Living in a Fantasy?

Photos of Jeffrey Smith (James Stewart) during his Congressional filibuster, in Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939).

Now, in our 10th year of the “Trump Era,” I often consider how I once lived in a very real fantasy.
My fantasy was that we lived in a strong democratic republic that was almost invulnerable.
I believed that most voters wanted the best possible person as U.S. President.
I never guessed that any Congress (Republican or Democrat-led) would stand by, while a President tore down the East Wing of the White House.

Part of my belief in these “illusions” was fostered by the Indiana education system, and by seeing vintage American films, especially idealistic films like Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, and It’s a Wonderful Life.
Both of these classic films starred the iconic actor James “Jimmy” Stewart.

James Stewart didn’t always play the iconic “everyman” American.
In Vertigo, he played Scottie Ferguson, a mentally-fragile retired police detective.
He played Elwood P. Dowd (a wealthy drunk who sees a giant rabbit following him about), in Harvey.
However, in three of the five films that won Stewart Oscar nominations (Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, It’s a Wonderful Life, and Anatomy of a Murder) he played men who thought seriously about right and wrong.

During the last few years, I’ve read a few books that enlightened me about the history of this nation.
I read Isabel Wilkerson’s Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents, and learned (among other things) that one of the reasons why Trump rose to power is that a share of white Americans desire sovereignty over non-whites.
In Rachel Maddow’s Prequel, and William Willrich’s American Anarchy, I learned that the U.S. Government talked of equality, but sometimes played another game entirely.
By reading these books, I learned that alongside the belief in “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,” there’s also been a belief in class structure.
Those who believe in class structure think that it’s the inheritance of some people to have political power over others.

In the first part of his career (before interrupting his acting career to serve during World War II), James Stewart played a naive man (Jeffrey Smith), who’s appointed to fill a U.S. Senate vacancy, in Mr. Smith Goes to Washington.
What Smith doesn’t realize (when he takes the position), is that he’s expected to merely act as a puppet for greedy politicians.
He chooses to fight against corruption.
As a result of this choice, Smith’s reputation is destroyed by his supposed mentor, and he’s nearly expelled from Congress. 

George Bailey (James Stewart) experiences a bank run on his Bedford Falls bank, in It’s a Wonderful Life (1946).

After serving in WWII, Stewart’s first postwar film was It’s a Wonderful Life.
In this 1946 film, Stewart played George Bailey, a man nearly driven to suicide because of a run on his savings bank, and the sad belief that his life has no value.
After time-traveling with an angel, Bailey recognizes that his life did make a difference.

Sicilian-born director Frank Capra directed both Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, and It’s a Wonderful Life.
Capra was a member of the Republican party.
Oddly enough, his films were often criticized for being “too liberal,” and possibly Communistic.
(I was quite surprised to learn that Frank Capra was a Republican; I had assumed that he was a F.D.R. Democrat, like my Sicilian-American Dad.)
In Capra’s later years, he became a more dedicated Roman Catholic, and a self-described pacifist.

The Italian poster for The Spirit of St. Louis (1957), a biopic about aviator Charles Lindbergh, that doesn’t reveal Lindbergh’s future ideas on eugenics, race, and fascism.

About ten years after filming It’s a Wonderful Life, Stewart played aviation hero Charles Lindbergh in the Billy Wilder-directed film The Spirit of St. Louis.
Practically speaking, Jimmy Stewart was a bit too old to play Lindbergh, since Lindbergh was only 25 when he made the first solo transatlantic flight from New York to Paris.
Nevertheless, Stewart captured Lindbergh’s bravery and determination in Wilder’s film, and Stewart was able to contribute as knowledge as a pilot.

Billy Wilder (the German-American director), received seven Academy Awards during his long career.
Besides directing over 25 films, he co-created the Committee for the First Amendment (1947), in support of the Hollywood Ten.
When the Screen Directors Guild voted whether or not the film industry should take oaths of allegiance to the U.S. Government, only he and John Huston opposed this action.

Attorney Paul Biegler (James Stewart, left) talks to his client Lt. Frederick Manion (Ben Gazzara, right) in Anatomy of a Murder.

In 1959, James Stewart played small-town Michigan lawyer Paul Biegler in the Otto Preminger film Anatomy of a Murder.
Biegler does his best to defend an army lieutenant who claims that he was driven by blind rage to kill a man who raped his wife.
The vision of America in Anatomy of a Murder is much darker than that in most Stewart films.
Life is sordid in Anatomy of a Murder, and people lie.
Justice does not triumph.
Some people don’t choose to pay their debts.

