Political polarization at the elite level is a major concern in many contemporary democracies, which is argued to alienate large swaths of the electorate and prevent meaningful social change from occurring, yet little is known about how individuals respond to political candidates who deviate from the party line and express policy positions incongruent with their party affiliations. This experiment examines the neural underpinnings of such evaluations using functional MRI (fMRI). During fMRI, participants completed an experimental task where they evaluated policy positions attributed to hypothetical political candidates. To study how we process political information, political psychologist Ingrid Haas of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and her colleagues created hypothetical candidates from both major parties. On the whole, the research shows, conservatives desire security, predictability and authority more than liberals do, and liberals are more comfortable with novelty, nuance and complexity. If you had put William Buckley and Gore Vidal in a magnetic resonance imaging machine and presented them with identical images, you would likely have seen differences in their brain, especially in the areas that process social and emotional information. The volume of gray matter, or neural cell bodies, making up the anterior cingulate cortex, an area that helps detect errors and resolve conflicts, tends to be larger in liberals. And the amygdala, which is important for regulating emotions and evaluating threats, is larger in conservatives. Liberals proved more attentive to incongruent information, especially for Democratic candidates. When they encountered such a position, it took them longer to make a decision about whether it was good or bad. They were likely to show activation for incongruent information in two brain regions: the insula and anterior cingulate cortex, which “are involved in helping people form and think about their attitudes,” Haas says. Source: www.scientificamerican.com
Chastising those who present a “the tear-jerker scenario about Big, Bad, Ugly America” in Sex, Art, and American Culture, Camille Paglia cites the United States “as the most open, dynamic, creative nation on green earth.” You can’t say American exceptionalism any better than that. America is right and America will fight, even if it means destroying the world. It may be simplistic to divide the world into two, when there are many stripes to us all, but the middle is fast disappearing as we rock SS Democracy. There is nothing radical about fixing the world to keep the convenience of the wall plug while discarding downstream damage. There is nothing radical about living within our means, economically and environmentally. We’ve been warned about hollow horses since Cassandra, but some just won’t hear. In North by Northwest, Roger O. Thornhill, spells out a simple American truth, “There is no such thing as a lie; there is only an expedient exaggeration.” Paglia notes that one doesn’t need to embellish Donald Trump’s screed, because “Everything he says is so ridiculous that it is hard to heighten it.” We may have graduated from “speak softly and carry a big stick,” but there must be more to truth, justice, and the American Way than “yap loudly and pack a big shtick.” We should be wary of people who make things up to suit their politics. Time to stop polluting the airwaves and the world.
“Those who tell the stories rule society,” said Plato centuries ago. “Whoever controls the media, the images, controls the culture,” said Allen Ginsberg more recently. Further, “our bottomless appetite” for TV and internet content is leading to an “information glut” so that “what is truly meaningful is lost and we no longer care what we’ve lost as long as we are being amused,” added Andrew Postman, author of The Disappearance of Childhood and Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business. Postman reflected on Aldous Huxley and his dystopian book Brave New World. According to Postman, one of the dangers of that new world was that “people will come to adore the technologies that undo their capacities to think.” Camille Paglia says Postman saw that “the young would therefore inherit a frantically all-consuming culture of glitz, gossip, and greed.”
Camille Paglia also reflected on the charisma of the son of the martyred president John F. Kennedy (July 23, 1999, interviewed by Joan Walsh): I think John Kennedy Jr. was a phenomenally personable individual on the cultural landscape, and this cutting down of such a promising man who had not reached the peak of his maturity is one of the most cruel jokes. I was all the more enraged as the days went on and publicity -- thanks to that buffoonish biographer, David Heymann -- began to turn against the women. Oh, right -- blame the women! -- the passengers, not the pilot. Another person who tried to blame Carolyn was Ed Klein who was criticized heavily by John's circle and his book was considered nothing but fiction. In reality Ed Klein got all that info straight from a November 1999 article written by DailyMail writer Annette Witheridge (on November 14, 1999). My first thoughts at the time were: What a curse indeed is on the Kennedy clan! Getting close to the Kennedys is hazardous to your health. I was chilled to the heart by the weird fact that this accident occurred on the eve of the 30th anniversary of Chappaquiddick. The Kennedy travails have often been compared to Greek tragedy, and the comparison is a just one. It's the dark theme from Greek mythology of curses visited upon generation after generation after generation. For this entire week during the horribly protracted search for the bodies, I found it enormously wrenching. My thoughts have been besieged by images from classical literature. I couldn't help thinking of Hector, the great hero and crown prince of Troy, as his body was mutilated by Achilles and dragged around the walls of his parents' citadel, followed by the ritual burning of his body. I thought about "Antigone" and the way that play begins with the impious exposure of Antigone's brother's body. And I thought also of a famous passage in Virgil's "Aeneid" about the death of Marcellus, a very promising young man who was the adoptive son and heir of the Roman emperor Augustus. Marcellus' death at age 20 produced enormous mourning among the Romans, since he embodied the future of the dynasty. That theme of the young man cut down recurs in this case, although John F. Kennedy Jr. was not 20, but 38. But it still falls under the archetype of Adonis, the beautiful young man whose blood is shed to regenerate nature. In fact, Gore Vidal very wonderfully cited this metaphor about JFK Sr. to explain the enormous popular outpouring after the assassination that made him mythological.
