shame on you.

So long as victims are poor or members of despised minority groups, their sufferings cause little concern to the state's highest court or other politicians, especially when minorities are willing to serve as frontpersons for the commission of these crimes. ("John McGill, Esq., the OAE, and New Jersey Corruption.")

"We can learn from you," torturers say. I bet you can -- and I hope that you will.

This ruling comes far too late for many citizens. 

Victims of therapist-torturers -- many of whom commit no crimes -- are scarred for life. They are crippled in their ability to function normally in society, denied their own medical records as well as the truth about their own lives. Psychologically, they never leave their torture chambers and will live with indescribable suffering for the rest of their lives. 

But what the hell? Therapists "can learn from this." This is all that matters. 

Is this New Jersey's legal ethics, Mr. Rabner? How much longer must the cover-up continue? ("Have you no shame Mr. Rabner?")

Their own memories are taken from victims by state torturers, who then deny the truth about what they have done, along with destroying victims' only chance to understand the meaning of their lives, even as they are exploited even more by being filmed (against their will) in their agony, or assaulted and sexually humiliated, as part of that training exercise. 

The laughter of torturers stays with victims forever. And the experience of rape is certainly not one that is easily forgotten or transcended.

"... American forensic psychiatrists and clinical psychologists have proven to be politically arrogant and abusive with the careless use of ... diagnostic entities by fixing five minute health care cases before their hand chosen judges with no sworn-in testimony in order to legally fix their victims with these diagnoses. In this manner forensic psychiatrists and psychologists ... are protected from accusations of criminal wrongdoing. The states that [allow] such cases even in the absence of criminal wrongdoing claim they have the legal right to act as [secret?] guardians for the subjects of such proceedings. What thus occurs is that the states turn into criminally abusive parent figures along with the presiding judges and doctors in such cases as this infectious spread of sadism in dealing with mental health care continues."

Dr. Harold Mandel, "Psychiatry and Psychology Have Become Abusive Disciplines," January 21, 2006, http://www.topix.net/content/cj/1402928183753272823

No justice, no peace. (See "Is New Jersey Chief Justice Deborah T. Poritz unethical or only incompetent?" at these blogs and also at http://www.Critique@groups.msn.com .)

I think Ms. Poritz is a little of both -- incompetent and unethical. 

I hope that Ms. Poritz is receiving her pension, what with the financial crisis and all, and that we will meet someday.

6 New Jersey Government Officials Indicted; More Big Money Scams.

Laura Masnerus, "6 Treasury Department Employees Indicted in Trenton," The New York Times, August 11, 2006, at p. B5:

"Six employees of the New Jersey Treasury Department, including three top officials, were indicted on Thursday on charges of accepting dinners, spa and golf outings and other gifts in return for overlooking overcharges by a state contractor."

The indictment charges these high level state officials with ...

"... receiving expensive dinners and entertainment -- whose value their lawyers say is highly exaggerated -- including spa services at a retreat in Maine, golf outings, meals, liquor, cigars and ... [for one defendant and family] a weekend trip by limousine from their home in Hamilton, N.J., to see 'Wicked' on Broadway. The trip was valued at $2,470.00."

This sort of corruption will be found among officials in many New Jersey state agencies and (probably) among many judges. Very few public school teachers, police officers or fire fighters get a little all-expenses paid trip for themselves and family in the city, with a Broadway show thrown in for the laughs. I wonder why?

There is an excellent chance that New Jersey cops and teachers won't get their pensions when they retire because of all the theft of public money. It sure makes people happy to know that Debbie Poritz gets her pension and that she and McGreevey as well as good old Rich Cody have been immortalized on canvas, at your expense.

"In New Jersey, you cannot go anywhere at home without bumping into something that is regulated by a relatively obscure agency called the Board of Public Utilities."

"... these days, the board has a more visible role. It is on the cusp of making one of the more significant decisions in its 95 year-history: whether to approve a $17 billion merger of Exelon, a Chicago-based company, and Public Service Enterprise Group, the parent company of P.S.E.&G., creating the nation's largest utility."

"The merger, first proposed in late 2004, has been approved by regulators in New York, Pennsylvania and Connecticut, as well as by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission and the Federal Department of Justice."

"That leaves the New Jersey board as the only remaining hurdle."

David W. Chen, "In Huge Merger Of 2 Utilities, 'Quiet Agency' Is in Spotlight," in The New York Times, August 20, 2006, at p. 25.

To the extent that this merger will benefit consumers and residents of New Jersey, public officials should be expeditious in seeing it brought to a conclusion. As Governor Corzine has made clear, the interest of citizens and all residents of New Jersey should determine public policy and not pointless -- as opposed to necessary -- delays by regulators, or a yearning on the part of politicians and others to find some way to gain financial profit (secretly) from this deal. As they say in Trenton: "Yeah, but what's in it for me?"