Austrian-American director Otto Preminger (a director known for dealing with controversial subjects) directed Anatomy of a Murder.
His film The Moon is Blue (1953)* was condemned by the Catholic Legion of Decency for using “indecent” words like “virgin” and “mistress.”
Anatomy of a Murder was also criticized for its’ frank dialogue, and for mentioning “panties.”

A Dell comic book for The FBI Story.

Around the same time, Stewart filmed Anatomy of a Murder, he played straight arrow Agent John “Chip” Hardesty in The FBI Story.
In this documentary-style drama, Hardesty fights against Communist spies, bank robbers, the Ku Klux Klan, and organized crime.

The FBI Story was made with the cooperation of Director J. Edgar Hoover, and it shows!
According to the Trivia data, on the IMDb website, Hoover forced director Mervyn LeRoy to reshoot scenes, make script changes, and to re-edit the film, so as to better showcase Hoover’s FBI. 

Like his friend Frank Capra, James Stewart was a conservative Republican.
However, he often worked harmoniously with directors, and other actors, whose political views were much more liberal than his own (like Henry Fonda).
Both Stewart and Fonda were known for embodying the “common man.”
Both actors rarely played evil men.
In the time before Trump, there was no conflict between idealism, and our political parties.

*The Moon is Blue can’t really be called a sex comedy, but it was a very controversial film for the times. It starred David Niven, William Holden, and Maggie McNamara.

Inspector Ricciardi—Naples Noir

Brigadiere Maione (Antonio Milo) and Commissario Ricciardi (Lino Guanciale) from the Italian period piece/police procedural Il Commissario Ricciardi.

The period piece/police procedural/fantasy Inspector Ricciardi (Il Commissario Ricciardi) hits many buttons for me.
It’s an Italian series that’s currently being streamed (with English subtitles), on PBS Passport, so it helps me with my Italian.
The stories are set in 1930’s Naples, a city that’s important to my family history.
The show has a supernatural element, and fantasy attracts me more than hard reality.
The three seasons of Ricciardi (14 episodes) deal with romance, and family tragedies, as well as crimes.
Best of all, the lead is Lino Guanciale, who played a much different part as Leonardo Cagliostro in La Portarossa/ The Red Door.
(The fourth season of The Red Door is set to premier on MHz, on August 26, 2026.)

In Il Commissario Ricciardi, Lino Guanciale plays Luigi Alfredo Ricciardi, a brooding police inspector with a secret.
Ricciardi’s secret is that he sees the ghosts of people who have recently endured sudden, violent deaths.
Not only does he see these ghosts, he hears them repeat their last words or thoughts. 

Occasionally, these ghostly words are keys to solving the case.
Mostly, however, they lead him in the wrong direction.
After Ricciardi has solved each case, he generally returns to the scene of the crime, and watches the ghosts dissolve, giving him a feeling of peace.
Justice has been served.

Commissario Ricciardi (Lino Guanciale) and Enrica (Maria Vera Ratti).

Maria Vera Ratti plays Inspector Ricciardi’s lady love (Enrica Columbo), a teacher and neighbor who Ricciardi first observes from his bedroom window.
(His window is directly across from the Columbo family kitchen.)
Like any proper maiden of the era, Enrica has not left her parents “early”—that is, before getting married. 

Luigi Alfredo and Enrica become mutually obsessed with each other.
However, they only meet when Enrica is asked to come to the police station, and explain her recent visit to a murdered fortune teller (season one, episode two, La condanna del sangue).
Their romance doesn’t begin until episode 4 of season two (Rondini d’inverno).

The Sanctuary of Montevergine Convitto in Mercogliano, in Avellino, Italy.

The stories about Ricciardi are set in Naples, Italy, in the period after Mussolini rose to power, but before WWII began.
This is the same time period when my mother lived in the Naples area.
Her family lived in a small town about 30 miles from Naples.
However, she studied to be a teacher in Naples, and also studied voice in either Naples itself, or in Padua (staying with an aunt).
(I’m not too sure of the details.)
While mother didn’t tell us many stories of Naples itself, she did teach us the area’s recipes, sang “Santa Lucia” accompanying herself on the piano, describe the food that her family brought as they climbed to the Sanctuary of Montevergine, and talk of life at the Convitto Femminile in Mercogliano (a boarding school).

