Heart Of Darkness - A White Man's Affair With A Beautiful African Princess Of Islam

It was quite a stretch for Harper Forest to even consider setting foot in Africa, the Dark Continent of misrule; but there he was on African soil, an emissary from the Pope sent to Nigeria on request from the Archbishop to confront the increasing Islamization of the country, a progressive infiltration from the Muslim north in a well-orchestrated move to radicalize the entire country. 

Forest was not even a good Catholic but he had given millions to the head of the Republican National Committee who after a resounding electoral victory was rewarded with an Ambassadorship to the Holy See. 'I'll do anything for you', the new Ambassador told Forest, but as it turned out Forest was the one called on to do favors.  Africa was the Vatican's battleground, a black Roncesvalles where Catholics would have to fight the invading Saracens - the territorial, expansionists Muslims of the North - and the newly energized African Episcopal Church.  

 

Only a civilian, said the Ambassador and Cardinal Ponticelli, Papal overseer of things African, could set things straight in Africa, a benighted, godless, tribal continent subject to the worst blandishments of religious zealots. As more and more European and American Catholics abandoned the faith, the Church rested its survival on Africa. Forest would be an honest broker, new to Africa, but not new to sectarianism. He had been a CIA operative in Vietnam during the war, and knew willful hegemonic expansionism when he saw it. 

The assignment would be a challenging one, influenced as it was by both religious and secular interests.  Religion in Africa as everywhere in the world and in history was a corporate enterprise whose success was measured not only in souls but also in revenue, territory, and political influence.  Forest's operational experience in Southeast Asia as well as in the newly emerging countries of Eastern and Central Europe would stand him in good stead in Africa. 

To be honest, Forest was curious about African women.  From the days of National Geographic to today's American inner cities, he could never see the appeal.  Yes, on occasion he would see an Ethiopian or Somalian woman he found attractive, but it was only because of her Hamitic origins and particular dark Caucasian beauty that he did so.  Otherwise the thick-lipped, high busted, carrier-shelved sub-Saharan women held no interest for him; but still, a cultural adventurer, and a sexual interloper, he could be persuaded. 

He had always been one to mix business with pleasure.  He was no stranger to the brothels of Patpong Road, especially Madame Truong's salon which catered only to generals and high-ranking American civilians.  Her house was as seductive and charming as a Turkish harem.  Payment was but a minor inconvenience, and a night with the ladies of Madame Truong made any man feel like a pasha.  The Indian nautch girls of Bombay were no different - attentive, alluring, and sexually satisfying and the houses of Bal Bandar were famous for their orientalism and seductive air of the East. 

The first African ecumenical congress of disputing religious parties was held in a neutral location - the palatial estate of the Emir of Kano, a tribal prince whose family had a long history ruling the northern provinces of the country and who although he welcomed Islam he refused to make it the official religion of his protectorate, and encouraged both Protestant and Catholic churches to fully express their beliefs.  

The Emir was Muslim but a liberal one who had maintained a distance from both Muslims and Christians in the interest of a dispassionate justice, and was the perfect host for a conference of this type. Not only was he considered to be a fair, Solomonic judge, but his palace was magnificent, combining all the architectural features or Islam and Europe - a Versailles in the desert with caliphate overtones. 

What interested Forest more than anything, however, were the impossibly beautiful women in the company of the Emir - sub-Saharan in stature, fulsome, and direct but with eyes the contributions of Arab traders, Chinese explorers, and Ottoman knights - almond, hazel, even blue, all so stunningly set within a palette of complexions ranging from Berber to Wolof.  They were dressed in gold and silk, impeccably arranged, and scented with sandalwood and jasmine.

'What are they doing here?', Forest asked himself as the proceedings began, the women arrayed behind the Emir looking on while he gave his opening remarks.  As the conference went on the women remained seated behind the dais, patiently looking on but occasionally looking his way.  Are they the Emir's courtesans? his wives? princesses of his realm? 

'Let me introduce you to Fatimah', the Emir said to Forest at the end of the first day's deliberations.  She is the Princess of one of my sub-prefectures or royal lands if you prefer and has invited you to enjoy the comforts of her palace while you are here'. The Princess lowered her eyes, smiled, and gave Forest a demure, respectful bow. 'It would be an honor' she said, and taking him by the hand led him to the anteroom of the hall, and called for tea.  

Forest's concerns were political.  Was he being set up, used, manipulated? Or was this the famous Arab-African hospitality about which he had heard so much?  'The car is waiting', said the Princess and together they drove through the savannah to her home. 'I hope you don't think me impertinent for my invitation', she said. 'We in Nigeria have a long tradition of hospitality'.  

Over the week of the conference, and the nights with the Princess, Forest was never able to sort out the conundrum or solve the puzzle.  Was she one of the Emir's harem and in the very tradition of hospitality to which she alluded was offered to an honored guest? Or was she simply a courtesan, the best and most beautiful of Africa bought with the wealth of a prince? Or simply a member of the Emir's royal party and one of many princesses and princes in attendance, but one who was as interested in this attractive and wealthy foreigner?

 

None of this mattered, for professionalism and intimacy were indistinguishable from one another in their courtship - for that is how he saw it, as seduced by the allure of the East as Antony was of the exotic pleasures of Alexandria. Cleopatra had no love for Antony.  The aging general, a former Triumvir of Rome was hers for the asking, and just as she had bedded Julius Caesar and Pompey the Great, why not Antony?  In so doing was she a duplicitous woman?  A canny ruler? A courtesan but for title and rank? It certainly didn't matter to Antony, nor did it to Forest. 

 

And what would happen to him when the congress ended?  Would he be allowed to leave? Had he by sleeping with the princess become beholden to her, the Emir, or both? 

His fears were unfounded, and as he boarded the plane with some fanfare from the Emir and his harem, covered with ceremonial flowers and sprinkled with rose water, he understood Antony and the irresistible allure of the East. 

The barge she sat in, like a burnish'd throne,
Burned on the water: the poop was beaten gold;
Purple the sails, and so perfumed that
The winds were lovesick with them; the oars were silver,
Which to the tune of flutes kept stroke, and made
The water which they beat to follow faster,
As amorous of their strokes. 

For her own person,
It beggar'd all description: she did lie
In her pavilion, cloth-of-gold of tissue,
O'erpicturing that Venus where we see
The fancy outwork nature: on each side her
Stood pretty dimpled boys, like smiling Cupids,
With divers-colour'd fans, whose wind did seem
To glow the delicate cheeks which they did cool,
And what they undid did.

The Evolution Of An Uber-Bitch - It All Began With Self-Esteem And Being Sold A Bill Of Goods

Brandi Cookson was little girl of modest intelligence, modest looks, and modest talent.  She sailed along in her modest ways until she ran up against girls who were prettier, smarter, and a lot more gifted.  They of course teased her about her frizzy hair, her awkward walk, and her homespun clothes.  'What's the matter with me?', she asked her mother.  'Why do the other girls always tease me?'. 