Walter Lippman spoke of the "public interest" as the standard by which to guide public policy. This ideal or value must not be lost.

Many citizens of New Jersey wonder whether continuing obstructions to this proposed $17 billion merger of utility companies creating the nation's largest utility corporate entity, which would provide much needed revenue and benefits for the people of the state, including possibly cheaper and better energy, are really only efforts by politicians -- or behind-the-scenes bosses -- to ensure that they get a piece of this pie. Trenton politicians like to whisper: "I gotta take something home for dessert."

The Jersey Boys also like to say: "Just let me wet my beak a little ..." David W. Chen, "Utility Merger Hits a Snag in New Jersey," in The New York Times, August 18, 2006, at p. B5:

"Senate President Richard Cody and other political leaders have urged the board to act quickly. Hours before the counterproposal was offered, Gov. Jon S. Corzine, who has said he approves of the merger, addressed the topic at a news conference, saying, 'I think it is time to bring this to conclusion.' ... "

Laura Masnerus, "Reprieve for Troubled Xanadu Entertainment Complex," in The New York Times, August 23, 2006, at p. B5 chronicles the sorry history of the "huge shopping and entertainment complex now rising in the Meadowlands," a project originally provided to "buddies" of former Governor McGreevey, now (for some reason) under investigation by the SEC "in connection with allegations of accounting irregularities."

You mean, "theft"?

The billions of dollars needed to complete the Xanadu project had to come from a new investor, to avoid the potential loss of billions more in public money, and the investigation is "on-going." This should be a good one.

There is much more to come in the days and weeks ahead. (See "Let's see what he's got under his fingernails" at Philosopher's Quest.)

How much is enough for the people of New Jersey?

Democracy "sleeps with the fishes" in New Jersey.

David Kocieniewski, "Cost of Inquiry in New Jersey Draws Criticism," in The New York Times, August 9, 2006, at p. B1.

The federal monitor appointed to set finances in order for New Jersey's troubled medical school -- where a $1.5 billion budget was used as a source of political patronage and graft -- has now billed the state $5.8 million dollars for his services. The residents of that "hapless" jurisdiction (as described by The New York Times) will now have to shell out this sum. The cost of this federal monitor's services is money well-spent:

"Lawyers involved in the investigation said on Tuesday that the monitor's charges were justified because of the size of the university, which considers itself the nation's largest health care university. It has 15,000 employees, more than 5,000 students and a $1.5 billion dollar budget, and bills patients for hundreds of thousands of medical procedures each year."

Furthermore,

"John Inglesino, a lawyer who works for Mr. Stern [the federal monitor], has said that the monitor's investigation has uncovered $100 MILLION IN ADDITIONAL FRAUDULENT BILLING and wasteful spending at the school, and that calling attention to the practice will spare tax payers from that kind of financial abuse in the future." (emphasis added!)

The Office of Attorney Ethics (OAE) had no questions about this bill or the hefty legal bills for services "provided" to the university by lawyers, or to other quasi-public entities by connected law firms, because the office was too busy asking a Latina solo practitioner somewhere in Hudson County why she charged $500 as a deposit for a no-fault divorce.

It took a federal monitor to straighten out this mess because New Jersey's politicians and hacks (redundancy?) in state government were probably "dipping their fingers in the pie" or too incompetent to do anything about theft of public money adding up to millions of dollars. The typical response in Trenton to allegations of disappearing public money is: "Can I get some?"

Many records at the university were destroyed or lost as a result of the efforts of convenient computer hackers, possibly paid for by "behind the scenes political operatives" shielding -- and shielded by -- elected officials. (See "Same Old, Same Old," at Philosopher's Quest.)

I was not surprised at the unpleasant experiences of Senator Lieberman in the recent Connecticut primary, running against a candidate supported by the same faction of the Democratic party, which is allied (it is said) to the boys from New Jersey. Birds of a feather run for office together, especially if they're self-proclaimed "Democrats" from Jersey clubhouses or their friends from neighboring states or allies in the mob.

"When Senator Joseph I. Lieberman's campaign web site crashed in the hours leading up to yesterday's Democratic primary election, it was hard not to read some deeper meaning into the problem."

Michael Cooper & John Markoff, "Claim of Dirty Tricks Fuels Web Volley," The New York Times, August 9, 2006, at p. B5.

Senator Lieberman's campaign complained of tactics identical to what I experience nearly every day: "... we believe this is the result of a coordinated attack by our political opponents." You don't say?

I think Senator Lieberman is right to suspect foul play. Political bosses hire Internet goon squads to harass opponents or do worse. I have probably been victimized in this blog (and elsewhere) by the same hired geeks. Evidence of this sort of crime is now in possession of more than one state Attorney General, which may explain calls by some in New Jersey's political circles to use A.G. attorneys to help with the federal monitor's work. Allegedly, this will cut down on costs. More likely, the crooked politicians' goal is to distract Trenton's outnumbered honest prosecutors from any on-going inquiry into cyber-political-crime or other graft by the Jersey boys. Unfortunately -- for them -- (I hope) neither Ms. Farber, her likely successor, nor Govenor Corzine can be easily distracted. I said "I hope."