The Pittsburgh Creche located in downtown Pittsburgh from late November until early January. Carnegie Museum of Art. Photo: Zachary Riggleman.

The setting, and the time period, are crucial to my love of the series.
One of my favorite episodes is the first episode of season three, because of the set designers.
This episode takes place during the Christmas season.
The set designers were able to find fantastic Neapolitan manger scenes (presepi).
It’s a treat to watch this episode on a big screen because there are presepi in nearly every scene!
Presepe means crib or creche,* and Neapolitan nativity scenes, have been popular in Italy since the Middle Ages.

In addition to the series, I’m also enjoying the novels (by Maurizio De Giovanni) that the series is based on.
Of course, there’s lots more detail about the characters, and the city of Naples, in the novels.
On page 230 of the English-language paperback of Viper, we learn that:

It was impossible for him [Ricciardi] to nestle comfortably in that cocoon of selfishness that everyone is endowed with at birth.

On page 251 of Viper, the reader is treated to a recipe for minestra strinta, a dish that people who grew up eating food from the Naples region might find familiar.
My mother made this dish with bitter greens (like escarole), mashed potatoes, olive oil, garlic, and chili pepper.)

Only the first ten, of De Giovanni’s fifteen novels (the ones on Ricciardi), have been translated into English.
Unfortunately, I only read Italian as a beginner.
So far, I’ve read four of the translated books, and I’m looking forward to locating all ten as printed books.
Most of the books are available (at least, as e-books) on Amazon.

Cover of an Inspector Ricciardi graphic novel, published by Sergio Bonelli Editore.

My husband discovered that there are also Italian Inspector Ricciardi graphic novels!
I wonder if some of the TV episodes are based on the graphic novels?

A difference between the novels, and the TV show, is the level of gore.
While the spirits in the show are in soft focus, the spirits in the novels are described with bones poking out of their flesh and grotesque, oozing, bloody wounds.
As Ricciardi takes his long walks in Naples, he learns to avoid certain streets, so as to avoid the terrible sights and voices that give him migraines.

Ricciardi reminds me just a tiny bit of two English crime-solving characters of the same time period: Lord Peter Whimsey (also of noble birth), and Inspector Ian Rutledge (also a haunted man).
(Whimsey was the creation of Dorothy L. Sayers, and Rutledge was created by the mother and son writing team of Charles Todd.)

Lord Peter and Inspector Rutledge are about ten years older than Ricciardi.
These characters are both former officers during the Great War (WWI).
Therefore, post-traumatic stress disorder (and shell-shock) are a factor in their personalities.
Ricciardi, on the other hand, is too young to have served during WWI.
Thank God for that!
If Ricciardi had been drafted to fight in the Great War, seeing and hearing the ghosts of those who died in battle might have been too much to bear!

Like Lord Peter, Inspector Ricciardi is a nobleman (a Baron) who chooses to spend his time fighting crime, rather than sit back and enjoy his wealth.
Like Inspector Ricciardi, Inspector Rutledge (of Scotland Yard), is a haunted man.
Rutledge, however, is haunted by just one entity: Corporal Hamish MacLeod, a Scottish soldier who Rutledge (as the commanding officer) was forced to execute on the battlefield for insubordination.

The two actors who played Lord Peter Whimsey on British television.

One factor that all three characters (Ricciardi, Whimsey, and Rutledge) have in common is their desire for justice.
Each does not always follow the letter of the law.
It’s far more important that they follow their own moral codes.

The Lord Peter novels have been dramatized on British TV, with two different actors playing Lord Peter: Edward Petherbridge (in the late 1980’s), and Ian Carmichael (in the mid 1970’s).
Both series were entertaining, but Mr. Petherbridge was a much better fit as Lord Peter.
As far as I know, Inspector Rutledge has never been portrayed on film.

Livia Lucani (Serena Iansiti) and Commissario Ricciardi (Lino Guanciale).

Enrica Columbo isn’t the only woman drawn to the mysterious Inspector Ricciardi.
In the first episode of season one (Il senso del dolore), Ricciardi meets the enchanting singer Livia Lucani, the wife of a murder victim.
(This episode is based on De Giovanni’s first Inspector Ricciardi novel, “I Will Have Vengeance: The Winter of Commissario Ricciardi” in the English translation, but “Il senso del dolore” in the original book.)
Livia is played by Serena Iansiti.
Although Ricciardi is attracted to Livia, it was love at first sight with Enrica.

