Old Maids - The Return Of Spinsterhood As The Final Goodbye To Men

It might be too much to say that the relationship between Joanna Parsons and Esther Pilchman was a harbinger of things to come, a bold statement about the overheated sexual dynamics of the day, a retreat into a simpler, Victorian world but one which without men was significantly satisfying; but it certainly resonated among women tired to death of either or - abusive, indifferent men or hungry lesbian women. 

Sex had become the be-all and end-all of the early Twenty-First Century experience.  It was sexual identity that was one's most defining feature, and the expression of that identity increasingly compulsive.  It wasn't enough to be one way or another, but to be it defiantly. 'I am this or that' was the meme of the day, and the gender spectrum the smorgasbord from which one must choose. 

'I am sick and tired of dykey women', Esther confessed to her friend Joanna who readily agreed, 'and these ditzy girly-girls as well', and those confidences shared in the Russian Tea Room were the beginnings of a fond and lasting relationship. 

It wasn't that the friends hated men or the many incarnations of women; it was just that they were indifferent to sex, gender, and the whole hoopla surrounding it.  Men per se were simply not that interesting or appealing; and it certainly was enough to be a woman without wanting some kind of intimacy with them.  

While colleagues naturally assumed that the two women were lovers, nothing could have been farther from the truth.  Their interests were purely Platonic but went far beyond the usual aside about 'no sex here' to a far more engaging consideration of the philosopher and his ideas.  'We're shadows in the cave', Joanna said to Esther many years later as their friendship had matured well beyond simple camaraderie. 

Joanna Parsons and Esther Pilchman had been friends for over fifty years.  They grew up together, went to grade school and high school together, moved to the same town after college and were inseparable, an example of the durability of friendship. 

Joanna was the more attractive of the two – her face, despite a longish, Breughel nose, had a pleasant symmetry which only in early middle age began to lose its tenor.  There was a noticeable sag to her eyes, her lips had thinned out to a spinsterish narrowness, and her skin had a sallow touch to it.  She, however, had learned cosmetics from her mother, always carried a travelling make-up kit with her, and was able to put off the inevitable well beyond the expected years.

She had only one serious relationship which ended badly to an engineer from Chillicothe who had tempted her with a sexual interest which she was unused to.  Well into her 40s she had lost all sense of courtship, and took her suitor’s attention for serious love when in fact he was simply looking for wealthy company in an interim period in his life.  He had been married twice before and would undoubtedly marry again, and Joanna was a pleasant, inoffensive stop along the way.  

Their relationship lasted two years when he announced hat he had had enough and was off to Atlanta  to complete a liaison which had begun right under Joanna’s nose.  To add insult to injury he had finagled the finances she had entrusted to him and walked off with a good piece of her savings leaving her with only a small pension and a few thousand dollars in inheritance.   Alone again, she regretted her mistake, and was off men for good. 

Esther Pilchman was the daughter of a modestly well-off family from Far Rockaway, Queens which at the time was solidly Jewish.  So Jewish in fact, that only when she went to college did she know any Christians who, despite early attempts to be friendly and inclusive, had this thing about Jews, not anti-Semitism really, but a kind of dismissive stereotypical reaction to her nose, her New York accent, and her huge shock of untamable hair.  Crying and disconsolate after her freshman year, she asked her parents for cosmetic surgery and after a painful but not entirely unpleasant summer at a hospital-cum-spa in Bangor, she returned to school a different girl.  

The nose of course didn’t change much other than get a few catty remarks from the big men on campus.  It wasn’t the sexual draw she thought it would be, and she spent the rest of her time alone and celibate.  The school, like many other small liberal arts colleges, had a definite liberal tilt, and she found solace and camaraderie in the academic chapter of The Young Socialists of America.  

There she was among her own kind – Jewish, New York, and deeply committed to the legacy of Samuel Gompers, unionism, and anti-capitalism.  Of course this was all psychological window dressing.  Socialism was a dalliance, a legacy of her parents’ activism, and what she thought would be a means to an end – boys.  Yet the boys as a lot were unattractive, dull, and uninspiring on all fronts.