Complaining of "insults" (I know about that!) and "partisan polarizing," Senator Lieberman vowed to run in the Fall, as an independent. He should. Patrick Healy, "Lamont is Victor," The New York Times, August 9, 2006, at p. A1.

Meanwhile, back on the home turf of the Trenton Syndicate: "People inside the university have been used to doing things their own way for years, and have been accountable to no one regarding the waste, fraud and abuse that went on ..." Times, August 9, 2006, at p. B6. Appointed judges could not comment, of course, and the state Supreme Court justices are busy scheduling new appointments to have next year's portraits painted at taxpayers' expense. Business as usual.

Let's hear it for the boys.

I am still unable to post images. I think an optimistic vision of relations between men and women is conceivable and achievable. Keep your fingers crossed. http://www.johncarpenter.com/data/movpics/biopics/bpkajb.jpg (This link may be blocked and hackers will regularly deface this text, as evidenced by print outs of this essay, but I will do my best to cope with these difficulties.)


What is masculinity today? What does it mean to be a man in a post-Alan Alda, "gentler-and-kinder" feminized culture? Is it still a man's world? If not, can we at least pretend that it is?

Much depends, of course, on age. Dick Cheney and G.W. are products of a simpler era, when "men were men." For that generation of men it was still possible to refer to someone as "Dick," without insulting him. Some of my readers still refer to me as a "Dick," no doubt out of love. (See "Richard and I.") Those of us still in our "Wonder years" ("YOU ARE FORTY-EIGHT!") are more deeply affected by the cultural revolutions of the sixties than Cheney or Bush could ever be, also by the counter-revolution of the Reagan eighties. The neo-conservative reaction is known in my home as la contra-reforma. (All appropriate accents are to be supplied by the reader since they are unavailable on this ancient keyboard.)

Many of us persons of the male persuasion now describe ourselves simply as "confused." Women have always known this and prefer to do the thinking "for us" in most of our relationships. "Benevolent despotism," they call it, whereas men describe women's treatment of us as plain old fashioned despotism. We yield to our women not out of acceptance, mind you, but because we are, allegedly, the weaker sex. We ask them only to be gentle with us.

There are benefits and disadvantages associated with our new freedoms concerning gender roles. Naturally, none of this applies to morons, who are still happily living in a mental climate dating from around 1955. "Lucy, I'm home ..." The rest of us have to decide what masculinity and femininity mean in this bizarre hall of mirrors that is contemporary America.

In what follows, I shall resolve all difficulties of this sort by explaining the facts of life to you. I will explain where babes (and babies) come from, but never "chics"; I will analyze the appropriate gender roles or options for all of us; then I will apply these ideas to a number of current disputes, or at least one, while alluding to seemingly unrelated controversies concerning religion and science. I am sure that these controversies are reflective of the same profound social and cultural tensions encountered in gender theory and debates. Finally, I summarize my observations and provide a parting thought.

You may wish to gather your notebooks and highlighters. A main objective of this essay is to annoy literal-minded and humorless "politically correct" persons of all genders and political persuasions. I will now pause, briefly, to allow the legal eagles to catch up with me. Judges may wish to have their law clerks write a memo explaining all of this, using short and simple words, possibly providing pictures to help them understand the many abstract concepts to which I shall refer.

Babies are not delivered by a big stork, but are made possible, partly, by what the stork symbolizes. (Yes, Freudians, you got that one right!) The male sexual organ has been worshipped as a religious symbol, feared as a representation of natural powers that are mysterious and unfathomable, and it has been associated with everything from nuclear missiles to the Empire State building. These latter phallic images being examples of mens' "wishful thinking."

The male quest for power or "achievement" -- defined very differently by, say, Bill Gates, Muhammad Ali, Picasso, Woody Allen or Ernest Hemingway -- is a matter of sporting the biggest possible erection, so as to charm the greatest number of "nubile" females. Gore Vidal explains things for the mentally challenged in need of "memos":

HE is designed to make as many babies as possible with as many different women as he can get his hands on, while SHE is designed to take off from her busy schedule as astronaut and role model to lay an egg and bring up the result. Male and female are on different sexual tracks, [according to what we've learned from Darwin,] and that cannot be changed by the Book or any book.

I think Gore is right, as usual, when it comes to traditional gender roles or "natural" functions in society. He is also pretty accurate in describing our genetic programing. Most men, myself included, awake every morning with an erection. Clearly, nature intended us to have more than waffles in the morning. Yet the realities of our busy schedules today, not to mention the uncooperative nature of many females in the mornings ("I'll be late for work!"), results in the frustration of this divine plan. I call this female uncooperativeness "original sin."

