"First of all, I know Bobby from the time I met Maria. I always liked him. But when I look at him being suspicious of certain things, I ask myself..."

"Can anyone really judge him in a fair way? Because here’s a guy who has had an uncle assassinated, a father assassinated. No one wants to open up the files. So you must say to yourself, What is the reason for that? You start not trusting governments. I don’t live with this kind of suspicion, because nothing ever happened to me that makes me feel like that. But a lot of things happened to him, so this is where he is coming from. I’m not saying rightfully or wrongfully. I’m just saying I can see why someone like him is the way he is."

Said Arnold Schwarzenegger, responding to a NYT interviewer, in "Arnold Schwarzenegger Is Here to Pump You Up (Emotionally)." 

Schwarzenegger is promoting a new book (which has a Jordon Petersonesque title: "Be Useful: Seven Tools for Life").

The interviewer, David Marchese, had asked "what do you make of R.F.K. Jr.’s anti-vax, conspiracist turn?"

Marchese follows up — evoking the Moynihan meme you are not entitled to your own facts — "But we can be sympathetic to someone and what happened to them and also say facts are facts." 

Schwarzenegger seems unaware  of the old meme. He says: "His facts are different. I understand what you’re saying, but there’s people out there who have their own facts."

"If less than twenty five people feel moved to comment on this alleged event, then it's the beginning of the end for Lena."

"If, on the other hand, more than one hundred people feel impelled to comment on Lena's unworthiness as a human being, then another season of Girls is in the bag."

Predicts William in the comments to "Maria Shriver way overreacts to Lena Dunham saying 'penis,'" a post that went up at 7:51 yesterday evening and has thus far racked up 32 comments.

Only 32. (But that's more than 25.) And that's with an excellent short short story by Laslo Spatula, in the persona of The Girl at Starbucks That Hates You. I'll put it here so you won't have to click back:

Maria Shriver way overreacts to Lena Dunham saying "penis."

"You caught me there for a second. I’m not sure if you’re allowed to say that on television... Help, she just threw me off! … That’s the difference between generations. I wasn’t brought up talking like that."

2 articles in the NYT that I happened to read one after the other that made me wonder if the NYT is tired of journalism and just wants to blab.

1.  "A 'Heat Dome' Is Coming. Domes Are Bad." This is an article about the weather that is mostly riffing on the word "dome" with stuff that's easy to collect by googling "dome." ("There’s Mad Max’s Thunderdome, where gladiators died. There’s the Houston Astrodome, one of the nation’s largest abandoned buildings — too big and expensive to be blown up.... In 11th-century England, there was the Domesday Book....") A comment there says:

Does this writer think he is clever? What are you thinking, New York Times? Either this is a serious meteorological event, in which case information about its cause, effect and what we might need to do to take care of ourselves in extreme heat and humidity. Or it is a non-event, and not worth the effort it took to write this article. More and more this paper feels like it's written by 20 something who approach every day as a chance to prove their cleverness, rather than to really think about what is happening in the world they live in.

2. "Why Men Want to Marry Melanias and Raise Ivankas," by Jill Filipovic. This is an interesting idea, all summed up in the title, but it's full of godawful stereotypes and assumptions about 2 women and what one man thinks of them and women in general and what men in general think of them. "Maria Shriver’s Shriver Report" found that men tend to want their wives to be "attractive and sweet" and their daughters to be "independent, strong and principled," and "This dynamic seems to play out in the Trump family" in that "Mr. Trump’s wife is professionally attractive, anecdotally nice and by her own telling fairly traditional, while his elder daughter is a strong, independent and well-educated businesswoman." Never mind that Ivanka is just as attractive and sweet as Melania and that Melania has had her professional endeavors. And forget the obvious fact that whether you devote your efforts to the commercial world or the domestic sphere, you can be independent, strong and principled or not. What do the NYT commenters have to say about that? Nothing! Because the NYT doesn't put up a comments section for this article. So let me just quote something from the comments to that Domes-are-bad article:

Why does... the NYT always allow comments on these rather juvenile articles but rarely on anything with political, elitist or racial overtones?