She drifted between academic options until Junior year when she declared a Psychology major.  She saw herself as a female Freud, tapping into her Talmudic roots, using Menscheit and acquired Christian severity to cure the mentally ill.  She dived into her studies with vigor and enthusiasm and graduated Summa Cum Laude.  She was accepted into graduate school, and her career was launched.

Joanna Parsons had lost touch with Esther during their college years.  Joanna had gone to small, unassuming Catholic college in Maryland while Esther was making her way at one of the East Coast’s premier institutions.  Joanna graduated in the bottom third of her class, untouched by the either the Aquinian logic of her professors or the religious vocation of her classmates.  She was indifferent to religion, and went to St. Anne’s because it was one of the few which accepted her without question.  

She drifted intellectually and emotionally, and graduated with little idea of what to do next; took a number of low-paying secretarial and administrative jobs, was taken in by the Chillicothe engineer, left on the curb more desperate than ever, at which time she contacted her old friend, Esther who was delighted to hear from her, invited her to stay with her in New York until the dust settled and she was back on her feet.

Both girls were delighted with the arrangement.  The rediscovered each other and concluded that if you become friends with someone at the age of twelve, the friendship – established before the set-in of concerns for social status and personal worth – would last a lifetime.

There is something about emotional recourse – in this case the friendship of two women who had never had an interest in men, women, or sex - never ended in caricature.  Joanna and Esther had their fussy moments, moving tchotchkes and bibelots at a whim without consultation (“My dear, could you please replace that Austrian shepherd?”), but all in all settled in to each other, listened to Brahms by the fire, and took high tea every Sunday at four.

Esther had become an East Side psychologist) and over the years drifted far from the Freudian straight and narrow. Her clientele was exclusively women who found her neutral, very objective, and surprising take on sex and sexuality refreshing.  'Sex isn't all it's cracked up to be', Esther noted to overwrought, frustrated women, sounding a lot like Paul in his letters to the Ephesians, warning them off sex and marriage, the surest way off the heavenly track; but seriously offering her niche between feminism and Fifties complaisance. 

Meanwhile Joanna found a job as a junior editor of a small literary journal based in Greenwich Village. Its readership, although small, was discerning and demanding, and the Editor-in-Chief came to rely on Joanna’s judgment and literary insights.  She felt comfortable in her eyeshade and tube lighted  desk, never complained about her insignificant salary, and was delighted to meet the authors who came to make a personal appeal for publication.  

There was no Updike, Mailer, Roth, or Cheever among them, but she had grown accustomed to the genteel mediocrity of these Midwestern hopefuls.  She like Esther tended toward the less sexually inflammatory writers, not that she had anything against Roth's obsession with sex or Cheever's drifting indifference to it.  She just preferred to keep sex out of it, as temporary a fix as it was. 

People said that Joanna and Esther were beginning to resemble each other the longer they lived together; and it was true that they began to share the same taste in frocks, hairdos, and shoes.  Both wore no jewelry – too forward for two now quite mature women – and seemed to be one thing, not two as they walked down the street.

They both were dutiful aunts, especially Esther who found in her brother’s children just the right surrogate family – easily kept at a distance but showered with candies, cards, and forget-me-nots on holidays. She cared little for the brother who did well at yeshiva but at nothing else, and even less for his dowdy, simpering wife; but family is family after all especially if life has not given you one of your own.

Joanna followed in the same path but had become a bit of a nuisance with her hovering insistence on ‘helping’.  Her cousin’s husband had made it clear that he was getting very tired of her importunity – she had no idea that she was loving a bit too much – but she soon got the picture and spent even more time closeted with Esther who had been read to from the same missal.

The two women spent their final days in a nursing home in Bayside as close as ever, never noticing the absence of visitors or mail.  They ended up as they had lived – alone together, sometimes fussy, but happy in a remarkably uncomplicated kind of way.

That, of course, was the fate of old maids - a misunderstood, underestimated lot, thought universally to be unhappy, unsatisfied, and frustrated; but neither Joanna nor Esther noticed, secure as they were in their friendship without sexual codicils, contracts, or disputes.  Had anyone bothered to look beyond the stereotypes, they would have put them front and center on the gender spectrum - the New Woman, the emancipated woman, and not the bitter, dry, and nasty woman of yesteryear's fancy. 