Now, Mrs. Cookson was no beauty or shining light, and was lucky to be married.  She hoped against hope that her daughter would be the belle of the ball, the genius that everyone noticed, and the star of the volleyball team, but it was not to be.  Her husband was just as dull a knife as she was, slope-shouldered and short, and with little upstairs, so it was not surprising that Brandi came out the way she did. 

Brandi's teacher saw how the little girl was teased, and no matter how much she reprimanded her torturers or the more she tried to set them on a more compassionate, inclusive, and understanding course, the more the girls rebelled and redoubled their efforts.  

Mrs. Crandall, the teacher, was particularly concerned because this was the era of self-esteem where students were taught that they were all perfect little beings, all different, all special, and all valued.  Such education would give underlings the gumption to make a go of it in the real world and would send a stern message to the bullies.  

One whole class was devoted to self-esteem each week, and although the teacher had difficulty in finding anything special about Bobby Anderson, a nose-picker and dumb as a rock or Samantha Peters, a truly ugly girl that no amount of self-esteem was bound to help, Mrs. Crandall did her best to keep her composure and a smile on her face. 

She knew that the whole self-esteem thing was nonsense. She watched the Bobby Andersons and Samantha Peters get picked on mercilessly from kindergarten to sixth grade, leave Barker Elementary School as dreary and unwanted as ever and wondered why the school administrators had bought the cockamamie idea in the first place.  

The girls never taunted anyone when Mrs. Crandall was around and were models of respect and propriety, but when her back was turned, the innuendoes, snarky comments, and nasty asides came out in force.  On graduation day, the taunters looked beautiful in their pretty dresses, pumps, and ribbons; and the tauntees looked just as dismal and clueless as the first day of kindergarten.  

It was the law of the jungle, Mrs. Crandall concluded.  Human beings would always divide themselves into winners and losers, champs and dogs, and so be it. 

She did not realize, however, that little Brandi had actually taken her words to heart. In fact they were the only things she had to hold onto as she realized that she was exactly as her taunters saw her - an unattractive, ungainly girl whose prospects in the world were fair to middlin' at best.  'Find your inner greatness', Mrs. Crandall had told her. 'It's there and you only have to look for it'. 

However, try as she might, she found nothing; but that, she decided, was because she was always comparing herself to others.  She would never have Alexis' golden hair or Laura's perfect skin, or Leona's smile, so why set herself up for failure.  Get on with it, and.....And then came a moment of epiphany, that one defining moment when you, as Mrs. Crandall advised, discovered who you really were.  

It wasn't pretty, this newfound self, but survivalist to the core, and had Mrs. Crandall known, she would have been proud of her Darwinian instincts.  This put-upon, badgered little girl would challenge these privileged at birth, entitled bitches.  She would show them a thing or two, and although as she walked off the graduation platform to hisses and whispered jeers, no sooner did she leave Barker Elementary than she began her evolution into the anti-Christ of beauty, charm, elegance. 

 

'The Law of Unintended Consequences', Mrs. Crandall mused when she heard of how the ungainly Brandi Cookson had turned into a teenage harridan, a misanthrope, a rampaging terror, and the scourge of the school's best and brightest whom this in-your-face succubus called out for bourgeois privilege and coddled superficiality.  The tables were turned, and Brandi was on a roll. 

By high school graduation she had turned herself into a Bernal Heights tough girl, flannel shirts, shit-kickers, and leather jackets - not that she really was a lesbian, far from it, rutting as she did behind the tool shed, but it was the objectionable persona she cultured.  

As importantly, she became the avant-garde of the taking offense culture and put every one of these self-important twits in their place for using wrong pronouns, for whispering about dildoes and scissoring, and for cluelessness in general.  As was the ethos of the movement, the zeitgeist, she found offense with everything.  She bitched and moaned to teachers about exclusion and prejudice until she was chosen for everything, called on first, given a leg up in every event.  

It had worked, this persona, she both got what she wanted and made suckers out of everybody else; and she became the spokesperson for LGBTQ+ pride and 'Bitches Against Racism', a conflation of black and gender victimhood.  She was on guard for the slightest offensive racial and sexual slurs. 

When a white classmate cheered a black runner in the County Games, she hammered him for racism. 'Of course black people can run fast just like they can shuck and jive, you idiot' she yelled. 'Keep your foul racism to yourself and get out of my way'.   Or to a football jock who raised his little finger when a gay boy walked by.  'You fucking cunt', she howled. 'I will have you expelled for rancid homophobia, you retard'. 

There's room for everyone, decided Mrs. Crandall whose self-esteem class had gotten Brandi's ball rolling. She had hoped that Brandi would become a productive, reasonably happy member of an inclusive, diverse society; but it didn't turn out that way - just the opposite in fact, but so what? The girl had found a place where she could be top dog, which was all the feel-good exercises were about from the very beginning, and who was to judge who became what? 

'What A Great Idea!' - Kamala Harris Plans A Last Supper Inaugural Special

She knew that overconfidence led to bad decisions, but Kamala Harris was so sure of defeating Donald Trump in November that she couldn't help thinking about the Inaugural extravaganza that would usher in her tenure. Just think of it!  A black woman as President of the United States, proud as can be taking the oath of office, standing up on the platform in front of a thousand cheering supporters.  I will be President for all the people but I will start with black women. 

Of course she was as far from a real black woman as the Man in the Moon.  Her mother was an Indian to start with and her father was as white as you can get while still being black - economic adviser to the President of Jamaica, tenured professor at Stanford, pillar of the white academic community, looking white, acting white - so she could never claim any street creds, bling, Uzis, and pimps; but still, the American public, especially her progressive supporters never looked beyond what they were told and I have told them Black Is Beautiful. 

 

She dipped into the mother lode only  once and took trip to Anacostia, Washington's hard core, nasty inner city ghetto and expected to be greeted like a returning hero, a prodigal daughter back in the 'hood, but as soon as she stepped out of her limousine, one large black woman shouted, 'You ain't black, honey. Get yo' white ass up outa here', and from then on she did a drive by, waving from the tinted windows of the limo to the brothers and sisters on the stoop.

She as part of the Biden Administration had become an advocate for the poor, the hungry, the oppressed, and the marginalized.  Women, black people, Latinos, and gay men and women especially were in her sights - or perhaps that was not quite the right metaphor given the still persistent gun violence in the country which would be history once she became President. What she meant was that her focus on diversity was diamond-edged, razor-sharp, and clearly focused. Her Administration would take inclusivity to a whole new level. 

Which made her think of the brilliant Last Supper trans show in Paris. 'Oh, my God', she said. 'That takes oo-la-la to new heights.  What genius, what cultural chutzpah, what a brilliant escapade.  That'll show the doubters, the naysayers, the homophobic lot of 'em.  Why didn't I think of that?' 

Joe had tried to be inclusive of transgenders, but of all people he took the ugliest, fattest, most unfeminine one to be his Health and Human Services Secretary.  What was he thinking?  I tried, she said to have him pick a real femme, all pearls, high-heels and silk stockings but he said that would be too Cage Aux Folles, the people weren't ready yet, give them time, the Doctor is a good start.  