According to internet sources, there will be a fourth season of Il Commissario Ricciardi.
It’s set to premier, in Italy, in 2027.

*The Art Institute of Chicago displays a massive mid-18th century Neapolitan creche every Christmas season. This creche has more than 200 painted terracotta figures. It’s only displayed for a few weeks because of the fragility of the silk cloth used to dress the figures. 

The Arrogance of the Management Class

Miranda Priestly (Meryl Streep) is the big boss in The Devil wears Prada.

One of the jokes of the modern world is how upper management still believes itself superior to “the plebs”, in a country long pretending to be egalitarian.
In America, those who actually do the work are judged inferior by their bosses, merely because bosses* earn 28,000% percent more.
Does upper management actually believe its’ own press clippings?

Of course, the upper management ego has had an effect on the brave new world of Artificial Intelligence (AI).
Publishing managers (who oversee AI) now seem to believe that articles can be published if they just “read right.”
Who needs editing, or fact checking? 

During my years as a book and magazine production artist, there were steps to be followed.
The writers would write articles.
After that, the editors would edit the stories to make sure that they made sense, and were well organized.
Then, fact checkers would verify all the facts.
If errors were found, editors would rewrite sections of each story, making sure all the facts were verified.
After the editors were finished, a proofreader (with “fresh eyes”) would read the stories to make sure that there were no spelling errors, grammar, or punctuation errors, that the head editor hadn’t discovered.

In books or articles on medicine and science—where accuracy is crucial—additional reviewers would frequently be hired to review the same stories.
(Despite all this work, we would still find mistakes at the page design stage, because of human error—the wrong article being transmitted, or a correction accidentally not made.)

Mr. Burns is bathed by Smithers in The Simpsons.

Of course, from the “Olympian world” of upper management, this process just looked like a bunch of people doing the same darn thing.
What waste!
Get rid of them!
Reduce the staff by half!

As a result of upper management not understanding what’s involved in producing accurate information, nowadays “content producers” seem to be framing sentences so AI can write stories for them.
Then, the content producers are ignorant enough to be placing these un-edited, un-proofread stories on the web!
No wonder “AI slop” and “junk data” abound!

I’m not saying that AI can’t improve articles, or save people hours of work.
It’s that content providers are using AI improperly.
Why not have AI look for spelling errors, grammar, or punctuation errors, and then have a human being verify?
Why not wait until the story is done, and then have AI look at it in a final step?
AI might well find errors that human beings haven’t seen.
However, in a world where AI actually makes up material, no human being should trust AI to be correct ALL the time.

What AI certainly shouldn’t be doing is writing the story from the beginning.
Don’t the bosses realize that AI can’t tell the difference between truth and fiction?

Bill Lumbergh (Gary Cole) in Office Space (1999).

Recently, it’s come to light that thousands of scammers having been duping local and Federal government officials for years.
It’s estimated that $3.5 billion was lost to hospice fraud, in Los Angeles County alone!
Every year, Medicare is losing over $60 billion to fraud and abuse.

Discovering fraud and abuse is one area where humans could use AI to ferret out false invoices (if humans, with AI help, just designed a good program).
Why not design a program that can find instances of workers working more than eight hours in a single day?
Why not design a program that can spot a hospice facility that has no patients?
Why not design a program that knows that a bed pan shouldn’t cost $300?

After AI has created such a program, hire a REAL staff of people to review all those flagged invoices, and NOT approve them willy nilly.
That would be a proper use of AI.

Butler Tucker (Arthur Lowe) holds up his master, Jack, 14th Earl of Gurney (Peter O’Toole), in The Ruling Class (1972).

Instead, those in charge are using AI to write unclear descriptions of web sites, write forms for patients to fill out in waiting rooms, text to people waiting for lost packages, and suggest hints to users of Ancestry.com.
These uses all badly need an editor to review them, and make sure that they make sense.
However, because these creations “look right” to a badly trained “boss person,” humans are left to cope with unclear descriptions, bad forms, frustrating responses about our packages, and ridiculous hints.