RFK Jr And A Nation Of Fatties - Lifestyle Changes? Phooey...Give Me My Ozempic

RFK Jr, nephew of a former President and now Donald Trump's new Secretary of Health, has vowed to Make America Healthy Again, and has taken aim at the food industry responsible, he says for the continued rise in obesity.  If it weren't for all those sweet breakfast cereals, salty, fat-laden snacks, and gallons of soft drinks, we would be trim, svelte, and healthy. 

Hold your horses there, Bobby, easier said than done.  Obesity is a complex psycho-social, genetic, and economic issue, and no president, no WHO or CDC expert, no citizens' lobby group has been able to stop the progression from negligible in JFK's day till now. 

A more sedentary lifestyle - a good thing, moving workers from fields to desks, from manual labor to knowledge industries - and the limited disposable income for sports clubs, gyms, and private trainers, has been a principle cause of overweight.  The configuration of most American cities, unlike those of Europe, is car-dependent suburban.  Americans walk less because shops and small businesses have moved to megamalls. 

Poverty has always been a limiting factor - poor people living on the margins will necessarily eat satisfying fat-rich foods and eschew the higher cost fresh fruits and vegetables.  Working two jobs doesn't leave a lot of time, energy, or interest in walking or running. 

A map of the poorest districts in the United States is perfectly congruent with a map of obesity; and the worst affected are in the Delta region of Mississippi, Arkansas, and Louisiana.  Poor families who used to eat a home-cooked unhealthy diet of cornmeal, fatback, and fried everything, now complement it with the cheap, equally unhealthy foods from the millions of fast food restaurants in the area.  On the commercial strip outside of Columbus, MS with a population of 25,000 and a per-capita income at $16,700 (2010), there are over 25 fast-food restaurants and all the major chains are represented.

People eat fast food because even though for a family of four, the cheapest meals are not cheap, time constraints for a two-earner household often with more than two jobs do not permit eating at home.  The poorest families will still cook traditional Southern-style meals laden with fat and calories and with little healthy diversification. 

Fast food has an additional payoff-  it is psychologically satisfying.  A father who takes his children to McDonald's and all leave sated after eating the calorie-rich supersized portions can feel responsible and the children never grumble.

 

Poverty limits exercise.  Most people who work at one or sometimes two tedious jobs are tired at the end of the day, and leisure does not include running, cycling, or swimming – even if they had access to the clubs, pools, and cycles of the more well-to-do. 

It is difficult enough for wealthy, educated parents to supervise their children; and even harder for poor families who lack the experience, the training, and the will (given their often desperate situations) to exercise the parental guidance and restraint necessary to improve their children’s diets.  Moreover, if the parents are overweight because of an improper diet, they are unlikely to demand better of their children.

Human beings have a natural affinity for salty, sweet foods - both necessary and often hard to find in the earliest human settlements - and the food industry's supply meets the demand.  It is a pas de deux, it takes two to tango affair. 

The food lobby is very, very strong. Suggesting that consumers reduce fat consumption from meat by eating smaller portions, leaner cuts, or moving to fish as an alternative can run counter to the Cattlemen’s Beef Association.  Reducing fat consumption by decreasing the amount of dairy products runs afoul of the National Cheese Institute, the National Dairy Foundation, and the Milk Industry Foundation. Reducing fat and salt consumption by eating fewer processed and junk foods and saturated fat French fries runs into the buzz saw of various lobby groups.

The government is complicit in this phenomenon.  There are no direct subsidies for vegetables, but potatoes receive generous US dollars. Potato subsidies in Maine alone totaled $535,858 from 1995-2010.  Idaho, Washington, North Dakota, Wisconsin, Colorado, Minnesota, California, and Michigan are also recipients.  Cheap potatoes allow McDonald's and other fast-food restaurants to offer huge portions for relatively nothing. 

