So, What's News? 6.25.23

Tragedy & Triumph, "Heart-Balm" &... HUH?

First summer greetings, with a Sampler edition from across the news-scape for the first time in awhile.

As the title and illustration suggest, there’s enormous range of content, scope and vastly varying emotional tone with news and cultural-front items in focus today.

Some of these seemed to arrive together. Or news items appeared just after chance observations, a dream snippet or other nudge from the unconscious/psyche — all quirky pairs of interest through newShrink lenses. Brian Klaas, British political professor and writer of The Garden of Forking Paths on Substack, has a description I like for what sounds like a similar process:

“Take what you know, and introduce it to something you don’t.”

Now, thanks to a happy detour at writing time, with emphasis on the more gnarly and complex, some headlines briefly highlighted today may have more discussion revisited in weeks ahead.

That’s for a welcome reason: An impromptu weekend visit here with grand Miz E! The hope is to catch a break in this soggiest-weather-ever start to the summer lake season she loves… in the lake.

Headlines and links…

First up, the horrible, haunting news confirmed Thursday afternoon (pictured at top left):

# 1. Titanic submersible imploded, killing all aboard, U.S. Coast Guard says

(The Washington Post)

Stockton Rush, Pilot of the Titan Submersible, Declared Dead at 61 (The New York Times)

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and triumph:

# 2. Opening the IAAM… “I AM!”

Here is a well-timed follow to Charlottesville Black history-immersion a couple of weeks ago (“We hold these truths” newShrink 6.11.23.) The IAAM (reportedly pronounced “I AM”) is definitely on the short wish-list for next trips. I’m realizing there’s a lot to catch up on in re-imagined, newly inclusive historic Charleston that I haven’t experienced during my long spell of west-coast study pilgrimages.

These are first two pieces in a guided visual tour produced by the excellent team at Charlotte’s NPR affiliate WFAE, for All Things Considered:

Part I: New International African American Museum at Gadsen Wharf point-of-entry honors journey of Black people from slavery to present day

Part II: Exploring the galleries, Gullah Geechee culture at the new International African American Museum

The I AM website is interactive, engaging and stunning as well.

History Comes Alive: To Honor the Untold Stories of the African American Journey at one of our Country’s Most Sacred Sites (https://iaamuseum.org.)

Here’s a look from the broader perspective of the past 40 or 50 years’ transition in Charleston.

Former slave trade capital of North America reckons with its past as cultural sites set the record straight. (National Geographic).

“Slavers confined those who survived the passage to various warehouses and slave markets until selling them to the highest bidder. Historians estimate that more than 90 percent of all African Americans can trace at least one ancestor to the Charleston area and Gadsden Wharf point-of-entry.”

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Outings

The following split-screen visual — one “blue,” one “red” — depicts two of the week’s high-profile stories of politics, power, influence, and very human lives of some very public personas. The two cases, and next two news-items about them, offer multiple illustrations and examples for newShrink examination — some here, others in weeks ahead as things unfold.

The Hunter Biden story and exhaustive multi-faceted investigations have been around and well-reported for years since early in the Trump administration. This will surely continue. (Hunter Biden, it should be noted, also is not and never has been an elected official accountable to voters and public in the same way as those who are.) Keeping that in mind, his story, and its obvious links to his President-father and family, bears continued coverage and newShrink focus. Backlash from Republican politicians, Trump supporters and particularly vocal conspiracy-theorists will be noted and addressed over time as results and outcomes in his legal case proceed.

# 3. Hunter Biden reaches deal to plead guilty in tax, gun case

(The Washington Post)

“Hunter Biden, President Biden's son, was investigated by U.S. Attorney David Weiss of Delaware, a prosecutor-holdover from the Trump administration.”

The deal likely resolves Hunter Biden’s federal investigation without prison time. (The New York Times)

Here is a solid factual summary.