Rather than use AI effectively to fight fraud and abuse, non-creatives are using AI to create illustrations and articles, an activity that AI is simply not skilled at!

It’s always annoyed me how upper management seemed to be so jealous of their staff doing the “fun jobs” like designing and illustrating.
Occasionally, higher-ups would made inappropriate suggestions as to fonts, type sizes, and images.
It was particularly galling when these managers refused to accept that their suggestions couldn’t be implemented.

David Brent (Ricky Gervais) struts his stuff before his staff in The Office.

I remember one Design Director telling me that she NEVER let on which of her designs she preferred, when showing a set of rough designs to a group of higher-ups.
It seemed that when she did tell the group which design was her favorite, the head honcho would deliberately not pick it.
Was this act an exercise in control and dominance?
Was the head honcho envious of the designer?

These days, AI is giving CEOs and upper management their ideal middle management and staff employee.
AI will do anything they ask it do, no matter how wrong.
AI will act as their hands, and never complain.

*CEO salaries average $18.9 million to $22.98 million. Thus, CEOs earn roughly 28,000% more than the average employee. At the lowest-paying large companies, the gap is wider, with CEOs earning 632 times more than their median employees.

Are Americans Chumps and Suckers?

The Italian poster for 1973’s The Sting, known in Italy as La Stangata. Paul Newman and Robert Redford starred in this story about two American con men.

If you live in America, you’re more likely to be scammed than the citizens of any other nation.
In 2024 alone, victims reported losses totaling $12.5 billion.
As as we all know, however, most loses are not reported.
We are too embarrassed.

The United Kingdom (the European country that we’re most similar to culturally) is also a big target for fraud.
The U.K. is the “credit card fraud capital of Europe.” 

One ancient type of scam was traveling medicine shows.
This type of con originated in medieval Europe.
200 years later, British patent medicine sellers began selling their products in the American colonies.
After the Revolution, Americans began to sell “home grown” concoctions to their fellow citizens.
The Golden Age of “snake oil salesmen” was between the end of the Civil War and the early 1920s.
Today, telephone scams, and internet scams, have taken the place of the traveling medicine show.

The British poster for 1967’s One Born Every Minute, known in America as The Flim-Flam Man. George C. Scott portrayed rural con artist Mordecai Jones in this film.

I recently read Four White Horses and a Brass Band: True Confessions from the World of Medicine Shows, Pitchmen, Chumps, Suckers, Fixers, and Shills.*
This book is the autobiography of Violet McNeal, an American con woman who was active from 1904 until the early 1920s.
Presenting herself as “Princess Rose Blossom,” Ms. McNeal sold a nerve tonic called “Vital Sparks,” proclaiming it a “virility cure.”
Her mixture was made from melted buckshot candy (small balls of peanut butter, sugar, butter, and chocolate) combined with powdered aloe.
Later, close to the end of her career, she adopted the persona of “Madame Pasteur,” and sold rejuvenation herbs while dressed up in a college cap and gown.
Violet didn’t just sell one product (or service) in her journey as a con woman; she sold many.

An early edition of Four White Horses and a Brass Band, the autobiography of Violet McNeal.

Violet’s autobiography was originally published in 1947.
At that time, Ms. McNeal did a press tour giving lectures around the country on her sad and fascinating adventures.
The back matter of her book presents the reader with two typical grifter scripts, as well as a glossary of pitchmen terms (ie: “ballyhoo,” for entertainment leading to the sales pitch, and “coconuts” for money).
It’s amazing how much the scripts read like current TV ads for beauty products and health foods.

A lobby card for The Lady Eve (1940). In this film, swindlers Jean Harrington (Barbara Stanwyck) and her father Colonel Harrington (Charles Coburn), run a scam on Charles Pike (Henry Fonda), an innocent brewery millionaire and snake scientist.

Ms. McNeal, and her ilk, traveled from town to town, selling chopped grass, “special” soaps, and potions, to rubes and yokels.
Sometimes her fellow grifters dressed in the guise of Quakers, Native Americans, swamis, or (like Violet) Chinese princesses, selling their products.
Wandering thieves like Violet’s first husband (Will Archambault, aka “Tiger Fat Davis”) amassed a large fortune from his scams. All this, despite being a serious cocaine addict.

Will Archambault taught his 16-year-old protege (Violet), that “no one but a sucker ever works.”
He also trained this naive Minnesota farm girl to take opium, enjoy alcohol, desire fine clothes and jewelry, and take advantage of the sexual needs of other men.

