♥︎ Richard Nixon ♥︎

Richard Nixon is, in my opinion, one of the founding fathers of media. Not in the sense of engineering, but in the social performative and image sense. My interest in him developed when I was a teenager, though I was directionless in being able to learn more about him. I read a few books, but I couldn't seem to find what I was picking up on from him, but I understand it much better now. Nixon was the embodiment of the cultural-technological shift from radio and newspapers to image.

Of course, Nixon as an individual is a formidble person, almost alien-like in his relentless ambition and resiliency against public opinion and humiliation. There are few human beings I can think of, who possessed such expansive wisdom. His foreign policy, decision making, ability to predict unfolding events, plus his political and social intelligence make him a lightning bolt figure, who, I'm quite certain, will persist through the rest of history and human imagination for quite some time.

Kissinger was also really hot, and though Nixon wasn't physically the sexiest man, his intelligence and remarkable placement in the course of time; as the first president to be forced into being a spectacle-celebrity, makes him an infinite information resevoir for understanding human power and social organization in relation to image, media, and advanced technological communication. I'm currently getting back into him because I need to understand this shift in history better, and he remains the thoroughline between linguistic-based communication (radio, newspapers) and image-based communication: television, and therefore, the internet, too. His Aquarius moon in Dhanistha is very strong, and his wife also had, I think three Dhanistha placements. It is beyond any doubt that this couple spearheaded some sort of revolutionary human-technology relationship in a way that is unparalleled, even compared to the internet. Nixon embodies the disintegration of hierarchial governance into an atomized, privatized psychic enclosure. Plus, he was so funny, very strange, cunning... I just LOVE men who are so skillful in all the domains of what makes someone "human" that they literally seem to become extraterrestrial.

♥︎ Dick Cheney ♥︎

Dick Cheney isn't my usual type.

Though I doubt he would mind, I must admit that he is quite literally the antithesis of my "type." Generally, I go for men with dark, curly hair and dark eyes, but I didn't really have a choice when it came to falling for Cheney's bizarre, smirking snare.

I guess you could say that it all started... long ago... When the Soviets tried to take Afghanistan... but that was before I was born. On the other hand, did you know Dick Cheney was the US Secretary of Defense when I was born? Maybe I saw him on television as an infant, and somehow became enamored with him, only for parasocial love's charms to reveal themselves years later, due to Islamic terrorism and the September 11 attacks on the world trade center. Only time can tell, but it probably won't.

It wasn't until around 2017-2018 that I started seriously reflecting on the historical throughlines of the internet, terrorism, surveillance, and authoritarianism, and found Dick Cheney lurking in the shadows of it all. He even connects to Nixon (37), since Cheney became Assistant to the President, then Chief of Staff under Ford's (38) presidency.

On a personal level, the timing of this fixation was perfect. I was already in the initial stages of the obsession when my dad died in 2018, and Dick Cheney quickly consumed me, helping me to understand what had happened to my dad, and—strangely Freudian—acting as a guide through the grieving process.

My Dick Cheney fixation is probably the one I feel most social shame about. I know that for many people, it is repugnant and immoral to have a sense of sympathy, let alone, any romantic sentiment towards such a villanous and physically... unconventional... figure.

During the course of my obsession, I came to develop some sense of sympathy and mercy with regard to certain aspects of his political and moral-evilness, especially the desperation to effectively respond to the terrorist attacks of 9/11 (barring any conspiracies). Responding to violence in a balanced and humane manner is something utterly complex, not made any more simple by access to corporate power, commodities, such as oil, and the defense industry as economic lifeline.

Torture, waterboarding, enhanced interrogation, shooting his friend then making them apologize for it, telling a senator to go fuck themselves, getting a heart transplant... Dick Cheney is one of a kind, for better or for worse, and his unapologetic attitude towards immorality, often rationalized as virtuous or altruistic (from a neocon pov), makes him so endlessly interesting in terms of parochial defense and alturistic terrorism. The fact that he was a Vice President with such expaned executive power during such a critical time in the formation of the internet, as well as the war on terror, is enough to make even the most skeptical person pause and question if there exists some shadowy conspiracy... (the answer is yes: time is the conspiracy).