Hunter Biden: What to know about the investigations into him. (Time)

On the Hunter Biden personal front, for those with access, the unvarnished 2019 New Yorker profile below provides a painfully candid account detailing but not limited to his intense and repeated bouts and battles with drug abuse and recovery. Both the horrific ugliness and the open-eyed father- and parental-love in that family are astonishing, heart-wrenching.

Will Hunter Biden Jeopardize His Father’s Campaign? (The New Yorker profile, 2019)

“Joe Biden’s son is under scrutiny for his business dealings and tumultuous personal life.”

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New, and warranting deep, wide scrutiny given his immense political power and increasing influence, is NC House Speaker Tim Moore (at right above, as well as figuratively). He now faces an alienation-of-affection lawsuit that has grabbed regional and national attention. All three parties in the suit are actively involved in state Republican politics, government and jobs.

From newShrink perspectives, perhaps not surprisingly my most intense first response and interest in this story and case are from my psychotherapy practice with individual adults and couples over the past decade and a half. The depth psychology/soul aspects and the case as news, politics and history will likely surface on this one at some point as well.

Salaciously detailed and colorful, the lawuit against Moore is irresistibly lampoon-worthy — in many of the proverbial “hoist with his own petard” kinds of ways. By Monday night #Biscuitville was widely trending in social- and news-media comments and spoofed from talk shows to comedy-satire stages. (Pictured in the lede illustration above, the breakfast spot was site of a meeting between plaintiff and defendant described in the lawsuit.)

Yet the Moore case shouldn’t be ignored or dismissed with an eye-roll, etiher. It’s casting light on dubious NC distinctions: We’re one of only 6 US states with laws still on the books that define and treat marital love and adult sex as property that’s owned and can be stolen, bought, bartered — or, when all else fails, coerced. And unlike with significant common-sense gun-safety laws and waiting periods — of which the state enacts few to none —before granting a divorce NC requires a year-long waiting period, with spouses living in proven, fully separate residences. Even when couples can afford separate residences this creates a year of still-married/going-through-the motions/legal-and-financial limbo. This quite predictably and often becomes problematic, contentious, litigious and even dangerous — especially in the many, if not most, cases where one spouse wants separation and divorce while the other does not and resists it.

If this sounds like an inside-North Carolina issue and you live elswehere, be aware that red-state legislatures from Louisiana to the mid- and far west are seeking new so-called “respect for marriage” laws and restrictions that look a lot like these. (It’s rhetoric similar to “respect for parental choice in education” that looks like not all parents, book bans, financially drained public schools and wars-on-woke.)

As for House Speaker Tim Moore himself, this is arguably the most- or second-most powerful, far-right NC Republican. He’s following what’s become a partisan playbook in legislatures across the country, in this precariously still-purple state. A raft of the state’s most draconian recent-years laws against women’s rights and autonomy, health care for children, voting rights, sexual and gender equality and even the infamous 2016 HB2 “bathroom bill” already have Moore’s name and sponsorship on them.

In just one day at midweek, even as Moore’s attention, interviews and political/media oxygen were consumed with the homewrecker lawsuit against him, he and the legislature still managed to wield its razor-thin supermajority to override four vetoes by Democratic Governor Roy Cooper. Among many others in the pipeline, these veto-override laws fall far short of representing the will of most NC voters. That’s the result of partisan gerrymandering (also spearheaded and championed by Moore).

The entire lawsuit, complete with photo “surveillance exhibits” that may be jarring to many, is readily accessible in news stories linked here. It’s worth a close read, especially if you’re in NC. As one story here notes, almost nobody who isn’t a lawyer (or, I would add, a therapist or marriage counselor) understands much if anything about how NC law regarding separation and divorce, as written, plays out in real people’s lives. Nor do they anticipate its inherent minefields, Catch 22-contradictions and ways it’s odd compared with almost all other states.

Here are various news items, editorials and related resources, presented in roughly chronological order as the news week unfolded.