I think all of us who admired JFK Jr. we did so because we realized what opportunities he had to be a total wastrel and an arrogant ass, but he was the opposite, an amiable, very laid-back guy. It appears that Jackie herself was worried and described him as a sort of space cadet who would suddenly tune out. It was his way of coping with the pressures. His going off into dreamy detachment could have been a factor in his final fate. I did see him in person on one occasion, he had a Cary Grant level of beauty, with the proportions of a Greek Kouros sculpture. The one time I saw JFK Jr. was at the party that he threw at the Art Institute in Chicago during the 1996 Democratic Convention. He knew who I was, and we briefly shook hands -- I remember thinking how rock-hard his forearm was when I patted it. It was just a moment, but I have to say that in my entire life, I have never seen a more charismatic person. He himself seemed to radiate this light that has always been identified with exceptional persons in history. The subject of charisma is one that I've discussed in my own work. It goes all the way back to the sudden influx of grace perceived by early Christians. Halos or auras are always shown emanating from holy beings in the world art. It's a theme I've applied in my work to the charisma of great movie stars, the radiant light in George Hurrell's photos of Garbo or Dietrich at the 1930s high point of the Hollywood studio system. I've seen genuinely charismatic people only a few times in my own life, and that night in Chicago was certainly one of them. At his best, JFK Jr. exuded some strange magic. It partly came from the mere fact of his celebrity, but it was also his physicality, his movie star looks, his dazzling presence. Obviously his magazine wasn't doing as well as might be hoped, but the fact that he broke his ankle this year in that sports accident was a sign that his control of the physical world was starting to slip. It was a warning sign to slow down -- to stop and reassess. Something was turning in his own life and fate, but he didn't listen to the signal. Source: counterpunch.org
An acquaintance of historian Steve Gillon remarks: Caroline Kennedy kept touch with Rosemarie Terenzio between 1999-2002, and apparently she reached out to her when her book “Fairy Tale Interrupted” came out to let Rosemarie know she was okay with it. This is Rosemarie's version of why John and Carolyn spent time apart before the crash: "They were not separated. They spent a night apart because Carolyn was at the hospital with Anthony. She spent the night there and John was at a Yankee game and left his keys at the office." I know Caroline wasn't so happy about Billy Noonan's book, since it focused more on the dark side of John and Carolyn’s marriage, and she went hard on Noonan in 2009. Gary Ginsberg’s kids are friendly with Caroline’s kids, and he has proved to be discreet. Caroline has avoided most of the circle of friends surrounding John, due to their propensity to speculation or talking about his brother’s privacy. In other cases, as Sasha Chermayeff or Robert Littell, I have the feeling the distance has always been mutual. On all accounts, Caroline Kennedy only talked with the Bessette family when she had to settle their lawsuit, although later she had contact with Carolyn’s sister Lisa Bessette, who has worked for the Art department at University of Michigan-Ann Arbor. John Perry Barlow observed once that Caroline Kennedy didn’t seem to like anybody beyond her husband, kids, and their snobby friends and she had ditched 80% of the Kennedy clan. I’ve heard that Arthur Schlesinger's tapes were going to be eventually released but Caroline moved the date forward (for whatever reason). The Kennedy family retains control of materials related to Death of a President (1967) by historian William Manchester. Jacqueline Kennedy's interview tapes with the author are sealed at the Kennedy Library until 2067.
John had a few chances to question his decision of getting married to Carolyn Bessette. It seems that Carolyn was also unsure since she did not like the press and all of it put a strain on their relationship. Carolyn had to bear some ridiculous criticism from Anne Witheridge who had the nerve to call her in print: “A bug-eyed pupa in reverse evolution who seems to reserve her smiles for her exclusive acquaintances or cool people and who may have been a dead end for him [John] as a personality.” She also received praise, but posthumously: “She was one of the most iconic, beautiful and stylish women of our time, who epitomised elegant, easy and flawless chic. Her ’90s uniform of neutral colours and crisp silhouettes inspired a number of spring/summer 2019 collections, including Burberry and Chanel,” said international fashion editor Jayne Pickering. I thought Carolyn's best look was with thicker eyebrows and dirty blond hair rather than that bleached into oblivion blond. The cheesiness of Carolyn's early photoshoots reflected her sense of humour. “Carolyn loved to laugh – hers was an unforgettable, contagious laugh,” says Colleen Curtis, a former classmate. “She was always ready with a wise-crack. She greeted friends with a big hug. You never doubted her sincerity.”
