The Smell of Gas

It’s been a long day of political theater regarding the Michael Cohen public testimony. People all over are posting and publishing their comments and analysis about the testimony. I’m a bit of a political junkie myself, so please allow me my scattered observations.

Donald Trump is currently in Hanoi, negotiating badly with the leader of North Korea. I read that he already dropped full accounting of North Korea’s nuclear program from the US’s demands. This could all just be the usual bad negotiation skills of Donald Trump, or it could be he’s distracted from the drama back in the US. This is like going on vacation and wondering if you left the stove on.

I wouldn’t blame the Republican members of the committee for focusing on attacking Michael Cohen’s credibility and not asking one question about Donald Trump, the reason why Michael Cohen is there in the first place. If the shoe was on the other foot, the Democrats would be attacking the credibility of the witness as well. My only problem is, their attacks were simply bad, bad politics. I think it did them more harm than good. Rep. Matt Gaetz, prior to the hearing, exposed himself to potential criminal liabilities by brazenly attempting to intimidate a witness several times. Rep. Clay Higgins, claimed to be a moron who has never heard of Michael Cohen since that day. I’m a Canadian living in Seoul. I know who Michael Cohen is. Rep. Mark Meadows brings in a black woman as a prop in the most tone deaf display of I-have-black-friends-therefore-I’m-not-racist. Rep. Paul Gosar was ineffective and stumbled around with his papers. And Rep. Jim Jordan was not only outwitted by Michael Cohen, he managed to outwit himself in the beginning by withdrawing himself out of his attempt to delay the hearing.

Really? Is this the best representative that people can have? Who sees their behavior and thinks, “Yes! I’m glad I voted for that guy!”? Why are these people and their ilk running the US?

And as much as they attacked Michael Cohen’s character, what spoke volumes was not his character, but his confessions which is backed up by evidence. See, evidence doesn’t need character. A 2017 check made out to Michael Cohen signed by Donald Trump, arranged by Trump Jr and Allen Weisselberg, Trump’s CFO, proving a criminal conspiracy that Donald Trump did give out hush payments during the 2016 campaign doesn’t need character. It tells its truth right there. And as Rep. Ro Khanna mentioned, it exposes all four men involved to federal and state prosecution, and to which only Michael Cohen will currently be in jail for.

Allen Weisselberg has been cooperating and not cooperating with authorities, so I really don’t know what will ultimately happen to him. Donald Trump, even if it’s apparent that he did commit crimes, Republicans will have to act in order to get him impeached, and I find that highly unlikely. They are truly a craven bunch compared to the more principled breed of Republicans who were compelled to move to impeach Nixon. That, and they are likely to lean on the Justice Department memo that you cannot indict a sitting US president. He can be impeached, but not indicted. So why impeach him then if he’s not indicted of any crime? (assuming Mueller doesn’t move to indict him) Even some Democrats would probably be wary of indicting a sitting US president.

As for Trump Jr, it seems that he’s quite vulnerable after the hearing. If the criminal conspiracy is proven, he’s got his fingerprints all over it. He might be let off with a presidential pardon on a federal level, but that doesn’t save him from the Southern District of New York which is looking into him as well. And it’s all speculation and fantasy for now, but if they did threaten jail time to Trump Jr (for starters. There’s still Eric, Ivanka, and Jared for a myriad potential different reasons), will that compel Donald Trump to step down in order to save his son? I’m thinking no. Donald Trump doesn’t look like the type who would save anyone except maybe Ivanka. And I’m not sure about Trump Jr. Maybe he would probably jump at the chance of being a MAGA martyr of sorts, or maybe he would flip on his dad. Speculations, but the drama is simply too much!

And as I’m writing this, Donald Trump’s schedule for his summit today has been suddenly cut short. Hmm… I wonder if something was on his mind.

Soon to be Deleted

I’m trying my hardest not to write anything about depression at the moment. Unfortunately, listening to Elliott Smith, Sparklehorse, and old episodes of Dopey, there’s really not much that comes to mind.