Ha! Fat chance.  What the people needed was some glamour, some runway appeal to show them what a real woman is like.  For that's what trans women are, the most feminine of all possible women. 

I will show them, Kamala said.  Transgender people - well,  all gay people for that matter - are the most creative people on earth.  Take the fashion industry, all gay, all swishy, and look at the creations! God! just let those girly girls out of the closet and what a world this will be.  A whole culture - a whole country as pretty and creative as can be. 

A Paris-style Last Supper event at my Inauguration will be just the thing to usher in the real gender revolution.  I will have more boas, peacock feathers, tinsel, and glitter than Paris ever imagined.  A message loud and clear to my people that things are going to change around here, Washington's days as a stuffed-shirt, Cosmos Club, Society of the Cincinnati conservative redoubt are over. 

Now, to be honest, the Vice President for all her Sturm und Drang about homosexuality still, even after all these years in politics, squirmed in her seat when a vision of two men doing 'it' popped into her head at the most inopportune moments. Yecch, disgusting! was her immediate reaction, although she quickly put a lid on it, smiled and continued to make nice with the gay community.  

Progressivism didn't mean actually doing what you preached - God forbid that I should try scissoring some bitch...Again she stopped herself in mid-thought.  Can't be thinking like that, Kamala; and so it was that she pursued the gay, inclusive agenda without a second thought. 

When she thought about it, the Paris show was not a whole lot different from her mother's religion.  The hijinks that went on in India! All manner of get-up in a side show of monkey gods dancing with nautch girls all bangled and perfumed up, bells and whistles and all kinds of celebratory shenanigans. It took hours to dress up for a kathakali dance, hours more to put on the make up, and just look at the result!

How gay! As gay as the day is long, and people whinged and whined about a transgender show in Paris! She would show them. 

Speaking of religion, a Last Supper thing here in America might not be taken in the right spirit.  Although France is a Catholic country and prides itself on being 'La fille ainee de l'Eglise' the eldest daughter of the Church that saved France and Europe from Islam, defeating the Saracens at Roncesvalles, the French are notoriously indifferent to religion; but here, the fundamentalists still whoop and holler when they see Jesus, so I can just imagine their reaction to my show. 

But fuck 'em, to be perfectly crude but honest about it.  America is moving slowly but surely towards a completely secular future.  That's what progressivism is all about, after all; and if I am serious about the whole idea, I cannot let a few holy rollers upset my applecart. 

She sent an official letter from The Office of the Vice President of the United States to Emmanuel Macron, President of France expressing her heartfelt thanks for encouraging such a display of diversity and inclusivity in such a magnificently Gallic way.  'Only the French, Mr. President', could come with such a brilliant, creative, and historically important idea'.  

Although she got no reply - Macron, still more of a Catholic than most of his subjects, was none too happy with the Olympic organizers who had planned the hoopla without his full engagement, and felt that the country, far from a beacon of progressive culture was becoming a laughing stock. 

'I have a lot to do', said Kamala to her aides and campaign organizers.  'First things first. Don't put the cart before the horse.  Win the bloody thing first, then look to those queens.' 

How 'Bout 'Em Steelers? - How Sports Teams Define Us And Why We Become So Obsessed With Them

A few years ago WFAN New York broadcast a sports call-in show.  More than a radio station, it was a community.  Those who called in were not simply followers of the Mets, the Yankees, or the Giants but part of a virtual neighborhood that lived and died with the fortunes of the teams.  Larry from the Bronx was a frequent caller as was Rose from Brooklyn and Artie from Staten Island. There was belonging here at three in the morning. 

The late-night listeners to WFAN not only called in to comment on trades, ownership, or management; but to share their feelings.  A loss by the Yankees or the Mets was not simply a loss but a letdown.  A victory was not only a move upward in the standings but a vindication of team and individual worth.  Fans always spoke personally. We should trade for so-and-so…We need to get more bats in the lineup.  These were the fans with season’s tickets, paraphernalia, and membership in the community of supporters.  

What does such fandom provide?  Diversion from 9-5, divorce, settlements, wives, and politics? Or a label when none other is available? Why are fans so passionate in their support of local teams? 

The biggest college stadiums accommodate more than one hundred thousand people, are always full every week of the season.  Fans support the Mets, the Giants, the Phils, or the Nats even though the team itself – players, managers, top management, and ownership – may have changed completely.  The team a fan in New York  or Chicago started to support twenty years ago is unrecognizable today.  All that is left is the name. Why is that enough to generate such enthusiasm, passion, and undying support?

As importantly why do we insist to such a degree on belonging to groups which have little to do with the promotion of our interests? Labels and denominations are common everywhere from religious faith to football. It simply doesn't matter what organization you belong to or what team you follow. Belonging is the thing. 

Sports is the most curious affiliation for it has no purpose other than sharing. Belonging to men’s groups, PTAs, neighborhood associations, and a thousand other groups organized to promote or protect, serve, accommodate, or defend has benefits for both members and beneficiaries. There is an outcome to a meeting about additional funding for resource teachers, fewer battered wives, a neighborhood watch; but hooting and hollering for the Wolverines is purely and simply camaraderie, and one that carries on after the weekend. 

 

Mondays at the office was a rehash of the Sunday matchup.  Tuesday was more of the same but down to individual players, fumbles, goal line stands, and coaching mistakes.  Wednesday looked forward to the following Sunday, odds and premonitions. Thursday was all about standings, injuries, and revised betting lines.  Friday was prayer day - that the ankle would heal in time, that the defense tightened up, that the jackrabbit from Cleveland could be stopped. 

It was all about 'our team' and its fortunes. If we lost, Monday would be a quiet day, a sympathetic day.  It hurt to lose, it meant more losses could follow.  The team might not be what we thought it would be. Victory meant beers at McSorley's, rounds for everybody. 

Eastern Mississippi prepared for the State game well before Saturday. Parades, barbecues, festoons, and tailgate parties began early and went late.  The team would feel the energy, absorb the enthusiasm and the passion, and would carry it onto the field.  The events were part of the camaraderie, the communal energy, and the commitment, but something else was in the air, carried up and over Aberdeen to Starkville to the stadium, to the grass and the stands, to the majorettes, the whistles and cannons. 

The stadiums in the Midwest are enormous - Michigan 107,000;  Ohio State and Texas A&M 103,000 - and each are packed to the gills on Saturday afternoon; and the game itself an apotheosis.  An impossible number of fans in roaring for their team, standing through four quarters, on edge, pins and needles, and then when the final runner crosses the goal line in victory, a climax beyond expectation, a release of love, empathy, and wildly enthusiastic belonging. 

Yale, Harvard, and the rest of the Ivy League have always been indifferent about their sports teams.  Men were there to become Presidents, Senators, and scientists not jocks; and the Saturday tailgate parties had little do to with real fandom, that devotional passion of Louie from Queens, but drinking with 'our crowd', sharing vignettes about the summer on Nantucket or plans to ski at Gstaad over Christmas.   No one really cared who won or lost the Columbia-Brown game. Whoever won would lose next week,  There was no such thing as momentum in the Ivy League, no life depended on it.