The kind of people who came out and said negative things about Ms. Bessette are people who tried to be friends with her but she probably ignored or avoided. Candace Bushnell (who wrote the columns that TV show Sex and the City were based on) had a monthly "fictional" column in Manhattan File magazine that followed the narcissistic, drugged-up, travails of a woman whose initials were something like CKB (I can't remember but it was obviously a play on Carolyn's name). The woman in these stories was always running from paparazzi, popping pills and complaining that her famous hubby didn't spend enough time with her. Since Bushnell was a New Yorker in the know and based almost everything she wrote on real people and events, I always believed this column was a direct poke at CBK. After her death, the column was never seen again. I know by good sources that Candace Bushnell had a fling with Michael Bergin and encountered Carolyn a couple times. Carolyn Bessette's roommate Dana Strayton from Boston University said that Carolyn never mentioned John Kennedy prior to meeting him at Calvin Klein, and she never talked about purposely going to NY.
I know John taught at several universities, including Pace University in New York, and the students spoke highly of him. He also tutored ESL students in English in Connecticut. The world really got cheated out of what he might have done in the future. The public's fixation with Lady Di and forcing a meet cute with John was so weird, John literally said he didn't like the British Royal family, and his only interaction with Princess Diana was the meeting to discuss a George cover which she declined, and that was that. In one interview with Chris Matthews, John alluded that in the case he was going to run for office, his life had to be in order. I saw Presidency for him in the future, I saw him being a great advocate for diverse causes. He didn't have a mean bone in his body but those nasty Right Wing people would have definitely gone after Carolyn and her issues during a campaign. Caroline Kennedy got dragged when she tried to run for senate, despite being backed up by his uncle Teddy. Even her husband Edwin Schlossberg gave her an ultimatum - ‘our marriage or the job’. I feel she resented Edwin for damaging her relationship with her brother. John and Caroline were not on the best terms before John died, they were barely speaking. I know John didn’t like his brother-in-law at all. I don’t think Jackie liked Edwin either. Caroline probably has a lot of regret of how she treated her brother and Carolyn. They died and they weren’t talking by then. Santina Goodman was a good friend of John (they never dated) and his death led her to a deep depression and she committed suicide in January 2019. She wanted to write a memoir, she had a manuscript, photos and everything sort of set up, but she was in a very dark place. Despite being close to Jackie and Caroline Kennedy before John's death, Caroline cut off Santina and 90% of John's friends after the crash, and they were disappointed with her.
The Kennedys were never too liberal. They were always centre leaning left. “Most of the members of my family keep working in public service,” Caroline Kennedy explained at the JFK library, “but some of them have started doing other things.” An aide, mingling in the aisles, said the late president’s daughter writes and speaks just “because she wants to get the message out.” Helen Ward has her own Kennedy connection. The Wards were said to be close friends with Caroline’s late brother, John, going back to the days when John was dating Daryl Hannah, and they all went on a trip to go helicopter skiing. About Daryl Hannah, Jackson Browne was burnt because she had asked him not to come to her family home during her father's illness and subsequent death. Jackson found out that he wasn't invited -- mind you, they had been in a 10 year relationship and Daryl did not want to marry him after he had proposed numerous times, they had communal possessions that had to be sold and arbitrated after their official split up. Knowing what I do about prior and subsequent relationships that Jackson had, I find him to be a kind and gentle soul and I know he was deeply hurt by this final indiscretion by Daryl Hannah.
Jackson wasn't invited because JFK Jr was instead at Daryl's family home. Contrary to what the tabloids have printed, Jackie Kennedy and Daryl were friendly, and as far as I know she didn't approve nor disapprove of Daryl for JFK Jr. But Daryl was very prone to cheating on Jackson, and JFK Jr. was not the first indiscretion in that relationship. Also, Jackson Browne found out about the relationship of Daryl and JFK Jr. through the tabloids and friends, not directly from Daryl. Steve Gillon reached out to Daryl to interview her for his book, but she refused. Daryl and John had their fights for sure, she was going back and forth between John Jr and Jackson Browne, which angered John because she couldn't decide. When John was at Brown University, he briefly dated a girl until she cheated on him with another girl, it turned out she was a lesbian, and John was shook for a while. He said, "Did I make her do that?" John also had an "invisible chain" on his exes if you will, that he "rattled" at times and when he did they would come back to him. The only ex that really moved on, and never had contact with John after the breakup was Sally Munro.
Carolyn Bessette was clearly a flawed person and she was problematic sometimes, and the fact John regularly put up with it is what baffles many people. It's clear that Carolyn was not a social climber. A true social climber would've attended all these elite events and galas on a whim, but Carolyn dreaded them and preferred to stay at home. A true social climber would've made important connections with John's circle, but Carolyn was cutting them off or even ruining John's relationship with them. A social climber would've gotten closer with his family members even if the feeling was not genuine, However, Carolyn was barely skimming the surface. A social climber would've loved and relished the public attention, but Carolyn hated it, and avoided it. She only was called a social climber by Ed Klein because Carolyn Bessette was born in White Plains, her father William Bessette was a cabinet-maker and she didn't belong to a wealthy family. The former VP of Public Relations at Calvin Klein, Suzanne Eagle, commented to Liz Lange about how much she missed Carolyn's company, despite of acknowledging she could be difficult to work with. "I always wished that being her boss was a better experience," said Eagle.
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