One thing that keeps coming back to my head however are suicide scenes they sometimes broadcast here on television. In Korea, it’s common for people to just lock themselves in a car and burn something in order to die from asphyxiation. Afterwards in the news, you might see cigarette butts and bottles of liquor unblurred as the camera explores the car. I’ve been wondering why you don’t often see food in these scenes. Of course it might seem pointless to be eating food as you try to end your life, but I figure eating is probably one of the most distracting and pleasurable thing to do as you await your death in a sealed room or vehicle. With me, they’d probably find my sad body with bucket of KFC chicken nearby. It’s very difficult to think of anything, much less smell faint, toxic fumes, as I soothe my depression with greasy bites of chicken. So yeah, if you see me checking in a hotel alone with big bucket of chicken, call 911. You just might save my life.

If I was to give some advice though, other than seek help if you’re depressed or thinking about suicide, is that people should never look up suicide scenes online. I looked up suicide scenes online checking for food (we live in a frivolous era) and stumbled on the darkest, most depressing scenes of the human condition. Alan Black’s ‘Faces of Death’ didn’t prepare me for this. Most of the scenes, usually from what appear to be educational presentations, and they look like they are from developing or Eastern European countries, and without much context, I began to build stories explaining the scenes. It’s a rather grim exercise. Save yourself the misery and watch highlights of Pawn Stars instead.

A Taste for Crime

Under the Son of Sam law, criminals are not allowed to profit from their crimes by selling their story. Even after they served their time and if they managed to get out, it is illegal for murderers to write books recalling the grisly details of their crimes. And yet… why do we allow other people to exploit their crimes for their own profit?

I haven’t really thought much about it until I was listening to the latest Sword and Scale podcast regarding Christopher Watts, a man who murdered his pregnant wife and two daughters. To others, the family seemed like a perfectly, photogenic family with the dream house and all, but apparently he was abusive, cheated on his wife, and the family was actually struggling financially. It always bothered me how the host/narrator of the show seemed to describe the state of the victims with glee, but it was particularly disturbing this time around when Mike Boudet described the victim’s unborn child as well as her underwear for no reason except maybe to add more titillation to the broadcast. I know it’s subjective in my part, but I imagine him almost licking his lips as he describes the pictures which were paraded around by tabloids like the Daily Mail. It crossed from being informative to being almost pornographic in its exploitative nature.

Now, I’m no fragile flower. I have no problem consuming violent and even bizarre media, but when shows like Sword and Scale market themselves about true crime, I would imagine it’s about the details of the case and how it was put to rest, not about the gory details or overdrawn subjective commentary. Also, the fact that the show praised the work of the polygraph expert in the case tells me that the show couldn’t care less about the workings of the law and how justice should be pursued.

Polygraph tests are inadmissible in almost every jurisdiction in the United States. No one can be forced to submit to a test, and they are proven many times to be inaccurate and open to manipulation. In the Watts case, the suspect volunteered for a test where he was interviewed by the agent in ways that suggested she had more insight regarding the truth in his heart. She was practicing pop psychology with the atmosphere of law enforcement. They were in effect interviewing him without a lawyer and pressuring him to confess to crimes under tremendous pressure. Granted, he was a horrible human being who happened to be guilty, but what if the next person being interviewed by the agents was an innocent person? As Mike Boudet described the polygraph expert, she was like a mongoose strategically catching a cobra. How nice. That mongoose would also be catching innocent animals using the same set of skills and loose ethics.  Protections for suspects are designed for both the innocent and the guilty. Sword and Scale seems to not realize this as the host colorfully condemned the rather easy target.

The purpose of these shows is not to inform the public or to promote justice. Their purpose is to entertain and sell more subscriptions to Blue Apron or Dollar Shave Club. And really, what’s the attraction that these shows are working on? What is the bait with which they are attracting viewers and convincing them to push subscribe on their phones? Is it the workings of the law and justice, or is it just the scandalous details of the crime? Is it the feeling of superiority after the downfall of the perpetrators? There can be a fine line between good shows and exploitative garbage, and I really don’t have a problem with true crime shows or even fictional crime dramas, but when it lingers on gory details, unnecessary subjective interpretation, and disregard for the implications of the actions of law enforcement, then it becomes really, really problematic. Instead of the detailed investigation of crimes like Sarah Koenig’s Serial, you get the shoddy analysis and proselytization of Nancy Grace. It makes for poorer, ill-informed citizens.

And of course, there are still real victims of these crimes. Victims whose loved-ones just got delightedly reminded again of how the victims were killed and the state they were in when they were found.