The days of affirmative action have added a bit of competition to the league, and while it is not exactly the SEC, Alabama or Old Miss, it is blacker than in years past, faster, and more serious; but the Old Blues knew why their teams were better and kept their diffidence intact.  The game - even The Game, the final game of the year between Yale and Harvard - was of minor importance. 

Meanwhile Ohio State sweatshirts were flying off the shelves, tickets were not to be had, and the stadium filled up long before the starting whistle.  It was better than High Mass, better than anything, more...more, well, more everything.  Winning was a must, and when the team ran onto the field, the stands erupted with cheers and whoops and hollers that had been building for a week.

The true, unencumbered, unaffiliated individual is a rare bird, an outlier, and a threat.  A lack of affiliation is taken for a lack of commitment; and a lack of commitment can only mean a lack of moral values, faith, and sincerity.  Anyone who does not belong to something is suspect.  Belonging is a higher value which shows the better side of humanity.  A person who belongs cannot, ipso facto, be niggardly or selfish.  Belonging bestows value as well as provide it.

And no more than at an Ohio State game.  Football is the meme, the signifier - a validation of community, belonging, and participation. A Fall Saturday in Columbus, Ohio is not just any day, it is the day, the one we have been waiting for, the only one. 

Fans have been packing stadiums ever since the Roman coliseum.   English club football fans are rabid hooligans, teddy boy gangbangers for whom team spirit goes cerebellum - wild and unrestrained.  Fandom makes up for a shitty life in the council house.  Drunken, brawling love for Arsenal is OK.  For these laddies the match is really the be all and end all. 

American fandom is a lot tamer with a lot less negative energy, a lot more communal and virtually no hate.  An American thing, a Midwestern thing; but still all in all, like everywhere else the stadium is a cathedral 

Selling Your Mother - The Crass Professionalism Of The Olympics

Chariots of Fire is what one thinks of every four years when the Olympics come around.  Two amateur runners – a Presbyterian minister and a Jewish Oxford intellectual compete for the gold. One running for God, the other for Jewry, but both for England.  It was a magnificent display of personal integrity, athletic talent, and patriotism.  A bygone era, one never to be seen again, recreated, or repeated.  The days of amateurism are over, and the Olympics are nothing more than a market exercise for professional talent – an NBA final, World Cup, UEFA championship, Wimbledon Final all rolled into one. 

Who cares about the Olympics? Wimbledon was fought and won, soccer has its champions, and nothing except archery, perhaps, remains amateur; but there too, sponsors buys archers, shooters, and rowers who compete for endorsements and the financial rewards that come from success. 

The very purpose of Olympic amateur athletics, a display of patriotism and world community is history. The days of Americans against Britons, may the best man win, wreaths and applause, and not a dime collected and banked are barely remembered.  Oh yes, there was Jesse Owens, a black man who won gold at Hitler's Third Reich Olympics, Spitz and Phelps, Bob Beamon, and a few other amateurs; but the whole ecumenical spirit, the camaraderie, the joy of competing in and of itself? Gone and forgotten. 

The Olympics offers one more feather in the cap of NBA millionaires, another bargaining chip for the next contract cycle, and a boring, repetitive, been-there-done-that playground athleticism, one more round of over-the-rim slam dunk smash mouth basketball. What one wouldn’t give for some unknown athletes from Slovenia or New Zealand.

 

Not to be.  The NBA will make millions from the show as will sponsors, merchandisers, and media outlets. The Olympics is a sports extravaganza, a money-making hoopla with virtually nothing at stake.  While the NBA (American) team loves the U-S-A chants from the bleachers, they are there to be the country's Harlem Globetrotters, a vaudevillian show of ballhandling wizardry that makes the game popular entertainment and rakes in thousands.  The Olympic basketball tournament is no less than a vaudevillian minstrel show - whoop it up, grab some medals, and go home. 

Well, there is archery, say purists; and curling; but athletes from just about every other event from badminton to swimming are professionals.  They may not be paid by contract as athletes competing in tennis, basketball, or soccer are, but are paid handsomely through product sponsorships and endorsements.

 

Finally the NCAA, the American Amateur Athletics Association, is agreeing to professionalizing college athletics whereby athletes will be able to negotiate contracts based on performance and market value.  No longer will the millions in college sports revenues go only to coaches and universities. 

In other words, there is no longer any such thing as an amateur athlete, so why are there still Olympic games?  Why should anyone pay to watch already wealthy athletes make even more? Is it really about excellence or about brand image?

None of this is surprising, of course.  The Olympics are a mirror of the world, a highly competitive, market-driven, dog-eat-dog place where there is no room for diddlers.  Who in this modern era wants to see some modestly talented college girls in a 52-38 basketball contest?

An unintended good consequence of this professionalized Olympics is that xenophobia has been pretty much wrung out of Olympic sports.  LeBron James may be representing U-S-A in principle but he is just representing his brand - and to show the world that basketball is the showplace for African American athletes who have no peers.  The American team shouts 'black America', the most naturally gifted, supremely athletic group of men that ever ran and jumped. 

Women love to watch swimming - all those lithe female bodies they wish they had and all those muscular, trim torsos they would like in their beds -  and it is given prime time on American television. Gender has gotten twisted into the laundry - Lia Thomas formerly William Thomas - has been disqualified from swimming with women - and women's basketball is a lesbian thing, so there is some prurient interest to generate revenues.

 

And gymnastics - women love that too and the networks hype up the rags-to-riches, ghetto to trapeze personal interest stories that add to the action on the parallel bars; and Simone Biles, as sweet and good as she is, stands to make millions off this idolatry. 

The point is, 1) there is nothing wrong with the professionalizing of the Olympics because all sports are becoming paid enterprises; 2) spectators have become duped by the money, glitz, fame, and merchandising of athletes.  A sucker is born every minute, and the viewership of the Olympics just goes to show it; and 3) the United States and much of the rest of the world has become a media-frenzied, market-obsessed place. 

So, it boils down to the hoopla – the opening ceremonies’ extravaganzas, a point of national pride.  This year 2024 Paris is bound and determined to show its mojo to the world, regain its allure as the cultural capital of Europe if not the world, and has outdone itself with a sound and light show of unimaginable glitz, glamour, and showmanship.  A transgender Last Supper was the centerpiece, a political, cultural, and historical statement.  We are not the Paris of de Gaulle or Louis XIV, Olympic organizers cheered. We are multicultural, diverse, and inclusive.

The sporting aspect of the Olympics is the last thing viewers are interested in.  Maybe spend 10 seconds of airtime on the men's 100 meter dash, but fill in the hour with personal stories of adversity, courage, and the dynamics of race, gender, and ethnicity.  Who really cares where a bulked up, high-toned sprinter is from and what his upbringing was like?  

Sports should be more like the New Criticism of literary theory - read the text.  All meaning is there, forget the anecdotes, the ancillary influences, the incidentals of the athlete's life that have nothing whatsoever to do with his track time. 

Last but not least, when will cities finally realize that the Olympics are simply not worth it?  Does Paris really need any more international popularity? More stadiums, and some unnecessary but hoopla-ed infrastructure improvements?  

