The Unclad Soul

I keep dipping in and out of the Showtime series, “Billions.” It fascinates me. It depresses me. It wildly entertains me. It intrigues me. It infuriates me. It pushes boundaries that disturb me. It portrays people that I wonder if really exist out there, and if so, man, is society screwed. The episodes are based on the moral and ethical conflicts between billionaire financier Bobby Axelrod (Damian Lewis) and U.S. Attorney Chuck Rhodes (Paul Giamatti). Axe, as he is called, is a cunning hedge fund genius with sociopathic tendencies. Rhodes has convinced himself he is the good guy, that he's a man of principle and virtue, even though he crawls around in loathsome behavior. He sees himself as a better person than Axe, and yet he likes S&M experiences with the straps and the gags and the whips and a scantily black leather clad dominating female to humiliate him into a sexual frenzy. That’s his mild side. As U.S. Attorney for New York, the guy is insanely ruthless in his ob...

The election in Alabama yesterday to replace Senate Republican Jeff Sessions ended another high profile, tawdry political race, one that reminds us of how far our political system has fallen into disgrace. Roy Moore, a controversial evangelical firebrand, a man who had twice been removed from office as an Alabama Supreme Court justice, for blatantly ignoring federal laws, and who reportedly was banned from a mall for spooking teenage girls, and who was accused by various adult women of having made inappropriate advances toward them when they were teens, centered his campaign, unbelievably, on Christian principles. Moore made a career of using religion to bolster the support of Christians for his political ambitions. And for years it worked. But apparently many voters got tired of the hypocrisy and the manipulation and rejected him. Including a large number of Black voters who courageously stood up to Moore’s shoddy politics that were often prejudicial and intolerant of minorit...

There is no question that Donald Trump is outmatched by Hillary Clinton. And why not? She’s been at this her entire adult life. She knows every political trick in the book and she masterfully applies them against him. He blunders along, in his street fighting mode, and he ends up being crude and bullying. Just what Hillary wants. She baits him and eggs him on and when he unloads his amateurish remarks she retaliates with polished, clever, adroit come backs. She has teams of writers and advisers, and of course Bill, who love this whole thing. They salivate over this stuff. It’s a game, a fun, exhilarating game to them. It’s a challenge for them to see just how ingenious they can be in turning Trump into a complete fool. And so far, it has worked perfectly. He of course plays along, having apparently no idea just how stupid they make him look, and how stupid he actually may be. He has no self-awareness. No understanding of what is actually going on. No game plan. No insight. No bigg...

The good life was once a cozy, warm and safe existence. It stood against harsh words, mean acts, manipulation and violence. It was a world of benevolence where acts of fairness, compassion and love were incubated then birthed. But does it exist anymore? Is it in our day nothing but naïve blather; a way for losers to live? Most of us want a good life for our children. In preparation for that we want to guard them against the cruelties of life, against dishonesty and exploitation, against the jeers of the hateful and the trickery of the evil, against being hoaxed and suckered; to insulate them from heartlessness, brutality, mockery and spite. We want to teach them to live above this and be respectable citizens. But for some odious reason it seems that over and again that is a naïve approach to life for our children and for ourselves. The reality, we’re told, is to learn to fight, to mistrust people, to see through the lies that are always out there, to learn the ways of getting ...