Technology and complexity, economic and cultural transformations have "frustrated" many traditional roles for men and women. Nature has not caught up with the ways that we live now. Genetics is silent on the subject of who has to do the dishes, scrub toilets, or raise children. Women interpret this silence as God's instruction to men to discharge these necessary tasks.

Men have to be very specific with women because all silences will be interpreted by gal-pals against male interests. A relationship with a woman is like international peace negotiations -- any misinterpretation could be tragic, depriving men of both waffles and (worse!) what waffles symbolize.

From Wollstonecraft to Greer women have figured out not only that they are the equals of men, but that they are entitled to be treated as such under law. Furthermore (and this is indisputable), women have realized that they could not do worse at governing or controlling societies and economies, science and the arts than men have done in the past -- or than men are doing now -- despite the inexplicable continuing control of these endeavors by men. Shrewdly and unfairly (unfairly because this is obviously cheating), women do not hesitate to ask for directions when they need them. This allows them to arrive at their destinations on time.

It turns out -- and I regret to tell you this if you are a guy -- that men are the weaker sex. This insight has been experienced as a devastating "blow" (as it were) to male egos. We have less endurance, less capacity for recovery from psychological and other injuries, live shorter lives, have a much more difficult time with directions, even with maps, and are less organized than women.

On the other hand, we are good at killing bugs and moving furniture. We are also fun at parties. Hence, we are left with increasingly less power, soggy waffles in the morning, and many cold showers. Evolution seems to be distinct from progress, at least when it comes to relations between the sexes.

All of this leaves men and women with a new uncertainty in our sexual and gender roles. When men had absolute power in their homes -- an era known to us as the "good old days" -- we simply belowed loudly, beat our chests, dragged the carcass of the animal we killed during the course of the day (preferably a Communist!) into our living rooms, asked our women to cook the thing and later asked them to put on that negligee from "Victoria's Secret."

Now this pleasant arrangement has been unsettled. Women kill the dinosaurs, bring home exquisite dinners or have us provide the meals, make all the important decisions, prohibit cigar smoking in the house, and bring home skimpy underwear for us to wear, purchased at "Victor's Secret." It is woman's turn to be on top.

This is not entirely catastrophic when it comes to male dignity. For one thing, the world will be better run by women. I think we all know that, even when we refuse to admit it. Also, think of how liberating it is to be FREE of the pressure to repress emotions all the time. We get to decide what human genetic programing means or requires now.

Men no longer have to pretend to omniscience or attempt to control "rigidly" all things, including ourselves. Best of all, we must refrain from violence. I hate the violence which characterizes so many men's lives. This has a lot to do with my rejection of traditional masculinity, especially very early in my life. I cannot help associating masculinity with fascism, an evil form of political organization, which can be detected in degrees in many places and settings, including the United States of America, where we must always struggle against this tendency.

We can enjoy creating and sharing beauty, playing with our children, choosing fidelity to the one or two women that we will love over a lifetime. Those of us who have chosen very limited sexual lives can make that side of us about pleasing someone we love, rather than insisting that we be pleased all the time, while ignoring the needs of lovers -- who are also partners -- something which one or two men might have been guilty of in the past, which all of us must guard against in ourselves.

I am suggesting that we may be better off with new choices -- freedom rather than acceptance of programing -- about what it means to be a man or woman. Besides, we have an opportunity to recognize how much these categories, male/female, overlap within ourselves for all of us. We can now see that neither biology nor culture is destiny, since we have the power to choose and define gender "for" ourselves. (See "Judith Butler and Gender Theory.")

Freedom is always scarier than obedience. Childhood is always easier on the nerves, but it is a lot less fun than adulthood. With adulthood, we acquire power over our own lives. Hatred, including the hatred of men by women, who have forgotten what feminism was and is about -- equality and freedom for all -- is the "sin" to be avoided.

Men and women who have not forgotten what it is to be boys and girls, will be better at caring for their children and at coping with life's misfortunes. They will be better adults by being a little more child-like.

Finally, this leads to an important insight in connection with America's so-called "science wars." So much of our understanding of rationality or of what it means to be "professional" or "rational" is the product of outdated sexual identities or roles. Are lawyers getting this? It is time to rethink such concepts. Maybe we can say the same of our religious beliefs. They are too often contaminated by an outdated sexism.

Rationality can now be understood in much more flexible ways for a more uncertain and complex universe that contains entities with multiple locations, paradoxes, chaos, superstrings. The universe (like most women and few men) is good at multitasking. If it is true that logos was traditionally captured in "hard" masculine metaphors, whereas mythos was seen in "soft" feminine terms, then it may be time to collapse the boundaries of these concepts, recognizing the ways in which they exist only in relation, each within the other, mutually dependent. (See the Matrix.)

