Dispatches from Vilnius

Lost in all the attention given Manson upon his death at 83, is the fate of Leslie Van Houten, who for the second year in a row has been granted parole but awaits a final decision by Gov. Jerry Brown.  Last year, he rescinded her parole. Like the other "Manson girls," Van Houten has spent virtually her entire adult life behind bars for committing murders orchestrated by Manson.  It was widely understood that the girls had been effectively brainwashed by the charismatic cult figure, but were held accountable for their own actions in a court of law.  She and Patricia Kerwinkel, who was denied parole , have each spent over 40 years in the California penal system, able to escape the death penalty thanks to a 1972 decision by the state supreme court, which declared capital punishment unconstitutional.  The other "Manson girl," Susan Atkins, died in prison in 2009. There were other Manson girls, notably Lynette "Squeaky" Fromme, who tried to kill Pres

Or Men Behaving Badly Our dear President had no problem attacking "Al Frankenstein" on twitter, but offered no words of condemnation for his buddy down in Alabama, Roy Moore.   Maybe it is as Trump says, the picture "speaks a thousand words," but so does an audio tape, in which Trump was caught admitting many of the same things to Billy Bush. Supposedly Al's groping was meant in jest, being a former comedian, but it wasn't taken that way by Leeann Tweeden, nor was the big wet one he planted on her at a USO tour in Afghanistan.  Al immediately apologized after Ms. Tweeden exposed him, something Trump has never really done.  The Artful Dodger minced words back on the campaign trail before trying once again to turn the issue to Bill Clinton's past indiscretions.  I suppose this is why Leeann is forgiving Al, but Trump's accusers are still waiting for their day in court. Even more interesting is a recent HuffPost/YouGov survey that found th

A few years back, Everyman's Library came out with a collection of Joan Didion's essays entitled We Tell Ourselves Stories in Order to Live .  Many of her essays were available on the Internet so I took a pass, but after watching the recent Netflix biography by her nephew Griffin Dunne the book is on my Christmas wishlist. It was touching documentary, as Dunne probed his aunt's private life, which he was privy to.  Joan had a way of finding the essence of a story that few journalists are able to do.  This was true of her early work in California as well as her later work in New York.  She was one of the few journalists to see that the boys accused of killing the Central Park jogger in 1989 were innocent, turning her famous essay into a mediation on race and privilege in New York.  It is one of the themes her nephew explores in the film. Decades earlier, Didion had captured the pulse of the hippie generation in LA, culminating in the murder of Sharon Tate.  Her Wh

or Covfefe Anyone? You know things are getting dicey if Sean Hannity issues an ultimatum to Roy Moore to come clean on the allegations that he propositioned teenagers while Assistant District Attorney of Etowah County, Alabama.  Sean had been one of the Ten Commandments Judge's staunchest defenders. but when the former judge's wife used a five-month old letter to show her husband still had the support of 53 pastors, even Hannity had to wonder what was going on here. Allegations broke last week when the Washington Post ran a story on the former judge's numerous solicitations to minors.  He was an assistant DA back then, but apparently liked the suffix DA so much he used it to sign a girl's yearbook .  The former judge tried to write it off as a smear campaign, but even his good friends at Breitbart were unable to refute the stories, leaving the judge to answer for himself.  Things went downhill from there .  Still, Sean was willing to buy the former judge'

The last stop on Trump's really big trip through Asia saw him in Manila for the ASEAN summit hosted by the Philippines.  For a guy who said "ixnay" to the Trans-Pacific Partnership, or TPP as it was called, it is easy to see why he was at great pains to participate in the group handshake among Southeast Asian leaders. It was a rough trip for the Donald, thirteen days all together, putting him in contact with a number of world leaders he probably had no idea existed before.  He was even forced to visit Vietnam, which he went out of his way to avoid as a young man.  Yet, here he was getting a hero's welcome .  God knows why Vietnamese should be so enthralled with Trump.  Maybe they are big Apprentice fans? Elsewhere, Trump is not so popular.  Only 17 per cent of South Koreans expressed confidence in his world leadership, as opposed to 88 per cent who were confident with Obama.  This is largely due to his handling of North Korea.  He was astonishingly quiet in

