You might look at how the recent controversies over Gaughan are being

handled.

It's not exactly the same, but the controversy is about how you handle a historically-highly-regarded artist about whom shocking revelations become known, and how you adjust or deal with the legacy going forward. I don't know if this is helpful, but it might give you some ideas.

Why Is the Art World Divided over Gauguin’s Legacy?
https://www.artsy.net/article/artsy-editorial-art-divided-gauguins-legacy

Is It Time Gauguin Got Canceled?
Museums are reassessing the legacy of an artist who had sex with teenage girls and called the Polynesian people he painted “savages.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/18/arts/design/gauguin-national-gallery-london.html

More than a century after his death, has the time finally come to cancel Gauguin?
From entering sexual relationships with young girls, to using his status as a westerner to exploit, Paul Gauguin is a controversial figure. So why do we keep making excuses, Farah Nayeri asks

https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/paul-gauguin-national-gallery-me-too-art-harassment-assault-a9216801.html

‘Formal Analysis Cannot Occlude the Real Issues’: How Curators Are Addressing Gauguin’s Dark Side in a New Show at the National Gallery in London
Art museums are grappling with how to display great works by artists who abused their models.

https://news.artnet.com/exhibitions/gauguin-metoo-national-gallery-1672810

Sorry this reply is so late, but I just noticed your post.

Good luck with your book!

I think Biden should be very careful how he handles the MBS matters.

The more I learn about Saudi Arabia, the more I understand why this issue--seemingly simple--is actually so much more complicated than Russia, Myanmar or some other bad situations.

The key to peace in the Middle East rests on the shoulders of this arrogant, impulsive but not-yet-lost 35-year-old Crown Prince. It's really important Western Democracies don't drive him into the embrace of China, Russia or other dangerous influences.

He's like a delinquent kid that badly needs a mentor to save him from turning into a career-criminal.

MBS is a visionary, but a thin-skinned one with a penchant for idiotic and unnecessary self-destruction and, at least in a few instances, outright violence.

Tenet and The Dissident

I'm just finally getting back to watching movies after four years of really not seeing many.

The Dissident is the acclaimed documentary about the events surrounding the murder of Jamal Khashoggi. Chilling and powerful. Really gives you a sense of who Khashoggi was. Also, very well produced. I've seen critics say that it is too long, but for me it really flew by quickly.

Tenet is quite an amazing film. The first thing I knew when it was over is that I'd have to watch it again. It grapples with some fascinating ideas about theoretical physics and time travel. It is a race-against-time action film about an effort to prevent armageddon. It lacks the character development found in prior Christopher Nolan films but has some astonishing scenes. The plot is full of paradoxes--if you think too much about the science of Tenet you find your mind going round and round in circles trying to resolve unresolvable plot conflicts. But it's a wonderful diversion.

I streamed both on Amazon Prime--rented The Dissident but purchased Tenet.

Somewhat reminiscent of the Nikki Catsouras crash

18 year old "borrowed" her father's Porsche (without permission) while high on cocaine and crashed it at 100 MPH into a toll booth a few minutes later. She was instantly killed but did not take anyone else with her. Ghastly crash. Crime scene photos were leaked all over the internet. Family sued the leakers and won, but to this day--even with the help of Reputation Defender--they can't scrub the crash photos off the internet.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikki_Catsouras_photographs_controversy

Yeah, but...

74 million people voted to re-elect Trump after he basically killed a quarter of a million Americans through gross incompetence and wilful negligence.

Why would they do that?

Why would the voters in Texas be any different?

I don't understand it either.

Outstanding post.

I go around and around in circles in my mind trying to figure out how we combat this.

Ezra Klein's book Why We're Polarized is one of a few books to attempts to make sense of what is happening. Timothy Snyder and Anne Applebaum have also approached this from different angles. Cult experts like Steven Hassan and psychiatrists have tried to deal with this too. It all helps contribute to some kind of understanding.

Trump voters, and many other Republicans, make decisions that appear irrational to us, but from their perspective, this behavior is rational and in their self-interest. That's something that is difficult for most people to comprehend.

The collective, or cumulative, radicalization of the supporters and the RW media is self-perpetuating, and people like Klein believe it can only increase in our current political environment. The immediate positive feedback they give to each other makes it self-reinforcing. They shut any information that conflicts with their world view out.

From the perspective of the radicalized politician: there is nothing to be gained by obeying norms or behaving ethically in the current climate.

There is that most important question you pose: What do we do as a party to counter what they are doing?

The trap they've sprung is a trap they laid several decades ago.

I'm bookmarking your post because it asks so many of the questions that need to be asked and answered.

This has been a growing concern, at least since Brenton Tarrant's

mass murder in New Zealand. Jason Wilson at the Guardian may even have been writing about this before that horrendous incident.

JOHN MENADUE. The crazed Brendan (SIC) Tarrant did not operate in a vacuum.
By JOHN MENADUE | On 18 March 2019

You're instinct is right. He's not a true germaphobe.

It's something else.

There's a famous producer in Hollywood, and when you go to work for him the first thing you are told is "Don't look him in the eyes or you'll be fired." And he actually has fired assistants for looking him in the eyes, even just to say "Hi" in the hallway. It only applies to people beneath him, though.

I think it really is some strange notion of what makes him feel weak or exposed. And he hates to be touched. It really seems like an excuse not to have to engage with other human beings and risk the feeling of vulnerability during a human encounter.

Based on everything I've read I've concluded he isn't really a germaphobe, just

somebody who hates to be touched, not because of germs but for other psychological reasons.

And it's further validated by a chapter in this book I'm reading now called Blood and Oil: Mohammed Bin Salman's Ruthless Quest for Global Power about the preparation for Trump's visit to Saudi Arabia.

All the planning is only about how not to get Trump into a situation where he might look foolish, and the secondary concern is that he not be touched by a stranger. SA wanted to present him with a medal and a major concern was would he allow someone to put it around his neck. They finally reached a compromise where the medal could be put around his neck but that he wouldn't bow his head.

Not a word about avoiding germs, etc...

Germaphobia is an excuse he's used when needed to avoid touching or being touched, especially by people he doesn't know, or just generally to avoid situations that make him anxious.

Quite interesting