There are news reports that Anthony Weiner has contacted former staffers to ask them to come back to work for him as he prepares to run again for office, including a possible run for mayor of New York or public advocate. Weiner left office after repeatedly lying to his constituents, colleagues, and the media about sending nude pictures of himself to women and accusing people of hacking into this phone. Women stated that they felt harassed by the photos that were sent without their solicitation or consent.
This moves has been expected given Weiner’s $4.5 million campaign war chest . . . and an obviously narcissistic personality. If he runs, the public would pay him an additional $1.5 million.
Weiner, 47, reportedly wants to run while there is the opportunity for public matching funds, which are due to expire after the 2013 election.
Besides mayor, Weiner is reportedly looking at public advocate office with a $165,000-a-year salary as a way of “cleansing” his career. It would be an odd choice for a man who just recently lied repeatedly to government officials, voters, and friends while engaging in conduct viewed as sexual harassment by women receiving these pictures.
Source: N.Y. Post
Tony C, that Ghengis Khan principle? That’s why a whole TRIBE of good women could be perfectly viable with just a few men.
@Matt: Then that is even more implausible; Genghis Khan was a brutal warrior leader, and although I have no evidence from his culture specifically, based on other warrior cultures I would not expect him to get naked for sex. It is too vulnerable a state. Warrior kings like Genghis Khan do not disarm themselves. They do not get naked for bathing, or sex, or sleep, if they did it would be the perfect time for an assassination.
As a man that had sex with a new handful of women every day, probably without repeats, Genghis would not automatically trust his sexual partners, his skin-to-skin contact was probably minimal and limited to his hands and penis, and for the concubine it would be a one-shot suicide mission.
The prospect of a horse-riding accident sounds far more plausible; we see that frequently (in fact, the actor Christopher Reeve suffered a similar one, and likely would have died quickly without modern medical care).
Tony C.
The story I heard…the concubine had poison on her body.
@Matt: The historian I read quotes contemporaneous stories that Genghis Khan died when he was thrown from a horse; his horse stepped in a hole while on the run and broke its leg; in the subsequent rolling collapse of his horse, Genghis was killed. That may or may not have been in battle; legends differ, but I recall it sounded like the most plausible line to me. The stories of him being stabbed or poisoned by a concubine are almost certainly fiction; If I remember the history correctly their earliest recordings trace to a century or more after his death; and “historians” in the 1300s were not known for being scrupulous with the truth.
@Bron: I am really just channeling Roy Baumeister, the author of Is There Anything Good About Men? (How Cultures Flourish By Exploiting Men). So these are not my original ideas; although I have certainly adopted some of Roy’s ideas as better than my own. It is well worth reading.
Roy is the head of the social psychology graduate program at Florida State University.
Mike S. and Swarthmore,
you are both correct about Bachman. She has to be off the wall for McCain to attack her.
Tony C.,
With a harem of 3,000 women, I think Genghis Khan died of exhaustion!
Tony C.
Don’t talk to me about my supposed libido. You can speak for yourself. Genghis Khan was poisoned by one of his concubines.
@Matt: Actually, when one considers the likes of Chinese emperors, Genghis Khan and others, one man can have literally thousands of children by different wives; even a few hundred per year.
Contemporaneous reports say Genghis Khan’s harem was about 3000 women, that it was still growing at the time of his death, and he serviced several wives on a typical day. At that rate, it is not surprising that about 1/2 of 1% of the world population is descended from Genghis; and about 8% of Chinese.
As for this: What happens when you become middle-aged, and really don’t care?
Speak for yourself. If your libido has declined to the point of lost interest, you have (IMO) health issues and/or mental stress issues that should be addressed.
Tony C:
can you expand on those thoughts?
Tony C.
Why is that? Because men are expendable in the creation of the next generation, and women are not. Consider this simple question: Given a village of 500 men and 500 women, what is the difference in size of the next generation if they lose 90% of the MEN in battle, versus 90% of the WOMEN in battle? The answer to that question is why most cultures throughout history have treated women so much differently than men; because (reproductively speaking) men are expendable and women are not.