Thus, our scientific learning is filled with symbolizing and metaphors, even with religious concerns. It should be recognized that the same minds that worship and love, also inquire into the essence of the universe or moral goodness, usually for the same reasons, hoping to find meaning and truth.

If the word "God" still points to something important and real for Western civilization (and I think it does), then it may have to do with a total inclusiveness or "unity" that allows opposites to share their essences by discovering that all that is estranged or other, is already within and not outside of us, through love. If we are separated from someone that we love, for example, then we can concentrate on that love and remember the person emotionally, until we find her physically.

Denigration of these forms of knowing -- which are very popular in the world -- results from a trivialization of traditionally female forms of thinking. These ways of thinking (and yes, it is "thinking") allow feelings a cognitive role in our calculations. This is to require not simply logical or linguistic correctness in rationality, but (in addition to such correctness) a hope for wisdom. Wisdom and ethical sensitivity are part of what is meant by "rationally optimal solutions" in this so-called "feminine" mindset.

There is nothing unscientific about this intellectual orientation. There are great philosophers and other thinkers giving expression to these ideas, from Mary Wollstonecraft to Fritjof Capra and other contemporaries, whose works may be associated with these ideas in unsuspected ways. See Edith Wyschogrod, Spirit in Ashes: Hegel, Heidegger, and Man-Made Mass Death (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1985), also I am finishing an essay that I plan to discuss soon by Agnes Heller, "Philosophy and Need," in Radical Philosophy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1984), p. 7-51.

It may help to apply all of this -- and no, we have not left our subject far behind -- to discussions of religion and science, as forms of knowing, so as to decide where we stand on the controversy over the alleged "irrationality" of lingering religious beliefs. Kurt Andersen, a writer I admire, displays the prevalent skeptical attitude to religion of educated, upper-middle class Americans:

For practical reasons -- reasons both of politics and civility -- it ordinarily behooves our tiny minority of reality-based infidels to keep quiet about our astonishment that most of our fellow citizens are in thrall to fantastic medieval fever dreams, just as it behooves secular minorities in Islamic countries to keep their modern [notice the assumption about what is "modern"] sentiments to themselves. In countries like ours ... liberals need to pick their battles.

Rationality for Mr. Andersen seems to involve a masculine toughness about seeing things as they are, avoidance of "medieval" fantasy or imagery, since he sees this avoidance as essentially "scientific" ("modern" and not "medieval") or concerned with "reality" as it is. This attitude in America reveals the poverty of a Freudian "reality" principle in a post-Freudian or neo-Jungian/Laingian-Lacanian world. Please read June Singer's summary of Jung's system, also her book "Androgyny."

Nothing is more real than dreams or more important than what dreams, including collective dreams (art and religion), alone can tell us. Besides, fantasy and imagery are found everywhere in our scientific "literature" -- an apt word for that rich and true "White" mythology (Derrida) which we call "science" -- since science involves narratives with imagined characters comparable to those found in Wagner's Ring cycle: leptons, particle pairs, superstrings, entropy, genes, neurons. These are all concepts invented to describe our human understanding and experience of the universe. In the realm of gender thinking it may be time to adopt a kind of ecriture blanc.

It is only the stories or theories we create -- including scientific accounts -- that make facts meaningful and digestible, so that we can use them. Stories are the mirrors that become doors; this is because they reflect a universe that shares in a kind of story-logic, like the biography of any person. Both nature -- as revealed by science -- and every human life, may be understood as a narrative or plot.

W.B. Gallie, Philosophy and the Historical Understanding (New York: Schocken, 1968), p. 1: "I have tried to supply ... the proper starting point [in historical-philosophical thinking,] the concept of a story, regarded as a form of human understanding sui generis and as the basis of all historical thought and knowledge." ("Immanuel Kant and the Narrative of Freedom.")

Rationality is more feminine than we thought, so is science. Perhaps religion is a little too masculine, as traditionally understood. If so, then this may be Mr. Anderson's true complaint. Religion is interpreted too literally by many of our fellow citizens. On that point, we agree. Isn't such literalism part of an excessively masculine notion of rationality? A feminized masculinity reflected in our new variable rationality allows us to continue to seek control and predictability, while remaining flexible and creative in our reasoning about all things.

"Rationality and science are beyond gender!" Exactly my point. Both rationality and science are inclusive of all genders. So is God, if you wish to use that word. Until we realize that we are symbol-making, metaphor-wielding, LINGUISTIC animals, whose thinking can only take place by means of languages pervaded by notions of gender and sexuality, human hopes, fears, wishes ... we will make little progress. No, this doesn't deprive us of truth, as a concept. It only makes that concept of truth richer, for we discover a universe as complex and mysterious, as baffling and elusive as we are. See Alfred North Whitehead, Adventures of Ideas (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1933), pp. 175-220 (the philosophy of "process") and my essay on Ernst Cassirer's philosophy. Don't be surprised if both good scientists and poets, seeking to convey truth, become (unknowingly) theologians.

