[Oe List ...] A local professor's experience with McCain

Tue Sep 30 12:07:19 EDT 2008

Randy,

Your statement is really interesting.  Where is the list and what's the url?
That way we might follow up on it.

Ed

On Mon, Sep 29, 2008 at 12:15 PM, R Williams <rcwmbw at yahoo.com> wrote:

> Ruth,
>
> Mary-Kay Gamel, or at least someone using her name, has posted to another
> list that she did not author this statement, knows nothing about it and has
> never been to Turtle Island.
>
> Randy
>
> --- On *Mon, 9/29/08, Ruth Landmann <tddynewf at cruzio.com>* wrote:
>
> From: Ruth Landmann <tddynewf at cruzio.com>
> Subject: [Oe List ...] A local professor's experience with McCain
> To: "Order Ecumenical Community" <oe at wedgeblade.net>
> Date: Monday, September 29, 2008, 9:55 AM
>
>
>  Hi Everyone,
>
>         The following came from a friend of mine...
>
> Ruth
>
>
> Hello:
> This was written by a former professor of mine from UCSC. She teaches
> Classical Literature. She's a calm, wise person. She's real. This is not a
> chain letter. You can email her if you'd like.
>
>
> Linden
>
> I realize I am preaching to the choir, but in the hopes that you know
> anyone on the fence, here goes:
>
> MY HOLIDAY WITH JOHN McCAIN
>
> It was just before John McCain's last run at the presidential nomination in
> 2000 that my husband and I vacationed in Turtle Island in Fiji with John
> McCain, Cindy, and their children, including Bridget (their adopted
> Bangladeshi child).
> It was not our intention, but it was our misfortune to be in close quarters
> with John McCain for almost a week, since Turtle Island has a small number
> of bungalows and their focus on communal meals force all vacationers who are
> there at the same time to get to know each other intimately.
> He arrived at our first group meal and started reading quotes from a pile
> of William Faulkner books with a forest of Post-Its sticking out of them. As
> an English Literature major myself, my first thought was "if he likes this
> so much, why hasn't he memorized any of this yet?" I soon realized that
> McCain actually thought we had come on vacation to be a volunteer audience
> for his "readings" which then became a regular part of each meal. Out of
> politeness, none of the vacationers initially protested at this intrusion
> into their blissful holiday, but people's buttons definitely got pushed as
> the readings continued day after day.
> Unfortunately this was not his only contribution to our mealtime
> entertainment. He waxed on during one meal about how Indo-Chine women had
> the best figures and that our American corn-fed women just couldn't meet up
> to this standard. He also made it a point that all of us should stop Cindy
> from having dessert as her weight was too high and made a few comments to
> Amy, the 25 year old wife of the honeymooning couple from Nebraska that she
> should eat less as she needed to lose weight.
> McCain's appreciation of the beauty of Asian women was so great that David
> the American economist had to move his Thai wife to the other side of the
> table from McCain as McCain kept aggressively flirting with and touching
> her.
> Needless to say I was irritated at his large ego and his rude behavior
> towards his wife and other women, but decided he must have some redeeming
> qualities as he had adopted a handicapped child from Bangladesh. I asked him
> about this one day, and his response was shocking: "Oh, that was Cindy's
> idea â*" I didn't have anything to do with it. She just went and adopted
> this thing without even asking me. You can't imagine how people stare when I
> wheel this ugly, black thing around in a shopping cart in Arizona . No, it
> wasn't my idea at all."
> I actively avoided McCain after that, but unfortunately one day he engaged
> me in a political discussion which soon got us on the topic of the active US
> bombing of Iraq at that time. I was shocked when he said, "If I was in
> charge, I would nuke Iraq to teach them a lesson". Given McCain's personal
> experience with the horrors of war, I had expected a more balanced point of
> view. I commented on the tragic consequences of the nuclear attacks on Japan
> during WWII â*"- but no, he was not to be dissuaded. He went on to say that
> if it was up to him he would have dropped many more nuclear bombs on Japan.
> I rapidly extricated myself from this conversation as I could tell that his
> experience being tortured as a POW didn't seem to have mellowed out his
> perspective, but rather had made him more aggressive and vengeful towards
> the world.
> My final encounter with McCain was on the morning that he was leaving
> Turtle Island. Amy and I were happily eating pancakes when McCain arrived
> and told Amy that she shouldn't be having pancakes because she needed to
> lose weight. Amy burst into tears at this abusive comment. I felt fiercely
> protective of Amy and immediately turned to McCain and told him to leave her
> alone. He became very angry and abusive towards me, and said, "Don't you
> know who I am." I looked him in the face and said, "Yes, you are the biggest
> asshole I have ever met" and headed back to my cabin. I am happy to say that
> later that day when I arrived at lunch I was given a standing ovation by all
> the guests for having stood up to McCain's bullying.
>
> Although I have shared my McCain story informally with friends, this is the
> first time I am making this public. I almost did so in 2000, when McCain
> first announced his bid for the Republican nomination, but it soon became
> apparent that George Bush was the shoo-in candidate and so I did not act
> then. However, now that there is a very real possibility that McCain could
> be elected as our next president, I feel it is my duty as an American
> citizen to share this story. I can't imagine a more scary outcome for
> America than that this abusive, aggressive man should lead our nation. I
> have observed him in intimate surroundings as he really is, not how the
> media portrays him to be. If his attitudes toward women and his treatment of
> his own family are even a small indicator of his real personality, then I
> shudder to think what will happen to America were he to be elected as our
> President.
> --
> Mary-Kay Gamel
> Professor of Classics, Comparative Literature, and Theater Arts
> Cowell College
> University of California, Santa Cruz
> Santa Cruz, California 95064
> 831-459-2381 (office); 831-429-8803 (home)
> mkgamel at ucsc.edu
>
> =
>
> --
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
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