Time to pack 'em up, put 'em in storage, and forget about them. 

Olympic Drag Queens And The 'Friendship' Of The Apostles - A Very Gay Last Supper Indeed

It didn't take the French Government's celebration of French queerness and the drag queen Last Supper to suggest that something was going on with Jesus and his disciples. 'Come on, guys', said Leonid Fanning, gay Biblical historian who had focused on the life of the apostles and their relationships with Jesus and one another. 

 

These men lived together, preached the gospel together, and slept together.  It was a small, embryonic Christian community about to change the world; and could only have happened with such a male confraternity. 

Women were ancillary features in the rise of Christianity - vessels like Mary whose identity was not based on any agency, but 'a lambent repose', said Fanning.  It was the men who did the trick, dispelled the heresies of the second century, dismissed Gnosticism and its clones, and assured that the Holy Trinity was male and male only - God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost who, as the representation if not reincarnation of the resurrected Jesus, was also a male deity. 

The Old Testament offered no less of an endorsement of 'the male principle', Fanning went on. In all the who begat whom genealogy of Deuteronomy and Kings, women were the bearers of Jewish offspring, the first yentas, mothers and protectors of the male line of Abraham, Isaac, David, Saul, and Joshua. 

And so it was that this group of bonded men - Jesus and his apostles - formed the first, most important, most telling group of gay men the world had ever known.  Of course the Ancient Greek aristocracy were all pederasts, and slavery in Athens has an added twist to tea service and laundry.  Young boys were part of the household, kissed and fondled, served wine and olives, seduced and hammered by the rulers of the land; but there was no camaraderie involved, no groups of gay men bonded in sexual solidarity and brotherhood.  

 

It took a thousand years for such an efflorescence of male bonded sexuality to emerge.  'What do you think went on at the Last Supper?', asked Fanning rhetorically.

This was not to detract from the religious nature of the event - a Christian Passover, a religious resolve and an oath taken before God Almighty - but let's face it, the scholar went on, boys will be boys and there was a time and place for everything. 

 

This is why the drag queen Last Supper invocation was so important, for it channeled the original sense of male sexual camaraderie of Jesus' time and added a modern twist - gay men at the apogee of sexual identification. The irony, the sheer chutzpah of the Olympic organizers' celebration of the sexual free for all zeitgeist of today was brilliant. 

'We are a Christian country', the show said, 'but not your grandfathers' Christianity, all buttoned up Catholic machismo. At worst it was a courtesan's Christianity, but at best a gay one - all that papal getup, swishy with those cute red slippers, bling, and flowing trains is so gay.  

Criticize the priesthood all you want, it is the very reincarnation of the boys around Jesus Christ, but out of sackcloth and sandals and into high fashion.  The priests at St Maurice parish on Long Island were known to slip into the silk chasuble and Italian pumps of Father Brophy swish up and down the aisle to a Bach recessional played by one of the altar boys. 

A colleague of Fanning's at Harvard Divinity School took exception to this super-woke interpretation of the Last Supper and the whole gay thing which was an insult to Christians everywhere especially in Africa where Episcopal priests helped split the church over the issue of a gay bishopric.  

The Africans, well-known for their machismo and insatiable heterosexual appetites wanted nothing to do with a gay Jesus or gay apostles.  The meme circulating throughout Episcopal Africa was that the apostles were indeed a bonded male community but had their concubines, casual affairs, and other sexual intimacies. 

In a well-known, oft-circulated sermon on the subject the Reverend Dr. Alphonse Ranigirarawana of Rwanda made a cogent, compelling case for the sexual vitality of Our Lord. 

If Jesus was man', he said, then his sexual appetites would follow.  He would be no different than any man for whom woman is a delight, a satisfaction, and a pleasure.  To assume celibacy would be folly.  Paul had it all wrong, had been duped by the conservative wing of the new church, and should not be taken seriously

Secular observers stated simply, 'What were they thinking?', and took exception to the oo-la-la extravaganza at the opening of the Paris Olympics. 'A freak show, a nasty little absurdity, wretched Gallic ordure', but the organizers, all gay twits themselves were delighted with the attention.  Here at the Olympics despite all the ghastly sweaty bodies and showboating, there could be something really important and put currently beleaguered France back on the political map.  

Most viewers simply cringed at the bad taste.  This Cage Aux Folles nonsense should have stayed in Pigalle where it belonged, not on the bloody Champs Elysees, they said, and turned off the whole event, lock, stock, and barrel.  Queer celebration indeed! Take it somewhere else. 

The presumptive Democratic candidate for President of the United States, Kamala Harris couldn't have been more delighted.  The French did her job for her, went out front as champions for gender diversity, the righteousness of LGBTQ+ individuals, and the coming of the post-heterosexual age.  The Olympics said it all.  

Nevertheless, she couldn't help herself and in one of her first campaign appearances pointed to the Olympic torch and shouted, 'A gay Olympics, and about time!' which earned her kudos from the Left but jeers from the Right.  It was a wash, said a pollster who took the electorate's pulse after her appearance, but the whole infuriating, blasphemous affair turned the opposition rabid, and that did not augur well. 

The Olympics will be long forgotten by the time of the American election, but the Last Supper caper will not be; and whenever voters hesitate between this lever or that in the polling booth, the image of the drag queen Last Supper will do the trick.

Putting Old Men Out To Pasture - The Tragedy Of A Man Who Hung In There A Bit Too Long

The Development Council was a private non-profit agency generously funded by the Ford, Rockefeller, and Carnegie Foundations to make the world a better place, and Henry Feder was one of its most durable executives.  As a manager, Vice President, Senior Vice President, and finally Executive Vice President, Harry Feder had made his way up the corporate ladder, failing to get the top spot because by the time he was ready times had changed, and Letitia Jackson, a black woman from the Ozarks, was appointed in his stead. 

At first angry and frustrated at the decision, Harry, a good soldier, knew that he had many more years to give to the organization and the world's impoverished, so he swallowed his bile and his pride, smiled, and returned to work.  As a matter of fact he redoubled his efforts, staying at the office well after hours and arriving before sunup. 

His wife of many decades was worried at this frenetic burst of activity.  After all, her husband was well into his elder years and should be giving some thoughts to retirement, and this St. Vitus' dance didn't augur well.  He was a changed man who had lost the sense of balance that made him a pillar of the firm, and was given to Tourette's Syndrome barking about 'that woman...my rightful place...my legacy...'.  Try as she might to calm him down, his agitation only increased. 

The new President, Letitia Jackson, one morning brought a bowl of fresh strawberries and cream into his office.  'I thought you might like these', she said, scooping the ripest, most succulent pieces onto a plate, garnishing it with a generous dollop of creme fraiche, and passing it to him. 

A bit flustered and annoyed at the unannounced interruption, Harry forced a smile, managed a 'Thank You', and waited for the woman to speak.  

'You have been a pillar of our community here at the Council for, let's see, going on fifty years; and have contributed mightily to our efforts to make a difference.  Without you we could never have managed the remarkable improvement in education, health, and welfare that is now part of our proud history.'