The universe is both mirror and door, so are our thought-processes and languages. Think of Lacan's mirrors set facing each other. Newton's masculine nature of absolute mechanical determination coincides with Einstein's feminine "relative" space-time continuum, as well as the mysteries of quantum particles, particles known to be as evasive and unpredictable (yet powerful) as a woman's insights into one's character. One of these days I will have to take on Rorty's Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature.

A woman I love knows me. I mean she really knows me. In the act of knowing, she alters me (for the better). But then, she can say the same about me. I know her. Perhaps humanity and the universe are involved in a similar mutual process of "knowing" or discovery. Humanity is how the universe knows itself. A useful analogy for the universe (or God) may not be a distant, authoritative Freudian "father-figure"; but rather, a parent and child relationship, where each participant in the dialectic reflects and constitutes the other's identity. This thought leads to the gnostic idea that God is best sought within the self. Divine and human then become a unity or dialectical partners. (See "Elaine Pagels and the Secret Texts of Christianity.")

Opponents of humane philosophical efforts contend that the idea that humanity and the universe are "kindred," is a myth. I am sure that such a criticism is not only false, but almost incoherent. Where do persons come from, as a species and individually, if not from the universe? We are made up of matter originating and still part of the same universe that we seek to understand, because it has produced us. It would be bizarre or even insane to suppose that what produces us and makes us up is not "kindred," like saying that your leg is not related to the rest of your body.
So what is mistaken for childishness or immaturity, a lack of toughness or "rigor" may really be only a new way of growing up. We grow up by learning to "play," intellectually and morally, also by loving. We no longer need to be trapped in confining, inherited roles as men and women. These roles affect all of our thinking and conceptualizing. This doesn't mean that truth is unobjective or unreal. We are finally liberated (mostly by women!) to be fully human, to accept masculine and feminine aspects of our protean natures in highly complex, media-saturated societies, where survival may well depend on the ability to recognize or "see" the humanity of others and ourselves -- or even, as I suggest, to "play nicely with others" -- without abandoning all that is singular or unique and valuable in our individual histories.

This is something for the good folks in Washington, D.C. to ponder: Do Americans always play nicely with others?

The Winter of the Patriarch.

Fidel Castro, whose ego demands a large and bold type, has yielded power to his brother Raul Castro -- who is also not exactly a blushing flower -- as Fidel undergoes "intestinal surgery" to repair bleeding caused by "stress." This is the official message from Havana. The truth is anyone's guess.

Official messages from all governments -- especially Cuba's --are a kind of poetry. They should not be interpreted too literally.

Fidel might easily arrange this little bit of theater in preparation for his eventual departure from the scene, which will not be too soon for most Cubans, both on the island and in Miami, also elsewhere in the world.

Fidel knows this and is inspired to live a long life, just for the pleasure of annoying all of those who wish him the opposite. Cuba's decision to exclude foreign journalists, through delays in processing visas, is a little worrisome. Who are they rounding up?

What if Fidel wanted to see who would be likely to oppose Raul? Suppose Fidel were only to "appear" to have left (temporarily), so that opponents might be emboldened to act or take positions with the intention of wresting control of the government away from Fidel's "little brother," as the Miami Cubans say? Miami's Cuban-American politicians are probably worse than both Castros -- and much more stupid.

"Let us see," Fidel has been known to comment, "whether the serpents will emerge from underneath their rocks." Usually, the "serpents" have been stupid enough to cooperate with such tactics. My advice is "caution" and patience. The celebrations in Miami were a little premature. Many of the "serpents" are probably more dishonest than Castro could ever be.

Fidel may, suddenly, recover (miraculously) and scoop up Cuba's "uncooperative" subjects, providing them with a one way ticket to one of his dungeons, possibly adding a cigar as a farewell gift. When he appeared at the airport in Havana, waving goodbye to refugees, he said: "Don't forget to write ..." The man is a novelist in the political arena.

It is important to distinguish Fidel Castro from the Cuban people and Revolution. "Cuba si," Ronald Reagan said, "Castro no." (Please supply a mental accent over the word "si," in every sense.)

The official response from Havana at the time was: "Castro is Cuba." My thought then and now is: "I don't think so." Such a determination must be, exclusively, for the Cuban people to make.

I am "for" an end to the embargo, not because I am a fan of Fidel Castro -- though I think he is a brilliant and fascinating, if "morally challenged" man, more than most of us -- but because millions of Cubans and Americans suffer (pointlessly) as a result of that embargo. Fidel Castro requires a writer on the level of Shakespeare to capture all of his complexity.

The embargo and Helms-Burton strengthen the revolution and hurt the weakest members of both societies. I am against pointless suffering. How about you? (See "Time to End the Embargo Against Cuba.")

If you want Raul to govern indefinitely in Fidel's absence, then you should be "for" the embargo that will give him an excuse to point to us ("Yankee imperialism") in justification of all failures.