Studies on obesity have shown that there are two principal culprits other than poverty – snack foods and sweetened drinks.  Hundreds of non-nutritional calories are ingested every week by most adults and children, and the foods that provide them are ubiquitous.  Not only are they available in stores and supermarkets but in vending machines in offices, schools, and public facilities.  Airlines, having eliminated proper meals, now give salty snacks like pretzels or chips.  Media advertising is relentless.

When asked why they snack, the responses are varied but consistent.  Boredom is most often cited.  People who work at boring, repetitive jobs with few rest breaks are likely to snack to relieve the monotony.  People snack while driving for the same reasons.  Others cite associations such as watching TV and snacking.

David Kessler, former Commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) wondered why people were so addicted to snack foods:

Kessler was on a mission to understand a problem that has vexed him since childhood: why he can't resist certain foods.  His resulting theory, described in his new book, "The End of Overeating," is startling. Foods high in fat, salt and sugar alter the brain's chemistry in ways that compel people to overeat. "Much of the scientific research around overeating has been physiology -- what's going on in our body," he said. "The real question is what's going on in our brain." 

The Dorito is the perfect storm of a bad food – the corn gives it sweetness; it is cooked in fat giving calories; and it is loaded with salt.  Many snack foods provide this tempting and addictive combination.  Not only do we reach for snack foods because of psycho-social reasons, once we start in on them we cannot quit.

There is a genetic predisposition to obesity.  This does not mean that a predisposed individual must be fat; but that additional weight is likely if he/she does not take care and watch what they eat.  In addition to individual genetic profiles, human beings are programmed to store fat.  In caveman days this was important.  Hunters who had to run for miles to find, track, and haul game needed sufficient energy; and if there were drought, scarcity of game, or famine, the stored fat kept them alive.  

Women in particular put on weight to assure that if they became pregnant during lean times they would be able to have the resources to bring the baby to term and to breastfeed it.  We are no longer under those severe constraints; but not only have we stopped caveman exertion, we have stopped most exertion.  Our sedentary lives are perfect complements to the fat genes which are there for survival. 
Recent studies have shown that truly sedentary activities – i.e. sitting – have a peculiarly odd effect: 

Studies suggest that sitting results in rapid and dramatic changes in skeletal muscle. For example, in rat models, it has been shown that just 1 day of complete rest results in dramatic reductions in muscle triglyceride uptake, as well as reductions in HDL cholesterol (the good cholesterol). And in healthy human subjects, just 5 days of bed rest has been shown to result in increased plasma triglycerides and LDL cholesterol, as well as increased insulin resistance – all very bad things. And these weren’t small changes – triglyceride levels increased by 35%, and insulin resistance by 50%! 

It is notoriously difficult to lose weight once it is put on, largely because of the same genetic programming that enabled us to survive the Stone Age.  When we severely restrict our diet, our bodies rebel, and noting the decrease in calories, slow down the metabolism, thus consuming fewer calories, making weight loss even more difficult.  There has also been considerable research done on ‘set points’ although much of the theory is still being debated.

According to the set-point theory, there is a control system built into every person dictating how much fat he or she should carry – a kind of thermostat for body fat. Some individuals have a high setting, others have a low one. According to this theory, body fat percentage and body weight are matters of internal controls that are set differently in different people (MIT Medical)

Since it is impossible to determine one’s own set-point, it is impossible to know exactly what your ideal weight would be. Furthermore:

The set-point theory was originally developed in 1982 by Bennett and Gurin to explain why repeated dieting is unsuccessful in producing long-term change in body weight or shape. Going on a weight-loss diet is an attempt to overpower the set point, and the set point is a seemingly tireless opponent to the dieter.

It is easy to see, therefore, why it is difficult for people to maintain a normal weight and even more difficult to lose it.  The psycho-social, economic, and political factors affecting weight are so complex, that policy-makers don’t know where to begin.  Poverty-reduction, for example, is not only a goal for nutritionists but for the country at large; and it has itself been resistant to change.  Fighting the food lobbies is no less challenging  today than 40 years ago.  

The political polarity in today’s Congress prevents aggressive action.  Republicans refuse more government intervention on principle, citing an aversion to the ‘Mommy State’ where individual responsibility is superseded by government intervention.  Democrats refuse to admit that in the end, food choices are individual choices.