Dick Cheney is also someone I continually return to when I'm trying to understand the arc of history bending towards a privatized surveillance state that runs on for-profit, fully automated human sacrifice killing houses.

He and Alex Karp are tightly linked, too, in the sense that Palantir was created in response to 9/11, and in the sense that Palantir aims to prevent terrorism while respecting human rights, whereas, Dick Cheney seeks to prevent terrorism by any means necessary. Palantir even went so far as to use "Dick Cheney" to represent one side of the anti-terror spectrum that Palantir sought to avoid imitating.

In terms of conpiracies, one that I actually 100% believe, is that my Dick Cheney fixation primed me to fall in parasocial love with Alex Karp. ♥

♥︎ Moshe Dayan ♥︎

In an effort to learn more about the history of the Israel-Palestine conflict, I came across an extremely hot guy with an eye patch. Obviously, the eye patch makes him hotter, but when I found out that Moshe Dayan was an Israeli warfighter, Chief of Staff, then Israeli Defense Minister (Dick Cheney was also Secretary of Defense and Chief of Staff!), in addition to being what seems to be one of the greatest war generals, warriors, and possible peace negotiators of all time... I knew he had to go on this list. What's sexier than a guy who can negotiate decades of peace in a war torn geography, in addition to killing and fighting, then being an adulterer with such "bad taste" in women that even his wife is concerned? Omg... I NEED THAT! ♥

As this is my newest obsession, I can't say exactly how he is adding to the story of this overall fixation on men involved in terrorism-defense, but one thing I am very grateful for is that my interest in him is renewing my interest in Nixon and Kissinger, and helping me to understand the Israel-Palestine conflict through a more historical lens, rather than one from the amnesiac-present of the current news cycle.

Though he is really sexy, his political career and peace negotiations make him unbearably so. From my understanding, it seems that he was a unique mind capable of flexibility and concessions in a world where hardlining and dehumanization often take precedence. His role in fostering peace and ceasefires in such a volatile region is truly remarkable, especially given how things seem to have deteriorated since his position in the Israeli government. He is extremely important to the history of Israel, and I look to him to help inform my understanding of the relationships between Israel and its neighbors. General Dayan is an indispensably illuminating figure in an increasingly extreme world. Even for me, who has grown up with Al-Qaeda and ISIS, it can be easy to fall into extremist positions, and General Dayan is helping me to be (somewhat) more moderate and focus more on peace as defense rather than war as a peace strategy.

Politics aside, because why discuss them when there's a hot guy to talk about, Dayan's love affairs are something that linger in the memory of his existence almost (but, in my opinion, not quite) as viscerally as his military career. Some of his affair lover's went so far as to call Ruth (Moshe's wife) over the telephone to cry, while another even wrote scathing, accusatory letters to her.

From what I'm learning, Ruth Dayan was an exceptionally kind and altruistic, peace-loving woman, who worked to bridge ethnic differences well into her nineties. The fact Dayan was able to keep her for as long as he did makes him even sexier, though it is a tragic love story for her, too... Allegedly, they divorced due to the relationship feeling more like a prison of bodyguards and security, though Ruth has also admitted that the love had long died before the divorce. It is all too true and all too often, that charisma disappears at the breakfast table (something Ruth said about her marriage to Moshe). Sadly, however, Moshe was a Taurus, which means he and I wouldn't have ever work out, even for a one night stand... but wow, he is one of the sexiest men we have the privilege to appreciate! xo

♥︎ Xi Jinping ♥︎

Mildly obsessing over Xi Jinping was a phase I had between finding someone to truly fixate on. I had a light fixation on Vladimir Putin around 2008, but then I met my first husband in 2013, so was obsessed with him until the tail-end of the Obama administration, where I picked up on Xi Jinping to close out that wave. Putin sucks, though, and he never really got my attention, unlike Xi Jinping, who does have a genuine charm and strong cult of personality appeal.