What's good for women is what's good for men.

Meme alert!

1. In today's NYT, an opinion column by Stephanie Coontz: "How Can We Help Men? By Helping Women."

Social and economic policies constructed around the male breadwinner model have always disadvantaged women. But today they are dragging down millions of men as well. Paradoxically, putting gender equity issues at the center of social planning would now be in the interests of most men....

Putting women’s traditional needs at the center of social planning is not reverse sexism. It’s the best way to reverse the increasing economic vulnerability of men and women alike.

2. On "Meet the Press" today, David Gregory interviewing Maria Shriver about the current state of the war on poverty, which began in the Lyndon Johnson administration, with Shriver's father in charge. (At one point Shriver says: "Daddy ran the war on poverty.") Anyway, Shriver's done some new report, which Gregory calls "so interesting." There's much discussion of the centrality of the concerns of women, Gregory declares the "role of men" to be "interesting." Shriver says:

Men are totally a part of this conversation in terms of how they raise their daughters, in terms of how they support their wives and their partners. And what's good for women, at the center of the economy, is also good for men. Men need flexible hours. Men need sick days, because they're going to be caring for parents, as well. Men need all of the things that these women need. These are smart family policies that we're talking about in this report.

A bit later, Shriver again pairs the idea that women are "the center of the economy" with the assertion that what's good for women is good for men:

I think women are at the center of our country. They're at the center, as I said, in electing our political leaders. They're at the center of the economy. They're in the center of the family. And when women do well, men do well, and the nation does well. And when women do well, they don't just support other women doing well, but we support our sons and our daughters.

Maria Shriver still has her Christmas lights up.

And the neighbors are annoyed.

We're told the neighbors haven't approached Maria directly yet because they like her and don't want to hurt her feelings ... but in typical passive aggressive neighborly fashion, they're hoping word will make its way back to her.

How do you solve a problem like Maria? How do you hold a moonbeam in your hand?

What's with these European men — Dominique Straus-Kahn and Arnold Schwarzenegger — and sex with the servants?

First, Arnold Schwarzenegger — though not a natural-born American and therefore not qualified to serve as the U.S. President — has been a naturalized American for a long time. But I want to call attention to his continent of origin for the purposes of discussion this week, when we are all focused on Dominique Straus-Kahn, the IMF and French presidential candidate, who was just arrested for attempted rape on a hotel maid.

Schwarzenegger, we learn today, fathered a child with a woman who had been "a member of his household staff" for 20 years. His press release says that Maria Shriver left him when he informed her about it. Like she didn't know previously?! He deliberately waited until his term as California governor was over, he says. I think it's more likely that she deliberately waited until his term as California governor was over. Or is she stupid?

Both men have committed adultery. DSK has, allegedly, attempted rape. Schwarzenegger has committed that special offense to marriage of fathering a child. But I'd like to focus on the way both of these powerful, ambitious men — who could have found willing women out in the world — went for the women who were working in their place of abode — the house and the hotel room. It's so lazy... so entitled... so unfair to the women who will be torn between the desire to run away and the need to keep her job.

"Mr. Schwarzenegger might never have been elected were it not for his wife..."

"... Ms. Shriver gave a passionate speech on behalf of her husband in the final days of his campaign for governor after The Los Angeles Times published a series of stories painting him as womanizer and groper."

Paragraph 7 of the NYT story about the breakup of Arnold and Maria. Now, why doesn't the NYT, with its fabulous archive of old stories, link to those old "womanizer" reports that were whipped out at the last minute to try to preserve the power of the Democratic governor?

I'll do it for them. October 3, 2003, "THE CALIFORNIA RECALL: THE LEADING REPUBLICAN; Sexual Accusations Prompt an Apology By Schwarzenegger":

Mr. Schwarzenegger's attitude toward women has been an issue since the start of his campaign. But the new accusations, and Mr. Schwarzenegger's reply, set off a maelstrom of protest from his critics, including women's groups, Democrats and Arianna Huffington, who dropped out of the race this week but had repeatedly clashed with Mr. Schwarzenegger during a debate last week.

