Andy Warhol and Grace Jones attending Maria Shriver and Arnold Schwarzenegger's wedding in Hyannis on  April 26, 1986. 

JFK and Jackie with brother-in-law Sargent Shriver at the Joseph P Kennedy Jr Foundation International Awards Dinner on December 6, 1962

Lee Radziwill (wearing Armani), Richard Meier, Maria Shriver, Eunice Kennedy Shriver, Sargent Shriver, Caroline Kennedy Schlossberg (wearing Carolina Herrera), Jean Kennedy Smith, Victoria Reggie Kennedy, Ted Kennedy and Patricia Kennedy Lawford, at the Metropolitan Museum's Costume Institute Gala Exhibition of “Jacqueline Kennedy: The White House Years” at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City on April 23, 2001.

Say what you will about Lionel Shriver, she wrote a book about how if she ever had a kid, he’d be a budding mass murderer devoid of the capacity to feel love or happiness and so she never had kids, and I will always respect that.

On Wednesday, March 15, I’ll be joining my friend Maria Shriver for an intimate conversation over video on #TheSundayPaper. You can join us too… visit the link below. Hope to see you there.

The Kennedy siblings with the newlyweds. Front row: Bobby, Jackie and Jack; back row: Pat, Ted, Eunice and Jean.

“It has been said, 'time heals all wounds.' I do not agree. The wounds remain. In time, the mind, protecting its sanity, covers them with scar tissue and the pain lessens. But it is never gone."

- Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy

Strychnine "Strix" Shriver, a gerblin witch i made for a pathfinder game (+ his beloved fruitbat familiar, Rabies). he got bit by a nosferatu on a bad grave-robbing gig and hasn't quite been the same since

by Lionel Shriver

Another day, another opportunity for huffy, hypocritical “progressive” posturing. PEN America has now been forced to cancel its World Voices literary festival in New York and L.A., on the heels of also canceling its 2024 awards ceremony. Too many authors had withdrawn from both events to make going ahead with staging either practicable. The reason for so many writers flouncing from these programs? PEN’s failure to publicly denounce Israel’s “genocide” in Gaza. But you had probably guessed the point of indignation already, because as of October 2023, the Anglosphere’s far left has neatly pivoted from the infantilization of black people to the Palestinian cause with the coordinated grace of a synchronized swimmer.

To clarify: the purpose of PEN is to defend freedom of speech and to protect writers from political oppression and persecution. It makes perfect sense, therefore, that a significant cadre of its membership would seek to stifle freedom of speech and engage in political oppression and persecution. Or: we’re all for free speech so long as you say what we tell you. These folks are athletes. It requires considerable intellectual acrobatics for Writers Against the War on Gaza to regard the shutting down of events to advance free expression as “a win for free expression.” Presumably, the fact that a number of withdrawals from both occasions were motivated by fear of being attacked by a mob of pro-Palestinian zealots is also “a win for free expression.” PEN itself stated its concern “about any circumstance in which writers tell us they feel shut down, or that speaking their minds bears too much risk.”

PEN is, by its nature, a big tent. It represents not only Muslim writers but Jewish ones too, some of whom might just support the existence of Israel, might just regard Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza as justified, and might just find alliance with genuinely genocidal terrorists whose unembarrassed aim is to wipe Israel and the Jewish people off the map as a teeny tiny bit obnoxious. While one PEN member decries the nonprofit’s “both-sidesing,” the truth is that PEN has no business taking a position on this issue whatsoever.

Unfortunately, the left has successfully installed the expectation that, regardless of their established purpose, all institutions—companies, museums, theaters, universities, charities, you name it—must proclaim their fealty to the “right” (which is to say left) position on a host of inflammatory issues of the day. This hyper-politicization of entities that ought sensibly to remain politically neutral has been systematically debauching everything from the UK’s National Trust to its NHS, from Anheuser-Busch to the Chicago Art Museum. First, all such outfits were required to fly Black Lives Matter flags, then garishly incoherent Pride flags, and now these banners have all to be swapped out for Palestinian flags, never mind what constituency or customer base might be alienated by this gratuitously partisan branding. Thus, an organization established for the defense of free speech of every sort—including the overtly Zionist kind—is necessarily obliged to openly advocate for Hamas, a murderous, cheerfully antisemitic cult whose interest in free speech on its home turf would fit in a thimble.

Of course, PEN’s membership has form when it comes to hypocrisy. In 2015, under armed security, PEN awarded its Freedom of Expression Courage Award to the satirical French magazine Charlie Hebdo. Six writers withdrew from participating in the proceedings to protest the magazine’s ostensibly offensive printing of cartoons that depicted Muhammad. Yet funnily enough, what your average normal person found offensive was the vicious massacre of 12 of the publication’s employees, most of them journalists, for neglecting to adhere to one religion’s hysterical blasphemy laws in a secular country that famously celebrates liberté. Yet over 200 writers—including, to my astonishment, the likes of Joyce Carol Oates—signed an open letter to PEN criticizing the Charlie Hebdo award. For these authors, defense of free speech, promotion of tolerance, and opposition to violent political oppression—the very purpose of PEN—counted for nothing when weighed against any injury to the delicate feelings of fundamentalist Muslims.