A lobby card for Catch Me if You Can (2002). Leonardo DiCaprio played Frank W. Abagnale, a real-life scammer who sometimes impersonated a medical doctor, and conned people out of millions.

In the early 1900s, the American Medical Association became a force to be reckoned with fighting against quackery, and introducing regulation to the selling of remedies.
The AMA was instrumental in the passage of the 1906 Pure Food and Drug Act (the bane of Mr. Archambault and Ms. O’Neal’s existence).

Adding to the scandal of medicine shows, many local government officials were actually in on the grifts.
They charged scammers large fees to sell fake products in their “territories.”
Perhaps, if the pitchmen had annoyed wealthier citizens, police departments would have put them in jail.
Since the victims of scam artists were basically the poorer people, however, pitchmen were seldom punished for their misdeeds.

I suppose that America has always been a “grift magnet” because of the basic materialism baked into our culture.
America may have more religious diversity than any other country.
As French scholars Alexis de Tocqueville and Ernest Duvergier de Hauranne have pointed out, however, America also has an inordinate love of money.
Other factors that turn us into a gullible society are human trust in authority (or what we perceive as authority), love of the exotic, and curiosity about new inventions. 

A book cover for the novel Nightmare Alley, by William Lindsay Gresham. Tyrone Power played Stanton Carlisle (a grifter and swindler) in the 1947 film version of the book.

Some politicians who’ve opposed Trump (like Hillary Clinton and Mitt Romney), have described Donald Trump as a grifter.
Although Donald Trump was once mostly known as a real estate tycoon, he’s used the Trump brand in many other enterprises.
His Trump Shuttle didn’t turn a profit.
His seminar company, Trump University, was shut down in 2005 amid fraud allegations (with Trump paying $25 million to settle).
Trump Steaks was discontinued in 2014.
Trump Foundation was dissolved in 2018, for violating the key requirements of a charitable organization.

Trump showed the world how much he thought of American citizens on Saturday, October 12th, 2024, when the Trump campaign left thousands of elderly Trump supporters stranded, in 93-degree heat, in Coachella (California).
This was not the first time that Trump had shown disrespect for his voters.
Earlier, at a June 10, 2024 Las Vegas event, candidate Trump told his audience: “I don’t care about you. I just want your vote.”
At that single event, six audience members were hospitalized, and 24 more were treated for heat stroke.

A key difference between valid businesses, and shysters, are the products that they sell.
Violet McNeal sold candy to rubes, fooling them that her product would make them virile.
Donald Trump promised that he would improve the wealth and lives of Americans, and make America great again.
All he seems to be doing is aggrandizing himself, making regular Americans poorer, and making himself richer.

*Four White Horses and a Brass Band, by Violet McNeal, was reissued in 2019 by Feral House press.

“Bullied” by Her Budget?

British schoolboys go savage in Peter Brooks’s Lord of the Flies (1963).

It seems that everyone from Senator Mark Kelly, to the Bullying Research Network, is discussing bullying these days.
However, people seem to have entirely separate ideas about what bullying is.

For example, while flipping channels, I heard a woman say that she was being “bullied” by her budget.
It was puzzling.
To her, “bullying” meant to be thwarted.
Obviously, she felt that she was entitled to beautiful things and beautiful experiences.
However, her “mean ole bank account” wouldn’t allow it.

People who don’t realize what true bullying feels like, don’t realize that although everyone is owed rights from the Federal Government, none of us are owed anything by God, or the Universe.
It’s us who owe good behavior to God.

For me, being bullied means to be harmed (either emotionally or physically) by people who are attempting to prove their superiority over you.
People who bully want you to feel as small as possible, so that they can feel as big as possible.

In the 2026 Hulu TV thriller The Beauty (based on the 2015 graphic novel), some of the characters long to be super-model beautiful, and feel trapped in their homely bodies.
I suppose that the people who feel “imperfect” in The Beauty feel bullied by fate, a fate that didn’t give them the lives that they think they deserve.

In episode 1, Jaquel Spivey plays a lonely INCEL (Jeremy) who turns to plastic surgery, hoping that a reconstructed face will give him happiness by getting him laid.
Plastic surgery doesn’t work.
However, an engineered, sexually-transmitted virus transforms him into a new Jeremy (played in episodes 2-11 by Jeremy Pope).