Oh! Arianna was in the center of the maelstrom!

''I consider his campaign a very expensively produced masquerade,'' Ms. Huffington, who was running as an independent, said, "the question is will the mask be removed before the election or after. I believe what this story is going to do is really bring to question this big issue of trust and credibility. If his word and image are consistently proven to be false, he doesn't have a leg to stand on.''

The Los Angeles Times reported that three of the women said Mr. Schwarzenegger had grabbed their breasts. Another said he reached under her skirt. A fifth said he tried to strip off her bikini in a hotel elevator. The sixth said Mr. Schwarzenegger pulled her to his lap and asked if she was experienced in a particular sexual act. The accusations covered a 25-year period, ending in 2000....

"Disappointment for Katie Holmes over axed Jackie Kennedy series."

1. First, of all: "axed." Should we be saying "axed"? There hasn't be a high-profile ax murder in a while, and now if there is one, The Daily Mail will have to answer for it.

2. Katie Holmes looks a little like Jackie in that get-up, but something's missing — something in the legs and arms proportionality. And that expression! Why is Katie always so sad?!

3. "JFK's niece Maria Shriver, and his daughter, Caroline Kennedy, are reported to have lobbied hard for the History Channel to pull the plug on the series." Katie and Tom less powerful than Maria and Caroline? Noooo!

4. A History Channel spokesperson said: "While the film is produced and acted with the highest quality, after viewing the final product in its totality we have concluded this dramatic interpretation is not fit for the History brand... We recognise historical fiction is an important medium for storytelling and commend all the hard work and passion that has gone into the making of the series, but ultimately deem this as the right programming decision for our network." Find the lies in that statement. Why'd they approve of the production in the first place if that sort of thing isn't "right" for them?

5. Sorry about the "Schwarzenegger" tag. I don't feel like making a separate tag for Maria Shriver.

Did you watch the Teddy Kennedy funeral?

I happened to catch a few minutes of raw feed on C-SPAN showing Arnold Schwarzenegger and Maria Shriver standing around in one of the lulls. But I find it hard to imagine many people watching this long, drawn-out event and think it was pretty weird that there was so much TV coverage. I'll stick to the written word.

Here's the AP:

Sen. Edward M. Kennedy was laid to rest alongside slain brothers John and Robert on hallowed ground at Arlington National Cemetery on Saturday evening, celebrated for "the dream he kept alive" across the decades since their deaths.

Did they fact check that the ground is holy? At least they put "the dream he kept alive" in quotes and don't assert that he kept a dream alive, whatever that means. (Cue the comments about how he didn't keep Mary Jo Kopechne alive.)

In life, the senator had visited the burial ground often to mourn his brothers, John and Robert, killed in their 40s, more than a generation ago, by assassins' bullets.

"He was given a gift of time that his brothers were not. And he used that time to touch as many lives and right as many wrongs as the years would allow," Obama said in a eulogy that also gently made mention of Kennedy's "personal failings and setbacks."

As a member of the Senate, Kennedy was a "veritable force of nature," the president said. But more than that, the "baby of the family who became its patriarch, the restless dreamer who became its rock."

Those left behind to mourn "grieve his passing with the memories he gave, the good he did, the dream he kept alive" Obama said inside the packed church.

It sounds like Obama gave a good speech. Must I read the whole text? I'm not going to watch the video. As I've said, I'm sticking to the written word on this one. The only thing that makes sense of all this attention to the old man's death is that it takes us back to the 2 assassinations, long ago, events that commanded long, drawn-out attention.

The Democratic Convention.

7:??: I'll do a little live-blogging... as suits my mood.

7:58 Central Time: I'm just settling in to watch. I've got everything TiVo'd and I'm scrolling along. Has it started yet? This last hour seems to be very Nancy Pelosi-oriented. I don't think this part is supposed to count for much. I'm fast-forwarding like mad. Ehghgd! It's Jimmy Carter!