If you really want to test the Cuban revolution, then take away the embargo and let us see how it does and whether people want it. If they do, then the U.S. should accept this and "move on" by thinking of ways in which cooperation can improve the lives of all.

What should happen in Cuba? Well, I think The New York Times got it right:

"America's [and Cuba's] overriding interest is in a peaceful transition to the democratic and economically dynamic society that Cubans have dreamed of for decades. Given Cuba's educated population, the energy and skills of its people, and its advantageous location, that is not at all a utopian fantasy. But it may not happen immediately. Washington should be planning to establish contacts with Fidel and Raul Castro's successors even if they have roots in the dictatorship, and attempt to play the most constructive role it can in the island's evolution. An early easing of the economic embargo could strengthen Cuba's battered middle class" -- don't refer to "classes" when speaking to the Cuban government! -- "and help it play a more active role in the coming political transition."

Here is the key warning for Cuban-Americans:

"All of this preparation could be complicated by the backward-looking fantasies of some politically active members of Miami's Cuban-American community. The refugees [emphasis added] are certainly entitled to their say, [especially when the "refugees" are U.S. citizens or Senators?] and they will be bound to get a hearing [Why shouldn't they?] ... But the challenge for the Bush Administration will be to make sure other voices are heard and heeded as well. Washington's post-Castro policy must not become a pawn of Miami [or any other state's] refugee politics."

People on the island are not going to roll over and allow others, from outside the country, to arrive on the scene and tell them what will happen and how it will take place. At least, this is the opinion of one "refugee" who -- since he happened to be born on that unfortunate and suffering island nation -- feels a poignant concern for all who continue to suffer as a result of Cuba's revolution and what has come after that historical event, especially the current foreign policy of the United States, which is costing Americans billions of dollars in lost revenues and resulting in more dangerous hostility in the world.

The structures of government and habits of independence are well-settled on that embattled island, which has grown accustomed to its autonomy. The fate of the revolution is ONLY for the Cuban people to decide.

I believe that Cubans want to retain the achievements of the revolution in health care and education, while allowing for greater or new civil liberties in expression, freedom, and true democratic processes, without becoming a U.S. colony, while establishing a friendly and cooperative relationship with the U.S. and everybody else, for that matter.

I will not accept the condition of a slave or laboratory animal. I will not be deprived of my humanity. I will not be silenced or censored, threatened or insulted. I cannot expect other persons, anywhere in the world, whether in Georgia or Poland, Venezuela or Cuba, to accept being ruled by a foreign power.


I want freedom and peace for the U.S. and Cuba. Peace is in the interest of the U.S., so is providing some satisfaction for Cuban-Americans insisting on "justice." Recognition of injury and pain is something I favor, together with efforts at mutual understanding. I know about justified anger and outrage. Succumbing to such tempting emotions is never the most productive response to evil.


One possible idea is a forum for civilized discussions, "face-to-face," genuinely free debates, to which all are invited -- provided one is willing to be guided by reason and not threats or attempts to silence opponents. Threatening to "kill me" is not an adequate response to this suggestion.

I write these words as I struggle against daily criminal censorship and destruction efforts directed by powerful political interests against me in a society claiming to respect and protect my fundamental Constitutional and human rights. I hope and believe that the world sees this spectacle which, sadly, proves that much of what Fidel Castro has said for forty years is true. ("Fidel Castro's 'History Will Absolve Me.'")

These mild opinions that I am now expressing are enough to produce violent reactions among many Cuban-Americans together with inserted "errors." Such hostile and irrational reactions to OPINIONS are the opposite of the democratic spirit that many Cuban-Americans say they want to bring to Cuba. To replace the revolutionary government with a BRUTAL Fascist regime is not progress. Fascism is always the opposite of progress. You do not defeat an argument by threatening someone with violence or removing a letter from one of his Internet texts. ("How Censirship Works in America.")

Why bother to live in a free society if you are going to allow anyone to intimidate you in the expression of your opinions? No reason. We Americans are famous for speaking our minds. So I'm not going to be intimidated by anyone. For a view that is different from mine, by a Cuban-American, see: Rolando Pujol, "Next Christmas, in Havana?," in A.M. New York, August 2, 2006, at p. 10. For a very different view, see the Cuban American National Foundation's web site.

I hope that Cuban women of all races -- including those who disagree with me -- will play a prominent part in formulating the response of the U.S. and Cuban governments to unfolding events in Cuba. Machismo and militarism are aspects of Cuban political culture, both under the current government and before it existed, that we can now do without. At this point in history, racism and sexism are anathema in any civilized society.

Why do I favor participation by Cuban women in any future government? For one thing, generally, women can not do worse than men in running nations or businesses and universities. They are less likely to be swayed by ego or bravado in making difficult decisions.