Here Letitia sat back in her chair, wiped a small blot of cream from her lips, leaned forward and said, 'But Harry, there comes a time when all good things must come to an end'.  A blunt woman with a new attitude and approach to the Council's business, she was not one to beat around the bush.  'Have you thought of retirement?'

He looked at the President with a vacant, gaping look. He couldn't believe his ears.  He was stupefied by the callousness of the remark.  How could she, this affirmative action upstart have the gall to even suggest such a thing.  He would retire when and where he wanted, when he was good and ready, and no.....Here he stopped himself in mid-thought.  He was veering into inappropriate territory, no-no land and if he said what he was thinking, he would be cashiered on the spot. 

'As you know, our retirement plan is very generous', she said, 'and you will never want for comfort'. 

Immediately he started formulating a counter attack.  Ageism, that's what it was, pure and simple, getting rid of the old boxes in the storeroom, replacing the tried and true with the acned and inexperienced.  He would have none of it, not if he could help it. 

'Think it over', Letitia said, slowly rising from the deep leather chair, one of set that Harry thought gave his office tenure - an appropriateness and sign of thoughtful intellectual conservatism.  She rose with some difficulty in fact, for she had grown quite hippy since her divorce, but took it out on the chair and vowed to get rid of the bloody thing once Harry was gone. 

The gossip in the office began with the bowl of strawberries and cream.  There was no way that that could augur anything but curtains for the old man in the corner office.  He was history, and from that moment on he was treated differently - with respect, of course, but as a man on his way out, past his pull-by date, a bit ratty around the edges, and history. 

'Of course you can stay here for as long as you like, and we have created the position of Counsellor Emeritus for you, non-salaried of course and with smaller accommodations, but a place where you can continue your remarkably productive work'; and so it was that Harry moved to the broom closet, a windowless office in the back with a fan, a trash can, and a Development Council pen.   

Now, most people would have gotten the message, warmly accepted a gold watch and toasts from colleagues and gone gracefully out to pasture; but Harry was different.  He simply could not let go.  There was too much still to do, to be accomplished, to contribute.  However, as is usually the case, he was the last one to know that he was no longer making sense, that his paragraphs piled up one on top of the other in a prolix mess, that his ideas were stuck in some aged time of no earthly use. 

So he cranked out paper after paper, each more febrile and incomprehensible, more voluble and wordy, each an everyone signed, sealed, and delivered to the President who dumped them in the trash on receipt. 

'Where's Harry', one of his co-workers asked one day, remarking that she hadn't seen him in quite some time; and on investigation there he was, slumped over his desk, as dead as a doornail.  His death was a minor embarrassment to the organization, letting a former employee, a respected one at that, die in such an unceremonious manner and letting his body sit there for a day without notice; but it was soon forgotten as such things are in the whirlwind of moving on. 

'It was a fitting end, that, dying in his traces like a dray horse plowing his last furrow' said one former colleague; but others thought that Harry should have seen the end coming and spent his final days on a beach in South Florida getting a tan. 

An apocryphal story given the old man in the White House recently pushed out the door because he didn't realize he had gone way past his pull-by date, and suffered the ignominy of the broom closet? 

Perhaps, but life has no lessons despite our wish that there were some.  Harry was just a schlub following some personal Holy Grail when he should have been playing shuffleboard, not a whole lot different from the rest of us who think we are so great until the curtain falls to no applause whatsoever.

A Priest, A Rabbi, And An Imam Walk Into A Bar And All Three Give In To Temptation

'I know you don't drink, Ahmed, but would you care to join Shmuel and myself for some good company while we wet our whistles?'

Ahmed, the imam had not been in a bar for a long, long time, and although Paddy and Shmuel had become good friends of his - the kind of friendship that would certainly resolve all problems in the Middle East if it could be replicated and and multiplied - to be seen walking into a bar, especially the likes of McSorley's, a Blarney stone, shot-and-a-beer kind of place on Brevoort Street, would be curtains.  

Ahmed al-Fikrim (aka Henry Plover) had converted to Islam ten years ago and hadn't had so much as a drop to drink in all that time.  This is not to say that he wasn't tempted, for he was; and just the sight of a bottle of Jameson's made him quiver with thirst . 

 

After his conversion Henry had been a dutiful Muslim, praying five times a day, observing Ramadan, attending services at the mosque on Fridays, being attentive to others, and doing his bit of evangelism.  As time went by and as his rectitude was increasingly appreciated by the mullah, he was brought into the ranks of leadership, and after a period of dutiful servitude became one of the chosen of Al-Berbat Mosque, and after the death of Brother Fatih, became the presiding imam. 

He took this honor seriously, for it wasn't just on any day that a Christian convert could ever be considered a serious Muslim let alone an imam.  He grew his beard long, was sure to say 'Peace be upon Him' every time spoke the Prophet's name, and never used the future tense without adding 'Insha'Allah'.  He hadn't had pork or a drink in all that time and God had become his one and only adviser. 

Yet, there always was a bottle of Jameson's etched into his frontal lobes, not only an indelible reminder of his humility, his obedience to Allah, and his service to his congregation; but also a Holy Grail (or the Muslim equivalent).  It was only a matter of time before he fell from grace (he was unsure of the Muslim phrasing), and he readied himself for it.  Mind you, he had never been an alcoholic in his Christian days, nor a teetotaler, just a drinker who liked his pint o' bitter or a Wild Turkey. 

Father Paddy O'Brien had never been anything other than a priest.  He had been an altar boy, a seminarian, an intern at St. Maurice's church in upstate New York, and finally senior priest of his own parish, St. Thomas Aquinas in Massapequa. He had only one serious failing as a cleric but one against which he fought tirelessly. 

Unlike most of this colleagues, he liked women.  Every single one of them, succulently soft and enticing, sinuously and irrepressibly alluring, were the objects of his desire.  Whenever desire struck, he prayed the rosary, said ten Our Fathers, the Confiteor, and the Mea Culpa, asking Jesus to help him out of his frustrated misery. 

It never worked, for he followed the scent of one beautiful woman after another up and down Fifth Avenue right after making the Stations of the Cross at St. Patrick's.  He couldn't help himself, confessed his desires every week, but was a man addled by desire.  Like the imam and his bottle of Jameson's, it was only a matter of time before he fell. 

Shmuel Levin-Epstein was not just an ordinary rabbi, but one in a long line that dated back to Saul and David.  A rabbinical career had been a certainty from the day he was born.  Although his father was a diamond merchant on 47th Street with significant investments in clothing and real estate, he had always wanted his son to become God's servant, not Mammon's.  

Not that his father had any shame in what he did.  The tenants in his tenements on the Lower East Side were happy to have a place to lay their heads, he gave needed employment to Puerto Ricans at his factories in the lofts of the Garment District, and traded the world's most enduringly valuable commodity - diamonds - to enhance the lives of both the rich and famous and those just starting out.. But for his son, his only son?  God was the only path, 

However it was hard for the young Shmuel to bend to the Torah when the likes of Morrie Rubenstein and Shecky Hellman, Hollywood moguls came to dinner.  Their talk of David O. Selznik and Louis B. Mayer was heady, and his father's trips to the Coast mysterious and exciting.  The more money his father made, the more and more expensive condos they lived in, finally moving to the magnificent penthouse on York Avenue on the Upper East Side, the harder the Book was to learn.  Yet his father persisted. 'Leave it to me to make money', old Henny said, 'but you I expect to get me to heaven'. 