# 4. “Alienation of affection” lawsuit filed against divorced NC House Speaker Tim Moore alleges three-year affair with married state employee

(NPR affiliate WFAE)

[Above article includes full text of lawsuit, including the “surveillance” photo exhibits.]

For some basic biography and background from various stories and resources publicly available, both plaintiff Scott Lassiter and his (by her public statement, estranged) wife Jamie Liles Lassiter (34) have BA and MA degrees in their respective fields of school administration (Scott) and Public Administration (Jamie). They apparently met as students at NC State. Both registered, active Republicans work in state jobs, she as executive director of the statewide conference of superior clerks of court and he as assistant principal in Wake County public middle schools. No children are mentioned in any available sources.

According to Scott’s Facebook and other public posts, his budding career in elected Republican politics as a Raleigh suburban town councilman stalled when he was forced to end his 2022 campaign for an NC legislature seat. Though most recent NC redistricting has strongly and controversially favored his own party, in this disctrict race he blames redistricting that favored Democrats for the failure.

By all available accounts Jamie Lassiter has been well-regarded and advanced as a leader, and apparently a bipartisan one given her roles with a Democratic Governor’s administration and a Republican legislature in charge of funding. No salary or financial information is public, but this looks very much like a two-career couple reliant on both incomes, their shared home likely a primary asset. Between this and COVID restrictions from 2020 off-and-on well into 2022, unless one or both has a trust fund not showing up anywhere it’s hard to picture their living in separate dwellings during that period (especially when only one wanted to).

Jamie Liles Lassiter: EA Morris Fellowship for Emerging Leaders (from eamorrisfellows.org) The Linked-In and other bios of her spouse, the plaintiff, are browsable online, too.

Some, but not comprehensive, highlights of how the law works:

Proof is needed in adultery lawsuit against NC Speaker Moore (The Charlotte Observer)

‘Homewrecker’ laws are bad, even if you dislike Tim Moore (Charlotte Observer editorial)

I may be missing something. But this second editorial below and news stories focused on the lawsuit’s claim the Speaker “traded sex for favors” seem like miscalculation of the relative levels of influence in both directions here. (I think this overestimates Jamie Lassiter’s political importance to powerful 51-year-old divorced Moore, and underestimates her sway as a sharp, attractive 34-year-old woman with whom he’d be engaging as part of each of their doing their jobs well.)

As for the suit’s claim that it was (urp) “group sex” Moore forced her to provide, could this be a bizarre exaggeration/misconstruing of what may be her coordinating and hosting the various meet-and-greet, bringing together clerks from around the state to meet, problem-solve and negotiate solutions etc., including with legislators? All of that is how government work as well as business of all kinds in jobs like hers gets done.

Otherwise, maybe even the mental picture has made it a bridge too far for my imagination. But whatever his private proclivities I have a difficult (not to mention unpleasant) time believing any such risk-of-exposure/delusion-of-power thrill could or would overrule the dominance of this guy’s passion for his own status and influence of all kinds (not just sexual power).

Lawsuit against NC House speaker raises questions (Charlotte Observer editorial)

In the following story, by midweek the Speaker was actively interviewing with selected journalists, and more than tweaking his narrative. By now the earlier allusions to “romantic” relationshup has morphed:

NC House Speaker Moore on sexual favors, affair lawsuit (Charlotte Observer)

“Moore said he didn’t want to share too many details because of the lawsuit, but confirmed a relationship from 2019 until December 2022, describing it as ‘what I would say, an on-again, off-again, very casual, nothing-consistent type of relationship, and of course all that time, fully understood that she was separated.’ Moore said that Liles Lassiter told him she was separated, and ‘they didn’t really get into the details” of how she left her husband.’