The attempts to improve nutrition in institutional settings have been overly simplistic and academic.  When children are in elementary school, yuppie parents fill their lunchboxes with raw carrots and worse, raw broccoli and cauliflower.  Just as it takes thought, planning, ingredients, and execution to make a good vegetarian dish, so it takes serious consideration to come up with cost-effective, tasty, nutritious and especially appealing meals for children.

Simple information about good nutrition or the consequences of obesity is not enough – even if public finances and political compromise permit honest media spots.  Decades of preaching about The Four Basic Food Groups has resulted in little.  The explanatory charts on the sides of food packaging – The Food Pyramid and now The Food Plate – are largely ignored and hard to decipher.  No matter what, even if you look at these charts, you still have to do some nimble calculations to determine what you should eat.

Enter Ozempic, the appetite suppressing drug that has in just a few years on the market, had a significant impact on obesity.  It is what Americans, long dependent on quick fixes and easy solutions, have always wanted - a silver bullet.  With no effort, no will power, no moral discipline, pounds are shed as easily as water down the spout.

 

RFK Jr sees this not as a solution but simply another problem - increasing Americans' dependency on drugs and decreasing their interest in healthy lifestyles.  Ozempic may well decrease appetite and lessen craving for fatty foods, but there is no incentive to address the underlying causes of obesity.  The increasing dependence on Ozempic is no different than that on Ritalin, the drug to address ADHD.

Parents who should be raising their children to be well-behaved, disciplined, socialized children have failed because of the demands of work, pressures on free time, and indifference.  Ritalin has made their job and that of teachers far easier. 

'We are a drug-addled society', says Kennedy, addicted to prescription and illegal drugs. This phenomenon is even more dangerous than obesity.  Returning Americans to a healthy life style, he says, will both reduce obesity naturally and reduce our overall drug dependency. 

Good luck, Mr. Secretary but you may just be whistlin' Dixie.  High-tech is the future, whether AI, virtual reality, genetic recombination, immune therapy, or miracle drugs.  Your best bet might be to try to lower the cost of Ozempic and similar drugs and bite the bullet on healthy lifestyles. 

Orphanages, Foreign Aid, And The Scam Of The Century - DOGE And The Smarmy Truth About Giving

Orphanages are an absolute good, and therefore funding them over the years has been given a free pass.  First, no one would ever use poor, destitute children to make money, and second how much oversight should be needed for such a simple housing enterprise supported by local NGOs who would provide the minimal staffing, bedding, food, and housekeeping?

This, when discovered by DOGE, was called the perfect storm - the idealism of foreign assistance (the starving children of the world), the ethos of community engagement (the people know best), and millions of unaccountable money (Congress has bigger fish to fry) - and the sheer chutzpah of the scheme, the sheer gall of those responsible beggared the imagination and shocked even the most cynical.

 

Construction cost overruns, the usual way to siphon off infrastructure money into private hands, was understandable.  One could not expect a road-building project in Angola to be as squeaky clean as one in Finland, and some 'diversions' were necessarily factored into all contracts.  Totin' privileges, skimming a bit off the top, a little pocket change were all par for the course in Africa.  Few American bureaucrats cared where a few million went, as long as mining rights to rare earths and regional political stability was assured. 

This scam, however, caused moral outcry - the very idea of using poor, hungry, motherless children as instruments of corruption was heinous, unconscionable, and vile. 

When brought before the court on criminal and civil charges, the American politician who had masterminded the scheme insisted that no one got hurt, especially children.  The scam had been a Ponzi scheme - no orphanages were ever built, no children manipulated, abused, or thrown on the streets - and so he was guilty of no more than embezzlement, and certainly not the crimes against humanity that his prosecutors claimed. 

The Congressman involved came from a rural Midwest district, known for its ample production of soy, corn, and livestock; and he himself had grown up on a small, family-owned farm.  His father had resisted the persistent efforts of agribusiness to take over his land, and became a legend for his strong, principled stance against the powers that be.  A Hollywood talent scout, having heard of the 'Stand and Deliver' courage of the man, and envisaging a possible film,  had visited the man and his family. 