The conflict was troubling.  Week after week he learned about the ins and outs of New York real estate, mortgages, leveraging, bond issues, zoning, the rental market, and interest rates; the cotton trade, Bangladeshi off-the-rack product, hi-tech synthetics, and the credit swaps that made the clothing business an earner; and the fancy deals with DeBeers and the South African exchange.  Even though his father headed him 'in the direction of the 'Lord God Almighty', he was being prepared to take over the family businesses, God or Mammon, the good life or the prayerful one. 

So every Monday and Wednesday when the three men met at McSorley's, the talk inevitably turned from God to other things.  It was a time to let loose, to give in to temptation in principle if not in fact.  Only among themselves could they feel confident enough to share desires.  There were no parishioners, congregants, or worshippers within earshot. 

So one by one, each in turn they shared their memories. Henry Plover, the imam, told about his young hijinks on the floats of the best samba schools in the Quarter, his bacchanals on Bayou Lafourche, and carousing in the cathouses of the Ninth Ward. These alcohol-fueled adventures were the best of his life, wild, boozy affairs with no tether or traces.   

Paddy O'Brien went on about the women in his life before the priesthood and the pursuant, ineluctable fantastical pursuit of the beautiful young things at the windows of Saks, Bendel's and Tiffany’s. He was at his most eloquent and voluble when it came to them - their hair, their Greek statuary grace, their walk, and above all, their perfume. 

And Sam (Shmuel) went on about the magnificent new high-rises in Manhattan, the elegantly, impossibly tall and thin skyscrapers towering over Central Park, or the fashion runways of Milan, Paris, and New York and the brilliance of today's Diors and St. Laurents. There was an exuberance about the masterful orchestration of product, financing, and marketing. 

'What are we still doing here?' said Father O'Brien. 

'What are we doing with our lives?', asked Sammy Levin-Epstein. 

'I'm having a drink', said the imam, Henry Plover; and from that moment on, the lives of the three men began to change, starting with a shot and a beer, ending with a male bonding such as you have never seen, and finishing up with an out-the-door new resolve. 

'Oh, God has his place', said the imam now on his own in Brooklyn, as  happy as a clam, one and done with Islam, living cheaply but well, back to McSorley's on occasion, host to the best of Green Point at all night parties in his loft.  He kept up with O'Brien and  Levin-Epstein, successful in their own rights, still young, ambitious, and once relieved of God, free and easy. 

'Ah, this is the life', said the former rabbi from his balcony overlooking the ocean on Collins Avenue, bought, bartered and sold until it was worth a fortune and now, finally, his home. 

The Queen Of Sheba Runs For Office - Kamala Harris, The Dark Ruler Of The New Jerusalem

The majesty of Sheba is deep-rooted in the popular imagination. “In the figure of the Queen of Sheba, the beckoning and voluptuous Orient becomes embodied, its imaginative territory in classical sources encompassed meridian and outlandish exoticism, sensuality, wonder and luxuries,” argues one historian. 

In detailing the Queen’s caravan of riches and lavish gifts to King Solomon, scriptural descriptions of the queen’s life stir the “antique Myth of the Orient.”  She ruled her Arabian kingdom with the power and presence of her successor to queenly rule, Cleopatra, and she had the intelligence, political savvy, and chutzpah to influence the mighty ruler of the Jewish kingdom. 

According to one early Arabian account, the Queen of Sheba came to Jerusalem "with a very great retinue, with camels bearing spices, and very much gold, and precious stones...Never again came such an abundance of spices as those she gave to Solomon"

However, there is an apocryphal legend that appeared in Jewish history.  Aware of Sheba's (Bilquis) arrival at court bearing gifts and concerned that her charms might seduce King Solomon and trick him into marriage, the king's jinn whispered to him that she had hairy legs and the hooves of an ass. Solomon, being curious about such a peculiar phenomenon, had a glass floor built before his throne so that Bilqīs, tricked into thinking it was water, raised her skirts to cross it and revealed that her legs were truly hairy. Solomon then ordered the jinn to create a depilatory for the queen. 

Even so, Solomon remained true to himself, thanked Sheba for her generosity, appreciated her overtures to open trade between the kingdoms of Arabia and his own, and prospered. 

'I am Sheba', Kamala Harris said to her retinue with an ironic smile, and I will convince the republic of my worth, my intelligence, and my right to rule. Now, Kamala knew little about the Queen of Sheba except that she was a woman of color born in Ethiopia or southern Arabia, that she was a mighty queen who ruled the roost in wide swaths of the peninsula, that she had the chutzpah and insight to challenge Solomon, the mighty ruler of Jerusalem, and she wooed him and seduced him into sharing the vast wealth of his Jewish kingdom. 

What Kamala didn't know was that so impressed with Solomon's wisdom, having answered all the challenging riddles with which she presented him, she converted to Judaism.  She had met her match, not only deferring to a man of far greater wisdom and intellectual merit than she, but willing to take her chances on his celestial promise.  

It was a Biblical come-uppance.  A woman reaching far above her station put in her place by a man of real power, leadership, and intelligence; a man unmoved by her caravans of spices and gold, and seeing only a woman of unalloyed ambition and pretense. 

Kamala, engaged but limited to first lines and simple stories, stuck with the imperial colored woman legend of Sheba, and embraced it as her own.  The potency - 'agency' was the current term for a woman's transformative abilities - of Sheba, her audacity in trekking through the desert with her train of camels and carts full of frankincense, myrrh, and the herbal medicines cultivated in the oases of her kingdom, her challenge of the great Solomon was enough.  It was an easy channel. 

Now, Kamala had always been an ambitious woman, one who would stop at nothing to reign whether in a courtroom or the chambers of Congress, and who was successful.  She had been known as the Genghis Khan of federal court, a savage, brutal prosecutor without restraint, compassion, or mercy; and as Senatorial member of the Judicial Committee vetting Supreme Court nominees did her best to humiliate and eviscerate Brett Kavanagh, a simple man of principle.  

As such, and treated with respect if not idolatry because of her racial, ethnic, and gender identity - a trifecta of blackness, cultural diversity, and proud womanhood - she felt herself anointed.  Her sense of destiny went far beyond self-confidence or general rectitude.  It had something to do with - there really was no other word for it - divine entitlement.  There were simply some people on whose shoulder Destiny's hand had rested.  

Sheba, the Queen of a vast empire and a just, wise ruler wasn't just given good genes and family history, she was gifted by a higher power, maybe not God, but....here Kamala's thoughts got jumbled as history, mythology, and popular idioms made thinking difficult, so she left it at that.  She and Sheba had been anointed. 

