BARBARA'S TCHATZKAHS

With difficult state elections and a crucial military decision looming, President Barack Obama sat down with his wife Michelle last month to give an in-depth magazine interview about a subject that has hitherto not ranked highly on the White House political agenda — the state of the first couple’s marriage. The president used the occasion to complain that when he recently hopped aboard Air Force One to fly his wife to New York for dinner and a Broadway show, “people made it into a political issue”. Obama went on to insist that his marriage was “separate and apart from a lot of the silliness of Washington”. He then proceeded to discuss his romantic ups and downs in startling detail with a reporter from The New York Times Magazine. Publication of that unusually candid interview highlighted an intriguing contradiction that has begun to haunt the Obama White House. The president’s family has become one of his most valuable political assets. Yet the attempts by the Obamas to shield their pr...

Republishing some work of the late Kathy Krajco on Narcissism. This sounds like so many people I knew and politics as of late, it was well-worth a repost. Dissociation by Kathy Krajco A narcissist's "self absorption" is absorption in a false self. An external entity. His false image. This accounts for the strangest thing of all about malignant narcissists: they are as out of touch with themselves as they are with the rest of the world! All people can get out of touch with themselves and lose track of how they feel. This comes from being too intensely focused too much of the time. Especially with sedentary work. In this state, the brain learns to filter out sensation. One of the benefits of Eastern practices like Yoga and Tai Chi is that it helps us get back in touch with ourselves. What goes on in a narcissist is essentially the same thing, I suppose, but to a bizarre degree. How bizarre? Well, I'm afraid you'd have to see it to believe it, but here goes. One nar...