Peace and cooperation are finally possible. If we fail to achieve these things, then we will have only ourselves to blame.

By "ourselves," I mean both Cubans and Americans. I am an American of Cuban ancenstry, others will now have to decide what and who they are. The first principle to accept, as an American, is that others are free to disagree with one's opinions.
Let us try to understand one another. We may then be able to take a first "faltering step" towards that much hoped for justice and reconciliation.

New Jersey and You -- Perfect Together!

I believe that the true number of visitors to the site where my book is available is not being reported accurately. Numerous copies of the book have been sold in the past few days, but the listed number of visitors to my page has not changed for about week. This is intended to discourage or insult me, possibly, but since new copies are being sold all the time and interest is expressed from many quarters, I am not discouraged. You can help by visiting that site (a link is provided at the conclusion of this paragraph), so that the failure to record your presence will make it obvious that "something is wrong" in the "cyberstate of Denmark." http://www.lulu.com/content/48831



"The former fire marshal of Monmouth County was sentenced yesterday to six months in prison and five months of house arrest for having taken a bribe while in office. Under a plea deal in United States District Court, the fire marshal, Patsy R. Townsend, 59, of Neptune admitted in March that he accepted $1,000 from an agent posing as a developer seeking help in obtaining emergency demolition contracts, said the United States Attorney, Christopher J. Christie. Mr. Townsend was also fined $2,000."

John Holl, "Newark: Ex-Fire Marshall Sentenced," The New York Times, August 2, 2006, at p. B6.

Sending someone to jail in New Jersey for taking bribes is like punishing an eskimo for wearing a coat in the wintertime. What do you expect? Like censorship of uncomfortable opinions and the torture of mental patients -- as well as anyone deemed an inconvenient or overly independent person -- these are the tried and true tactics of Trenton's power-structure.

"Patsy," the aptly named and now disgraced official, is "alleged" to have asked: "What did I do wrong? Geez ..."

The subtle, mostly behind-the-back machinations concerning cable and telephone company rights as well as the (possibly related) shenanigans over the merger of big power companies hint at the thirsty evil slithering through the darkened corridors of power in the Garden State. The prize is billions of dollars, this time, so that the crooks are out in force. They've got company.

Needless to say, it was not state authorities who caught up with Patsy. In fact, New Jersey would probably appoint Patsy to an ethics committee in recognition of his restraint in stealing only a thousand dollars. If he shared his thousand dollars with colleagues, then he'd get a judgeship. Eventually, he might wind up on the New Jersey Supreme Court, posing for his portrait.

The thousand smackers is what he was "caught" stealing, of course, so that Patsy (like any true artist), allegedly, would not wish to be judged by such a theft. I am sure that he can do better, as it were. No doubt he will.

After all, many New Jersey crooks point out, "everybody in politics does the same." Perhaps Patsy's mistake was in not taking enough money. After all, $1,000 is not a big enough bribe to become a player among Jersey's politicos or judges.

The troubled "system" of that pestilent jurisdiction located west of Manhattan -- and far south of any decent morality -- now amounts to an entire culture of corruption and secrecy, where what happens "on the record," in courtrooms or legislative sessions, is a kind of theater to hide what's really going on, which is about taking care of the powerful, even as political leeches abscond with the goodies when no one's looking. In New Jersey, they also abscond with the goodies when people are looking.

In one way or another most of the players in New Jersey's legal and political spoils systems are on the take, with the exception of this new Governor and a few key players in his administration -- maybe a few others too -- who are trying to limit corruption at the margins. Some legality is better than none.

Until these crusading reformers are destroyed in the media or otherwise, there may be some action towards halting or limiting the theft and incompetence, nepotism and cronyism, secret torture and cover-ups, that is New Jersey's daily desecration of both the flag and U.S. Constitution. (See "Is New Jersey Chief Justice Deborah T. Poritz unethical or only incompetent?" A little of both?)

New Jersey is an embarassment to the nation. The state judiciary is paralyzed or incompetent, subject to control by politics or money, while law is what these men and women in black robes mostly avoid or ignore.

Beyond anger and a sense of outrage at years of flagrant illegality and blatant cruelty by hoods, usually operating with the blessings of New Jersey law enforcement -- sometimes as members of law enforcement agencies, where it is also true that one finds many honest and good cops -- one feels overwhelming disgust and sadness. Picture the state's Supreme Court justices and remember the old saying: "A fish stinks from the head."

The ethical opinions of the sold-out or incompetent persons wielding power in the vicinity of the "old Raritan river" are discredited at the outset. They should not trouble anyone too much, for we must take them for what they are -- either attempts to change the subject, in what is now the most corrupt jurisdiction in the nation, or hypocrisy and self-justification. (See "Even in New Jersey there comes a time when silence is betrayal.") A comedian gets a laugh these days merely by saying "New Jersey."

New Jersey is to legality and ethics what a three dollar bill is to U.S. currency.