I’ve never been one to follow a leader, and I’ve never understood the human attraction to cult personalities. But there certainly is something in some human natures that needs to feel blessed by someone that they have vested with only vaguely deserved wisdom.

I am thinking about this because of my current altercation with a current cult figure who, in emails to me, has called me a “passive-aggressive bitch” and “doctrinaire moralis” and has accused me of “disgruntled high-horse pretense of moral superiority” and “binary black and white filters.” (Out of sheer perversity, I refuse to link to him. But he did start all of this by indicating on his weblog that he thinks I am a half-wit and an anal retentive.)

Now, in all fairness, in response to his blogassault on me, I commented somewhere that
I do have something against schmucks who publicly harass former “beloveds” and who can dish out invectives out but can’t take them. And, I have only pity and sympathy for narcissistic might have beens who seem to make a great effort to make sure the world at large sees them as emotionally stunted and psychologically deformed (by choice or circumstance — it really doesn’t matter) and then complain that people see them as emotionally stunted and psychologically deformed. In other words, as nasty schmucks.

OK. If you know about whom I’m blogging, I invite you to keep reading. If you don’t, it doesn’t matter. Move on. I have much more interesting posts to take up your time.

My retaliation to his assault was harsh and nasty. I tend to shoot back first, re-load, re-armor, and then look around to see what’s happening. I don’t like what’s happening. But, before you get to be a Crone, you learn to be a warrior. I’ve never run from a fight, especially one that pits me against a cult figure who has pitted himself against me.

He is credited by some bloggers as their teacher — someone who has given them permission to speak their hearts, their guts. In the words of Happy Harry Hardon, to “talk hard.” That’s wonderful. Everyone should know that they have permission to do that. Everyone should do that. I started when I was 17 and haven’t stopped yet. To some, that makes me an aggressive bitch. (I absolutely don’t agree with the “passive” tag!)

He has told me several times to “fuck off.” And I replied that I don’t”fuck off” (in the sense that he means it) that easily. I say that the time has come to diffuse cults of personality. We don’t need self-perpetuating personalities to follow and defer to and seek blessings and approval from. People are people, even in Blogaria. Sometimes they behave like nasty schmucks, and when they do, they should be called on it. Sometimes they write like angels, and they should be applauded for that.

I say that it’s time to invite all bare-assed emperors to climb off their self-constructed pedestals. The view from down here is kind of nasty.

Billionaires: When the super-rich get richer. 3/23/2007

“It should simply be called the green list,” said the Los Angeles Times in an editorial. Forbes magazine last week released its annual tally of the people with the most greenbacks, identifying a record 946 billionaires whose mega-fortunes can only leave the rest of us green with envy. For the 13th year in a row, Bill Gates (net worth, $56 billion) led the way, but this year’s list includes a record number of Chinese, Russians, and other foreigners. Noting that the number of billionaires is up nearly 20 percent over last year, Forbes declared this “the richest year ever in human history.” Excuse me for not celebrating, said Tony Hendra in Huffingtonpost.com. In America, the gap between rich and poor is only growing, while the net worth of the world’s 4 billion poorest souls actually dropped, to less than $35 dollars each. Those who demand more equitable distribution of wealth are often derided as socialists or “bleeding hearts.” But when a handful of tycoons makes more in a day than much of the world makes in a lifetime, it’s tempting to start humming the “Internationale.”

Perhaps we’d be less envious, said Gregg Easterbrook in the Los Angeles Times, if the super-rich were more charitable. Not counting the “sainted” Warren Buffett—who gave away $44 billion last year—the 60 leading American philanthropists donated $7 billion, out of their combined net worth of $584 billion. That’s a mere 1.2 percent of their vast fortunes. Multibillionaires such as software magnate Larry Ellison, eBay founder Pierre Omidyar, and even that great champion of equality, financier and liberal activist George Soros, all gave less than 1 percent. Consider that in his day, industrialist Andrew Carnegie gave away 78 percent of his net worth. Billionaires can use only so many yachts, cars, and estates. Which raises the question: “Why do the super-rich hoard?”

Russia is not angry about a nonexistent threat to its nuclear deterrent. It’s mad that a U.S. base will be another hindrance to a Russian invasion of Poland. No matter who’s in charge, “whether Ivan the Terrible, Joseph Stalin, or Vladimir Putin,” Russia always wants to conquer, to expand. With U.S. troops on Polish soil, Poland will be protected even more surely than by our membership in NATO. And the U.S. will be protected against incoming missiles from Iran or North Korea.

Bad Week For Queen-size beds, after a University of Vienna study found that when men slept alongside their female partners, they woke up the next day less rested and with impaired cognitive functions. “We were never meant to sleep in the same bed as each other,’’ a sleep expert said.