In response to the liberal establishment of the Obama administration, I was compelled to seek out authoritarians, and Xi Jinping, with China's incredible economic ascension, was the perfect person to focus on to try and understand the changing world order. Unfortunately, so much information regarding him is, unsurprisingly, in Chinese, and much of the information I could find, at the time, was biased and warmongering, which is fine, but I wanted to understand Xi Jinping as an idea, and not just as a threat against the West. As one can imagine, this is still a problem, and arguably, has only increased since his incredible speech at the WEF conference in 2017.

One of my favorite terms, which I heard for the first time from Xi Jinping, though it has its historical roots in Confucianism, is known as Xiaokang, or the idea of a "moderately prosperous society in all respects." At the time, this idea was totally alien to my hyper-individualist mindset, I couldn't believe how different it compared to the meriotcratic, winner-takes-all approach to capitalism, and especially that a leader would espose such a thing. [I have not and will likely never read Marx or Lenin]. As time goes on, I find the ideas of Xiaokang to be amenable to environmental justice, in addition to securing a basic level of human decency and dignity for all.

One of my favorite terms, which I heard for the first time from Xi Jinping, though it has its historical roots in Confucianism, is known as Xiaokang, or the idea of a "moderately prosperous society in all respects." At the time, this idea was totally alien to my hyper-individualist mindset, I couldn't believe how different it compared to the meritocratic, winner-takes-all approach to capitalism, and especially that a leader would espouse such a thing. [I have not and will likely never read Marx or Lenin]. As time goes on, I find the ideas of Xiaokang to be amenable to environmental justice, in addition to securing a basic level of human comfort and dignity for all.

Xi Jinping is also a controversial figure, whose ability to portray a sweet, wise, loving paternalistic visage, while using trade, infrastructure, and manufacturing as weapons and methods of colonization, is irresistably sexy. His duality is probably one of the most attractive things about him. I definitely fear the day Xi Jinping is no longer General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party and I wonder what the future of the CCP's surveillance state will look like as private companies like Palantir make agreements with other defense contractors, and wage war directly; in places like Ukraine and Palestine. As much as we may not want to admit it, the truth is that whoever develops a technology sets the norms and precedents for that technology's use, and we need to be exceptionally attentive to how these automated killing machines are being developed. It's seriously like no one is concerned over the security threat of having hk Vision security cameras in medical clinics, BYD electric cars, 5G, plus China's dominance in pharmaceuticals, for example.. Alex Karp! Save us ♥

♥︎ Louis XV ♥︎

Louis XV... What a tragic figure! Some say that he was quite popular during his reign, while others diagree. We may never know how people felt during his time, due to his reputation being smeared after the French revolution, but we can say that his nickanme was Louis le bien-aimé (the beloved), or sometimes Louis le mal-aimé (unloved), depending...

Not initially believed to be destined for the throne, he ended up taking it at the young age of five after four deaths in his family: his great-grandfather, his father, and two of his brothers. Louis XV's mother, Marie Adélaïde, also died on 12 february 1712 (which just so happens to be my birthday), when he was only two years old. Such a devastating, lonely childhood, without much emotional safety, and an ascension to power that took place under the shadow of multiple epidemics and grave losses must've been an incredibly dark and lonely experience for a child. My heart always bleeds a little when I think of the figure of Louis XV.

Personally, developing a crush on him helped me adjust to immigrating to France. I clung to the idea of him to help me romanticize the experience, and to feel close to a French monarch who had endured incredible amounts of political and cultural alienation. We can only speculate on the reasons, but Louis XV had particular interests in death, outer space, and electricity, a few things that I also find myself drawn to. He was known to be depressive, (rightly so), and debate still rages over the disastrous results of the Seven Years' War, which, one result, was the Louisana Purchase. Politics aside, one of my favorite aspects of Louis XV is to reflect on his childhood when it comes to his unconventional love life, which was notable for the relationship he had with Madame de Pompadour.

Louis XV and Madame de Pompadour had a massive influence on art, and it wouldn't be so, had not Louis XV been willing to offend social conventions at the time by allowing Madamde de Pompadour a significant role as Official Mistress in the courts. This was highly unusual, and I love this story of theirs. Though it's been some years since I've done reading on Louis XV, his story is so meaningful in the way his reign created the United States, and his non-conformist attitude towards love and women. A tragic, depressive romantic with the most sensual aesthetics of all time...