You do not necessarily get to breed; by DNA studies our female ancestors outnumber our male ancestors by two to one. That sounds counter-intuitive, but what it means is that (historically) maybe 80% of female adults reproduced, but their babies were fathered by only about 40% of the available male adults. The other male adults died without reproducing; probably while unsuccessfully competing for the resources that would have let them win a female.
==================
Good point. One male can easily keep at least six females properly serviced. What happens when you become middle-aged, and really don’t care? Where are the girls going to get their resources then. They want to continue thinking it matters, but it doesn’t. After they’re forty, they have to work for it. After they’re thirty, they start worrying about it.
Anthropology is what it is. The girls get it when they’re young. After that they don’t get it any more. Why do 24 year old girls hate 18 year old girls?
http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-pn-mccain-sinister-attacks-on-clinton-aide-huma-abedin-must-stop-20120718,0,2521198.story
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/07/18/1111358/-Bachmann-Other-GOP-No-Names-Attack-Muslim-American-Huma-Abedin-McCain-Aide-Weiner-s-Wife Bachmann attacks Weiner’s wife.
SwM,
I think Bachman is the craziest person in mainstream politics. When you consider her competition that is quite an accomplishment.
Bron said: He also has an over inflated sense of himself, who in their right mind sends a picture like that to women they barely know?
Politicians who have been given a sense of entitlement because theyre politicians.
@Bron: Since it is MY hypothetical cop, he is doing whatever I SAY he is doing, and thinking whatever I SAY he is thinking. What I SAY he is doing is two pronged; he is accepting bribes to look the other way on crimes he cares nothing about, but will put himself in the line of fire to prevent children from coming to harm. What I SAY he is thinking is that he would frame or even invent an excuse to kill a pedophile or drug trafficker or sex slaver, BECAUSE he cares about children more than adults.
As always, you are so fixated on your binary monotone thinking you have no clue as to how the human mind really works, even your own.
If ifs and buts were candy and nuts oh what a party we could have.
People have rationalized all sorts of bad actions throughout history.
Now maybe if the cop was shaking down the mafia to give to an orphanage you have a point. But if he is shaking down a person guilty of a traffic violation and gives half to an orphanage, he is rationalizing his actions.
@Bron: No we aren’t, we are talking about the original subject, which is whether a bad person can do something good out of a belief in humanity and kindness. A person that takes bribes and frames people he thinks are crooks is a bad guy; but that badness does not have to infuse him to the core, the same guy can think children are defenseless innocents. What if the people he is framing for crimes are people he believes harmed children? What if he donates half of the bribes he takes to a children’s shelter? What if he thinks the bribes he takes, for overlooking minor transgressions he does not believe caused any harm or should not be against the law in the first place (like, say, prostitution), are his rightful pay for risking his life protecting others — which he really does when children are in danger?
People are not as simplistically parsed as you think.
‘Bring both Weiner and Spitzer back’ that sounds good to me. However, I would propose they first spend some time in rehabilitation and work on their ‘sexual urge’ outside their marriage; a tall order no doubt?
@Matt: If you are talking about the “expendable male” hypothesis (detailed by Roy Baumeister) then males do not get to breed unless they earn it. That is also reflected in reality; even in today’s world a much larger percentage of females will leave descendants than the percentage of males that leave descendants; and in most cultures (including ours) males have to win females, not vice versa.
As Baumeister points out, throughout history we have countless tales of MEN getting together to form an army, build a ship, or otherwise risk their lives to make their fortunes, but virtually no tales of WOMEN doing that. That is because women do not need a fortune to win a mate, their mates need fortunes to win them.
Why is that? Because men are expendable in the creation of the next generation, and women are not. Consider this simple question: Given a village of 500 men and 500 women, what is the difference in size of the next generation if they lose 90% of the MEN in battle, versus 90% of the WOMEN in battle? The answer to that question is why most cultures throughout history have treated women so much differently than men; because (reproductively speaking) men are expendable and women are not.
You do not necessarily get to breed; by DNA studies our female ancestors outnumber our male ancestors by two to one. That sounds counter-intuitive, but what it means is that (historically) maybe 80% of female adults reproduced, but their babies were fathered by only about 40% of the available male adults. The other male adults died without reproducing; probably while unsuccessfully competing for the resources that would have let them win a female.
Tony C:
We arent talking about warriors but about someone who takes a bribe and frames people. No honor is no honor.