Two different actors portrayed “Jeremy” in the Hulu TV show The Beauty—Jacquel Spivey (pre-virus, left) and Jeremy Pope (post-virus, right).

Another character in the series is a megalomaniac, played by Ashton Kutcher and (in a single episode) Vincent D’Onofrio.
This “titan of industry” wants to become a younger, healthier version of himself, plus make tons of money from the virus by spreading it everywhere.
His wife (Fanny) is played by Isabella Rossellini.
Unlike many characters in the series, Fanny doesn’t want to be transformed into a “more beautiful” version of herself.
She’s content with her appearance, just as it is, and doesn’t want to look younger.

It’s interesting that the personifications of physical perfection in The Beauty TV series are diverse, at least in terms of skin color and hair texture, if not in terms of body weight.
The casting agents weren’t influenced by the MAGA ideal of beauty, one in which middle-aged women are emulating plastic sex toys. 

In a scene omitted from the 1936 Little Lord Fauntleroy, Cedric Errol (left, Freddie Bartholomew) confronts rival Ben Tipton (right, Jackie Searl).*

When I skimmed the 919 pages of Project 2025, I learned that many of its’ authors feel hatred toward “The Left.”
At the same time, however, they desperately want Libs to think as they do.
They seem distressed about trans people, and the idea that racial divisions are not a biological fact.
I suppose that the ultimate goal is to no longer “be owned” by liberal thinking, and its’ alarming openness to diversity.
It is possible to feel bullied by others thinking ideas that you don’t share.
However, that simply isn’t bullying.

This concept of MAGA and Project 2025 “owning the Left,” is as puzzling as the idea that one could be “bullied by a budget.”
Don’t the writers of Project 2025 understand that most of this country will never return to the societal theories of the 1950’s?
We’ve been heading in these directions since at least the 1910’s.
Do they really believe that “the Left” is looking for ways to dominate them, just as they are searching for ways to dominate “the Left?”

I’ve reflected on the final words of Renee Nicole Good: “I’m not mad at you,” to the I.C.E. agent, who then shot her.
Renee Good wasn’t angry at the agent; all she wanted was to drive away.
However, something about her words, certainly enraged him.
It seems that he perceived her words as disrespect, and felt justified in reacting to that disrespect with bullets.

The school bully Scut Farkus (Zack Ward) makes like an angry bear in The Christmas Story (1983).

In Minneapolis, the people demonstrating against I.C.E., wanted to be treated with consideration.
At first, they likely expected the same level of courtesy from I.C.E. agents that they experienced from local police.
They soon learned, however, that I.C.E. doesn’t see demonstrators as people who deserve respect.
I.C.E. has been trained to see sanctuary city citizens as agitators and enemies, just as they saw the families crossing the Mexican-American border as threats and enemies.
To a hammer, everything looks like a nail.

I think back to a comment from Border Chief Greg Bovino (days before he was ordered to leave Minneapolis) in which he said that Chicago demonstrators were much “tougher” than Minneapolis demonstrators.
He was taunting the citizens of Minneapolis.

Around the U.S., I.C.E. has reacted to hinderance of its’ objectives with pepper spray, smoke grenades, rubber bullets, and live ammunition.
I.C.E. has been trained to smash car windows, tackle citizens, and add new faces to its’ “Antifa” database.
Demonstrators carry signs, wear funny costumes, blow whistles (and respond with the occasional thrown sandwich, kicked fender, or curse words).
Yet, “border czar” Tom Homen suggest that it’s the I.C.E agents who are being bullied by the demonstrators! 

Both the U.S.A. female hockey team, and the male hockey team, won gold this year at the Winter Olympic games in Milan.
To the annoyance of many, Fox TV news personalities didn’t just praise the American teams for winning; they mocked the Canadian teams for merely winning silver.

Whatever happened to good sportsmanship?
Whatever happened to “It’s not whether you win or lose, but how you play the game?”
Instead of honoring both teams for playing well, the bullying Fox newscasters reacted as if Canada was an enemy that they had conquered.

We’re a divided nation.
Is one of the dividing lines, the way in which we define bullying?

*While Manhattan street urchins taunted Cedric for his British accent (in Little Lord Fauntleroy), Cedric never confronted Ben Tipton (the boy set to replace him) in the 1936 film. Was the scene cut?