Well. Sir Galahad here at least gallantly stops short of referring to her as a periodic booty-call whose name he doesn’t quite recall. And, wow. This Clarence Darrow of a lawyer… a law-maker, at-times a blocker of reforms, of the very laws defining separation that are at issue here… He’s divorced since 2015, once “separated” himself not long ago so knows what that looks like in NC…. sees someone even “casually” for some three years — most of it during COVID isolation, restrictions, and people everywhere in forced lockdowns with each other (even those desperate not to be).

And he never once knows, or has reason to even ask, where the heck she lives, and with whom?

Right. Just the person to put in charge of our marriage, divorce, family and sexual-relationship laws.

By Thursday, among other things I was glad to see that the Raleigh TV news story below makes clear Jamie Liles Lassiter does have her own lawyer. I hope that means she also has her own therapist, not just this vaguely described religious and “couple-counselor” who very well, also inappropriately, may be Scott’s individual therapist too. Leaking of the apology letter by any side from couple therapy to a TV station….Blurry-at-best boundaries as to who is the therapist for whom… The overlaps and violations of basic professional ethics and standards here are so many and tangled it’s breathtaking.

A very good start to legitimate “respect for marriage” anywhere, regardless of political affiliation, would incentivize alignment and collaboration of domestic law mediators and marriage/couple therapists and counselors — with less or no such commandeering of the latter as hired guns for one warring side or the other.

Apology letter could be key evidence in alienation-of-affection case against NC House Speaker Tim Moore (WRAL TV News Raleigh)

“A former Apex town councilman claimed he was happily married until one of the state's most powerful elected leaders started pursuing his wife. A letter obtained by WRAL suggests marital turmoil, which could help Moore's defense. Moore, meanwhile, says he didn't abuse power.”

I’ve now absorbed the above WRAL TV story, Jamie Liles Lassiter’s firm public statement early in the week about her separation, that included separation agreement papers, and different accounts about the Lassiters as a public and socially intact married couple during the period. I now think it possible (and hope) that she has had legal counsel — perhaps also guidance from a therapist — for those past couple of “years” to which she so specifically (and voluntarily) refers.

I wouldn’t be surprised if a dated draft separation-agreement document even might exist somewhere in confidence with her lawyer, therapist or both — along with their guidance that she not present, execute it or make overt changes with her spouse unless/until she can afford to live separately and is ready and able to do so immediately. Under all circumstances, the couple’s apparent financial entanglement and quirky NC laws, it’s something I very well might have advised, myself, as therapist in that situation.

In any event, by therapeutic guidelines in a field quite “respectful” of marriage, one like this requiring enforcement by coercive law and vindictive spouse was already at demise-process stage 4 out of 4, regardless of the legal outcome here.

Here are various looks at the laws involved, both in NC and nationwide.

The Weird Law Underlying the Tim Moore Affair Case (The Assembly)

“House Speaker Tim Moore is facing a lawsuit over an alleged affair, but the claims are based on common-law torts most other states have tossed.”

America Makes It too Hard and Dangerous to Get Divorced (Time Magazine)

The Achy Breaky Heart-Balm Torts (University of Cincinnati Law Review)

Coda: The more things change…

As may be apparent, my practice has brought intimate familiarity, deeply rewarding work and often long-lasting engagement with versions of about every party and situation in this case (and a great number of reconciled/revived/better-than-ever ones too.) Some have been the sued and ultimately settled, the threatened with suit and the long-settled and still processing. T

There have been alienation/criminal conversation plaintiffs who have “won” gigantic sums publicly touted, but privately pyrrhic, paralyzing and in every way costly to them and everyone they care most about. Something I have never seen or experienced: One of these cases truly won.

I’m reminded now of some eons and professional chapters ago. In my 20- 30-something single newspaper-reporter years, I recall a couple of high-profile local divorces/ultimate remarriages where public targeting and alienation-of-affection type claims came into play from affluently supported estranged wives against professionally outstanding, highly effective and popular women in elected political offices. (Both survived and thrived professionally, and both relationships became decades-long enduring, and by all accounts deeply happy, marriages.)