Say hello to Danica Roem, Virgina's newest House of Delegates member Maybe it took Trumpism to rattle Dems enough to get to the polls.  They turned up in big numbers in Virginia, New Jersey, Maine and cities across the country, where Democratic candidates won big.  It wasn't even close in the closely watched governor's election in Virginia.  The milquetoast Lt. Gov. Northam pummeled the insurgent Ed Gillespie, who went all in on Trumpism.  Not only that but Dems did extremely well in state assembly elections and are on the verge of taking back the House of Delegates.  They are only two seats short with five to be recounted. The most interesting race in Virginia was between Danica Roem and Bob Marshall, the incumbent Republican.  Marshall is an avowed homophobe who sponsored a "bathroom bill" in the assembly, only to lose to a transgender woman.  A record number women ran for office in Virginia and at least 25 Democratic women took assembly seats. Dona

Trump not so much Ivanka Trump told reporters she is ready to take over for her father should he decide to step down before his term is over.  President Trump offered no response to his daughter's strange announcement other than to say she would make an excellent president. This followed a number of odd comments by the President during his tour of Japan.  Earlier he had pleaded with Prime Minister Abe, whom he called President Abe, to build Japanese cars in America.  When told by PM Abe that Toyota produced over 2 million cars last year in North America, President Trump simply murmured, oh.  President Trump also said he was astonished by the number of countries in the world when addressing a banquet the first evening.  Who knew? Mr. Trump also seemed visibly agitated by the prospect of feeding goldfish, or koi as they are called in Japan.  He followed the Prime Minister in scattering a couple spoonfuls into the pond and then simply dumped the rest of the contents in

One of the things about living in America is that one mass killing quickly cancels out another.  It had been less than a week before Devin Kelley obliterated any memory of the New York truck attack by venting his rage on a rural church between LaVernia and Stockdale, Texas.   Our President was quick with prayers, but he isn't blaming Greg "Wheels" Abbott for allowing such a heinous crime to happen on his home turf, unlike his twitter attacks on Chuck Schumer last week.  Instead, he considers the Sutherland Springs church attack a " mental health problem ." It was also interesting the local police were slow to name Kelley, as if they wanted us to imagine for a moment it could be another ISIS attack.  After all, former Texas Governor Rick Perry had long been warning us of terrorists spilling over the Mexican border.  Turns out Devin Kelley is entirely homegrown and served in the military, but was court-martialled in 2012 for assaulting his wife and child

The White House has become a dysfunctional family sitcom, kind of like Homer Simpson in the Oval Office.  Trump's minions have tried their best to cover for him.  Gen. Kelly attacked Frederica Wilson's account of the phone call Trump had with Myeshia Johnson.  Sarah Huckabee defended Gen. Kelly in turn, telling us we have no right to question generals, as if they are the ultimate authority on all matters, including the Civil War .  But, according to the creator of Dilbert, Trump is more than capable of handling his own with his never-ending supply of " linguistic kill shots ." Scott Adams has arisen from nowhere to become an expert of sorts because he predicted Trump would "win bigly" with a probability of 98% back in November, claiming Nate Silver only gave the Donald a 2% chance.  For the record , Nate gave Trump a 28.6% chance of winning, which he got chastised for being too high.  No matter, Scott Adams used his best "persuasion" skills

Papa John is blaming $70 million in third quarter losses on the NFL.  He claims the anthem protests have cut into his business , and is now re-evaluating his sponsorship.  This isn't the first time Papa John has used controversial issues to explain quarterly losses.   However, his arguments are usually pretty thin, as Pizza Hut pointed out . Pizza has become the latest thing to be politicized in the Age of Trump, as Schnatter tries to once again leverage his business capital on a highly divisive issue.  I suppose he thinks he can court more customers from right wing conservatives.  However, this publicity stunt may cost him left wing liberals.  Little Caesars is being pitched as the liberal alternative to Papa Johns, when it was discovered that its owner, Mitch Ilitch, had been quietly paying Rosa Parks rent and supporting a number of other liberal causes all these years. Pizza is a staple of football games whether fresh or frozen.  DiGiornio has similarly said it has s

If I was a conspiracy theorist I would be jumping all over this track attack in New York City.  The timing couldn't be more suspicious -- one day after two indictments were handed down to Trump's former campaign manager, Paul Manafort, and an associate of his, Rick Gates.  It's long been known that Manafort had ties to Russia, notably in advising former Ukranian President Yanukovych, who was supported by the Kremlin.  In fact, it was this money trail that tipped off investigators, as Manafort never reported the millions he had received in payments from Yanukovych as an " image consultant ."   Not that they come as much of a surprise, but the indictments have put a lot of unwanted attention on the White House and what better than to create a little diversion to get persons to look the other way again.  Trump was quick to tweet on the truck attack, It's like something ripped out of the script of last season's Homeland , where a similar truck attack w