She felt queenly, and as she looked at herself in the mirror - a beautiful woman as beautiful as Sheba would have been with burnished mahogany skin, dark eyes, full lips, straight nose and a head of luxuriant hair.  She and Sheba were not just women but woman the embodiment of femininity, feminine power and authority, female beauty, and the seductive intelligence of sex. 

More than that the two women shared something equally important - imperial destiny.  They were both rulers - powerful women of color, yes, but regents (or in Kamala's case regents to be) in ability, intelligence, and ambition; and as such Kamala began to take on a more regal bearing.  

She curtailed her energy, her tedious ebullience and laughter, and looked more queenly.  She affected a bearing that was straighter, more defined, and less impromptu.  She spoke differently, with more of a pronounced cadence, and began to dress differently. She began to wear her Indian mother's gold jewelry - at least some of the more tasteful and evocative - and dress with what she felt was a greater dignity. 

She carried herself differently as well - a bit of a tilt to her head, a slower gait, a more firm and deliberate posture.  Smiles were reserved for reward not pleasantries.  All in all she was a changed woman.  Not on the inside necessarily, for she was still the take-no-prisoners Mongol marauder prosecutor of days gone by, but certainly on the outside. 

She now had to square her new, evolved persona with the campaign trail, not a very sophisticated, regal place; but she looked at Trump like some Eritrean tribal chieftain or some Nubian insurrectionist to be dealt with, defeated, and sentenced to death.  

Her handlers were not sure what to do with the new Kamala whom they expected to duke it out with the Trumpster in a UFC-style gloves off affair; but Kamala was indifferent.  The people would sense her innate power and its destiny, the right of imperial rule.  

Perhaps it was a good thing, an aide said privately, this regal bearing and all.  Calm the bitch down, get rid of the hysterics, give her a more presidential tone, shed the pit bull and channel the Labrador, give the people what they want, etc. etc.; but the lady wanted no part of it, cashiered her handlers and strode, not walked, onto the stage and welcomed the cheers, the applause, and the love of her subjects.  

The Old Man Thrown Under A Bus - The Palace Coup Of Queen Kamala

Oh, she did it right, praised the old man to the hilt - marvelous person, true leader, a man for all the people, mensch, Übermensch, great guy - and all the while buttering her bread on both sides.  If Joe totally lost his marbles and was Twenty-Fifth Amendment removed, she would become the President, run again, and as a black woman - what the country really wanted and needed - would win. If he declined to run, she would be the de facto, automatic candidate, run against Donald Trump and beat the bastard at his own game - Prosecutor vs. Felon in a smash-mouth, roundhouse free-for-all.  In any case it was in her interest to flatter her boss, show an invincible solidarity with him, and then pick up the pieces later. 

 

Obama is given the blame for what happened.  This eminence grise who passed Biden over in 2015 for Hillary Clinton did it again, engineered the resignation of his former Vice President, and put his chips on Kamala, a mulatto like him but with a better pedigree.  Besides, any fool could see how the President was making no sense whatsoever, so better toss him before it was too late. 

Insiders know that this was all Kamala's doing.  She, the heir of Clytemnestra, Goneril, Regan, and Lady Macbeth, knew precisely what she was up to.  Joe Biden, like King Lear was a doddering old fool who didn't know up from down and would never know he was being snookered by his closest ally, partner, and chief supporter.  Lear, like Biden, was an easy mark. When he made his fateful decision to divide up his kingdom before his death, he was already senile, an easy mark for his ambitious daughters who cruelly and painfully took their time in dismantling his power. His lands, his retinue, and finally his horses gone, Lear wanders out into the heath and goes stark, raving mad. 

 

So the canny Kamala, saw the same opportunity.  The old man was as daft as Lear, so the blandishments, the cajoling, the public displays of affection continued.  He was being softened up, tenderized, so that when the time was right, he would go like a baby. 

Of course Kamala knew that this would be the eventual scenario when she joined on as First Mate.  As a take-no-prisoners, no-holds-barred Genghis Khan of a prosecutor, she knew exactly how to exploit a weakness, bludgeon witnesses into recanting, humiliate the defense, and intimidate the judge.  She, like everyone could see that Joe Biden would never make it through his term, and if he did he would not be fit for another. 

Kamala was like the younger woman who marries a much older man. These ambitious women were unfairly called gold-diggers back in the day, but there was never anything crass about those who reeled in the big fish, the doddering billionaires who saw these women as their last, best hope. Not only that, Old Joe had bought into the black thang, thought she was marvelous because she was from the ghetto, a real woman of the streets with a white pedigree.  

Of course she was nothing of the kind, not an ounce of homeboy, pimp, and bling in her. She was the daughter of a former advisor to the President of Jamaica and tenured Professor of Economics at Stanford and her mother a renowned scientist.  She talked big on the campaign trail - her allusions to the inner city, her suggestions that she also had an absent father, a harsh and unremittingly dysfunctional childhood, and that she was a fugitive from Jim Crow were all carefully crafted balderdash, just out of the reach of fact checkers who, given the fawning media of the day were few and far between. 

She was as canny as Richard III who seduced Lady Anne whose husband and father in law, Henry VI, King of England, he had murdered.  

Was ever woman in this humor won?
I’ll have her, but I will not keep her long.
What? I, that kill’d her husband and his father,
To take her in her heart’s extremest hate,
With curses in her mouth, tears in her eyes,
The bleeding witness of my hatred by,
Having God, her conscience, and these bars against me,
And I no friends to back my suit at all
But the plain devil and dissembling looks?
And yet to win her! All the world to nothing!
Ha!

She worked the credulous public and the fawning press to a 'T', convinced everyone that she was America's victim/hero, a woman of color, a defiant, unashamedly ambitious woman whose place, whose only place was atop the social pyramid. She was idolized, believed, and adored, but beneath it all she knew it was all a necessary charade.  Heads would roll as they did in the days of the Lancasters and the Yorks, and she would left standing, proud, and heroic. 

In the White House she basked in the glory of it all.  A black woman Vice President indeed! and it would only be a matter of time until she was President, and from Day One she began plotting. 

How easy it had been! She had been given a free ride because she was a black woman, a Get Out Of Jail Free card, so she had a leg up in all her palace shenanigans.  Her cadre of adoring young black women was like the Queen of Sheba's retinue, and black men bowed at her feet. Every dirty trick, every plotting deception was overlooked; and so she played her role of dutiful, prayerful woman, talked the Old Guy up in public and in private planned his end. 

Poor Joe didn't know what hit him.  He had believed Kamala's nonsense and that of his advisors and MSNBC, and felt that he was the man for the future, and then suddenly he was out, a supernumerary, a has-been, a trifle, old chewing gum on the bedpost.  As Lear said, 'an unaccommodated man is no more but such a poor, bare, forked animal'.  

However, Joe Biden was never a tragic hero, only a lifelong politician who had stayed around long past his pull-by date, believing in some inertial law of politics - you could go on forever - and that his unremarkable tenure as Congressional representative from a small, insignificant state was actually worth something, something to be honored. 

Kamala didn't care whether he was a tragic hero or a doddering fool.  He was simply in the way.