Much has been written about the unholy, and in some ways, hilarious alliance developing between the progressive left and Islam (Lesbians for Palestine, etc.). But for Western writers to embrace a restrictive, prescriptive, and stifling culture isn’t merely ironic or comical; it’s self-defeating. One needn’t consult a professor of Middle Eastern studies to conclude that these fair-weather friends in Gaza may welcome useful idiocy, but the permissive ethos of the Anglo left is diametrically at odds with despotic Islamic theology. Moreover, for American writers to express increasingly shrill and little-disguised hostility to Jews is to disavow a substantial chunk of the country’s distinguished literary canon: Philip Roth, Saul Bellow, Isaac Bashevis Singer, Bernard Malamud, and Elie Wiesel just for starters.

But then, the past 15 years have demonstrated with depressing clarity that writers, along with artists of every stripe, aren’t special. Although our occupation is more at risk from censorship than most, we’re all too capable of perversely embracing suppressive viewpoints that violate our own interest. We’re paid not only to write but to think, yet we don’t think; we listen keenly for whatever tune is playing in our fellow travelers’ AirPods and whistle along. Apparently, we’re no more creative than the average bear, and as soon as the memo goes out, we’ll chant along with the kiddies camped at Columbia University, “from the river to the sea!” whatever that means. We’ll obediently switch out one cause for another whenever we’re told, as nimbly as using “find and replace” in Microsoft Word.

We’re cowards, conformists, and copycats. Real freedom of expression is too scary; we’d rather hide in a crowd whose keffiyeh-masked members all shout the same thing. PEN has a laudable history of advocating for writers who’ve been persecuted for their opinions in repressive polities—polities much like the contemporary United States. But too many of its members would have the nonprofit corrupt its global mission to protect free speech across the board so long as they can bully its leadership into pointless partisan posturing for progressives’ acrid flavor of the month.

You know, I was re-reading We Need To Talk About Kevin lately and for some reason I got some thoughts about Aizen from it.

But there's this whole thing in Kevin where it talks about how Kevin's father Franklin didn't really love Kevin - he loved the idea of Kevin. He fell for the fabricated version Kevin put on, because it embodied his idealised notions of Fatherhood and America and bringing up the next generation of upstanding American citizens and stuff, and Kevin never reciprocated any affection for Franklin because he knew Franklin only cared for a person Kevin was pretending to be, not the real Kevin he showed to his mother Eva. Eva was an awful parent and Kevin knew he was unwanted, but at least Eva was honest - the fact Kevin has this intrinsic bond with Eva despite (or perhaps because of) their mutual dislike is so interesting.

Anyway, but that lead me to think about Aizen and his relationship with Hinamori. Because we know Aizen is incredibly callous with other people because they are pawns in his eyes and he's never been able to connect with others because of the immense power he was born with. But why does he seem to have it out for Hinamori (and Hitsugaya) in particular? You'd think he'd at least have some tolerance for Hinamori, the girl who was utterly, slavishly devoted to Aizen above everyone else, who continued to believe in him even after he showed his true face and abandoned Soul Society, and made a point of betraying her in a particularly cruel way.

BUT, maybe that's exactly why Aizen seems to hate Hinamori especially. Because she fell in love with the kindly Captain Aizen, who by Aizen's own admission, didn't exist. He was a cultivated illusion he wore to keep everyone else in the dark, to be beneath suspicion while Gin drew the accusing finger by being...well, Gin. And so Hinamori didn't really love Aizen, she loved who he was pretending to be. An idealised image of the perfect Captain, on the level of Ukitake with his level of goodness and kindness...and so, did Aizen similarly resent Hinamori for being so easily duped by this obvious fake? For being loyal to an idea, not a real person? Maybe he knew that if he'd shown his true face to Hinamori, all her loyalty and devotion wouldn't have lasted, even though Aizen considers his true self to be the perfection. Perhaps he goes out of his way to break Hinamori because he resents her for being a reminder that, as powerful as he is, the real Aizen is not, and never has been, truly loved.

President Kennedy with his daughter Caroline and niece Maria

The Kennedys in England - c. 1938

L to R: Eunice, Jack, Rosemary, Jean, Joe Sr, Ted, Rose, Joe Jr, Pat, Bobby, Kick

I hate the Kennedy family. I know they're a big deal in US politics, but they're almost all awful people. Let's discuss:

Family Patriarch Joseph Sr was an antisemitic man who wanted to compromise with Hitler. He was also a defeatist and very pessimistic. After like 1 year in England, he was convinced that the Nazis would win and that "democracy was finished in Britain". Quite a stellar man, no?

Then there's the story of how he gave one of his teen daughters a lobotomy because she had an intellectual disability. I'm not kidding. Rosemary Kennedy was given a lobotomy and shuffled off to a home, all because her dad thought she wasn't good enough.

Not like some of the kids were much better. JFK was a womanizer who constantly slept around on his wife. Joseph Jr died at 29, but that's a good thing. He was the oldest of the kids, and he openly praised Hitler and Eugenics. RFK cheated as much as JFK, and his son is now a nut who claims vaccines cause autism.

Finally, their youngest kid was Ted. Ted Kennedy also sucked. I know he died of Brain Cancer like my mom did, but I'm calling it as I see it. Ted Kennedy was drunk and drove and off a bridge. He had another passenger with him: 28 year old Mary Jo Kopechne. Ted Kennedy swam out of the car to safety, but went back to his hotel and slept soundly as she drowned. He never bothered to rescue her. And he did all this while his wife was pregnant! What a sleazy man.

The only Kennedy branch I respect are the Shrivers. Eunice Kennedy-Shriver was the founder of the Special Olympics. She was also the closest to Rosemary before the lobotomy. Eunice was the best of the lot. Besides Eunice and Rosemary, the rest of the family can go to hell for all I care. America's worst dynasty. A bunch of sleazy people in that family.