8:19: Caroline Kennedy is a terrible speaker, but her speech makes me cry nonetheless.

8:30: We've seen a film about Teddy Kennedy. It focused on his love for the sea. He encounters the sea on a beautiful yacht, with his elite family. But he's dying. I don't know what to think. It's supposed to be about Barack Obama and the future of the Democratic Party, but I'm hearing bathos about the sea... and then there is this terribly rich man with his yacht. But we are called to celebrate him. He's dying. We see that in the tear that Maria Shriver brushes off her razor-sharp cheek. Ah, woe beyond politics! But now he's speaking. He wants health care for everyone.

8:35: "Barack Obama will close the book on ... straight against gay." Now, why would that be? I wonder. Teddy imbues Barack with powers.

9:48: "And that is why I love this country," says Michelle Obama.

9:58: Those kids are cute! "I love you, Daddy!"

7:12, next morning: I barely watched the post-Teddy stuff. Just not in the mood. I should check out Michelle's speech on line today. I did see the parading of the cute kids. It seemed pretty clear to me that the younger girl had been coached to cry out "I love you, Daddy" when she saw her father on the video screen, because she did it repeatedly. I think a kid behaving naturally would be really intimidated to find herself on the stage and would cling to the mother, who is there on the flesh. A big head of your father on a video screen in front of a huge audience is a very weird thing. I don't think it would make a little kid call out "I love you, Daddy." If she'd say anything, it would be to the mother: "Why is Daddy on the screen?"

Anyway, I see there are a lot of comments on this post, and that some of the commenters got mad at each other sometime around midnight. It's not easy, dropping in this morning, to figure out why. Did you drink too much blog? I'll just say I hope you all kiss and make up.

Do you give a damn who Maria Shriver endorses?

I consider this the most boring news in the world. Because first ladies are insubstantial figureheads.

Hmmmmm.....

M-ness.

If you've mastered yesterday's lesson and learned that you actually do need to wear pants, then let's move on to M-ness. (Via A&L Daily.) Do you have it? Do you want it?

“What needs to happen is that the genders need to move closer together, not necessarily to be like each other but to respect each other . . . not be threatened by each other and achieve proper mutuality.”

M-ness (also known as my-ness) is defined thus: a masculinity that defines the best of traditional manliness (strength, honour, character) with positive traits traditionally associated with females (nurturance, communicativeness, co-operation). A lifestyle that emphasises higher-quality emotional and physical pleasures, male pleasures, that come from knowing oneself and one’s potential.

Confused? Well, according to [author Marian] Salzman, a classic example of M-ness man is Guy Ritchie. He is the alpha male tough guy who married an even tougher woman. But have his masculinity and identity been diminished by Madonna, arguably one of the biggest female icons in the world? No, says Salzman.

If anything they have been enhanced because Ritchie is so comfortable in his own skin. Here lies the essence of M-ness.

Ditto Bill Clinton, believe it or not, who scored M-ness points for apologising publicy for his infidelity (admitting you were wrong is a very feminine trait) and has not been threatened by taking a back seat to Hillary. See also the Republican Arnold Schwarzenegger, who, in marrying Maria Shriver, a famous Democrat, showed simultaneous respect for her beliefs and absolute confidence in his own. You could argue that Sir Paul McCartney demonstrates M-ness in his support for the career of his wife, Heather Mills. And might there not have been a touch of M-ness at the heart of Sir Denis Thatcher, whose sense of self was never compromised despite being married to the most macho female in living memory?

Side notes:

"Arguably one of the biggest female icons in the world"? I think you need to cut either "arguably" or "one of" (and drop the "s" on "icons").

"Comfortable in his own skin" — I'm tired of that expression and not just because I hear it so often. It's that I feel compelled to picture someone who somehow feels that his skin is too tight and binding, like an ill-fitting suit of clothes. It's distracting! Really, everyone — other than a serious burn victim — feels comfortable in his own skin. Can we come up with a more accurate cliché?