Eerily prescient, a week ago on Father’s Day morning, a short dream snippet was a pleasant encounter and exchanged greetings with one of these women (a respected but peripheral friend I haven’t seen in a long while).

Over the decades since those cases, I know so many, many gifted and giving people who have devoted their time, love, passion, education, money and entire career lives as therapists, mediators, lawyers, political activists, social workers, writers, parents, teachers, ministers, friends, awake humans… to doing this stuff better.

Waking up Monday morning, in 2023, to a news-week like this one and a case like this is… infuriating, disheartening.

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Shifting gears and tone (at last!)…

Starting at top left, part of a pair:

# 5. Duke University launches free tuition for undergraduates who call the Carolinas home

(NPR affiliate WFAE)

Duke University to offer free tuition to NC, some SC students (Charlotte Observer)

This story seemed astonishing and piqued my curiosity in today’s environment of higher-education funding turmoil, closing of colleges and cultural trends toward devaluing quality advanced education.

The Duke story came just as we await the U.S. Supreme Court’s anticipated pivotal ruling by the end of next week involving my alma mater just up the road from Duke. That’ll be felt in UNC’s lighter-shade-of-blue Chapel Hill, and far beyond.

Ahead of Supreme Court affirmative action case ruling: Do Harvard, UNC discriminate? (USA Today)

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Here’s another pair. In search of more lighthearted fiction for reading too late at night now that summer’s here, I was led to this book by enthusiastic plugs by 6 or 7 women friends. All are far brainier than I, in fields from journalism and university academia to business and law, AND eclectic readers with a taste for the fun and funny as well. I’m not yet far enough in to know how I like this book. It does have the best-written dog character, ever.

# 6. Beneath Its Pink Cover, ‘Lessons in Chemistry’ Offers a Story About Power (NYT)

She Moved From the Chem Lab to the Kitchen, but Not by Choice (The New York Times book review)

In Bonnie Garmus’s debut novel, “Lessons in Chemistry,” a woman who has been banished to the home front turns it into a staging ground for a revolution.

In these book reviews of Chemistry, I’d noticed the references and author quotes about this very lively, readable feminist story that “had to” have a girly-pink/cute-meme cover. Driving in the car I was thinking about this, the fact the book’s so popular nationally and abroad that it’s being adapted as an Apple TV Plus series. I wondered if the TV version, too, would “have to” have the pink and the girly meme — and may have even said “WHY?” out loud.

That was when I stopped at a red light and looked up to see the Honda Odyssey minivan, mom and kids inside, and window sticker pictured above with the message “Just a Regular Mom Trying Not to Raise Liberals.” Maybe after “Huh?,” again I say, “Why?!” (And, “What do you say to explain this to your kids in that car?” I really don’t know.)

THEN, I notice, the girly-meme-image is basically the same as the one on the pink-covered feminist novel.

Huh?

In any case, I’d love your favorite recommendations for summer fiction reading, and they don’t all have to be heady, brainy or literary. Just whatever makes them summery to you.

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To the picture at right above…

# 7. Edward Steed’s “A Loveliness of Ladybugs”

(The New Yorker cover piece this week)

The artist discusses the beauty in variety and the lazy days of summer.

In the zoomed, unfiltered photo of this painting it is clear that every ladybug, painted separately, is slightly different with wonderful details.

But what delighted me about this is the discovery in the title: A group of ladybugs is a “loveliness” — as with a gaggle of geese, a murder of crows, etc. Just… lovely!

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I’ll leave you now with very wet grand Miz E now that summer’s officially arrived. Baptized at last!

And, that is all I have! Talk to you next week.

🦋💙 tish

•🌀🔵🔷🦋💙

… it is important that awake people be awake,
or a breaking line may discourage them back to sleep;
the signals we give — yes or no, or maybe —
should be clear: the darkness around us is deep.
— William Stafford, “A Ritual to Read to Each Other”