Nothing came of the visit, but the Congressman, still a young boy, was impressed with his father's principled stand and found his calling.  He would someday represent his district in Congress and fight for the little man; and so it was that not many years later he found himself in Washington. 

Although he would have preferred a seat on one of the Congressional committees dealing with agriculture - in that way he could fulfil his promise to the people of his district - he found a more politically advantageous position on the House Foreign Affairs Committee. 

Where and how the idea of making money from his tenure in Congress was a mystery.  Some said it was the age-old scent of power and influence, others a tragic flaw, and still others simply the arithmetic of public office.  Every member of both House and Senate, regardless of modest income, is a multi-millionaire with houses in Washington, the Vineyard, and Palm Springs. 

An eager young woman from a well-known NGO (Non-Governmental Organization) looking after the welfare of children in Africa approached the Congressman through an aide, and asked him to please include a special note in the next appropriations bill for orphanages.  The money, given the size of the foreign aid budget would be insignificant, but to the destitute children of Africa, it would mean life or death.

She wanted nothing in return, but the Congressman, a quick learner, understood the unspoken Washington quid pro quo. The young woman, not unlike the Congressman, was particularly ambitious and anxious to barter and trade for influence and reward.  Whether or not the sexual affair materialized in any significant way or whether it was a one-off payment-for-service rendered, was not known; but the money for African orphanages got included in the bill. 

As is usual in these cases, it is the politician's aides who are responsible for tailoring the language of the bill and then arranging for the operational agenda to carry it out. The Congressman's aide who had introduced the young woman was a true Washington fixer, and knew everyone who mattered at USAID, and found a home for the orphanage enterprise. 

So far, go good, but no one - not the Congressman nor the aide, nor the young NGO woman, nor the appointed department at USAID - had any intention of building orphanages.  They, on the other hand, so the opportunity of a lifetime - a project which everyone loved and over which nobody was looking. 

Thousands could be poured into recipient countries and their 'development counterparts' - small NGOs surviving on small emoluments for whom this new operation was tantamount to their ships coming in - and hundreds of thousands more into offshore bank accounts for their Washington handlers.

The scheme was perfect.  Washington USAID managers and the young woman's NGO knew exactly how to keep federal inspectors at bay - no actual ground breaking had to be started, but copies of bids, offers, and final contracts needed to be on file.  Numbers of 'beneficiaries' were cooked, and after a time pictures of a distant unrelated foundation laying were photoshopped and sent to Washington.  ‘Work’ on all ten orphanages in the country was going along well, local officials said, and should be completed on time. 

The 'orphanages' would not simply provide housing for abandoned children, but would be the centers of vital community service.  They would be the nexus, the showpiece for African community development, a complex of social services, economic support, and community enterprise; and this vision appealed particularly to those who for decades had nothing to show for their commitment to African development.  This enterprise would show off the best of African generosity and good will. 

The scam was so ingenious that no detail however small was overlooked, and in the greatest political chutzpah anyone at USAID could remember, a delegation of African women, decked out in traditional raiment and accompanied by a group of well-dressed children, were invited to meet the Congressman and make the rounds of the House. 

 

When the photo-ops made their way back to the village, the people whooped and hollered with delight. Not only were they eating roast lamb and couscous every night, and not only had they snookered the white man, but their women were sitting with the President of the United States. 

Years passed and millions of dollars were spent on air - not one red cent ever got spent on an orphanage or a child.  As far as USAID was concerned, ten orphanages were operating at maximum capacity and performance, and every year more funds were secured for continued good works. 

When DOGE finally unearthed the scheme, even they were astounded at the level of corruption, the complex web of complicity, and the complete shamelessness of all concerned.  In a way, they had to admire the ingenuity, the sophistication, and the know-how. They thought Bernie Madoff was the genius of all Ponzi Scheme artists, bilking tens of millions from unsuspecting Jews. There could be no reparations, financial recovery, or economic recourse because there was nothing there; but this....this African orphanage thing... was a thing of beauty. 

Well, all's well that ends well.  USAID is no longer, and so its elaborate Ponzi schemes are things of the past. They will surely show up in other sectors of government and be shut down, but Musk and his DOGE legions are unlikely to see anything like this again.