Nostradamus Says, “Wash Your Hands!” and “Don’t Eat Meat!”

Nostradamus

When my daughter first went to school, I asked her many questions about her first day, including if the teacher had led them down to the bathroom to wash their hands before lunch.

She looked at me as though I had just suggested something very weird, like did they all jump off the roof?

“No,” she said.

“No!” My turn to be astonished. “You didn’t wash your hands before lunch? How about after lunch?”

“No.”

I felt like a very fussy old lady who’d been taught by a bunch of other fussy old ladies. (That could be true. But, fussy old ladies are often right.)

I have recalled this incident several times during the news about the coronavirus. I know that children are doing very well with the illness because they are exposed to so many germs every day that their immune systems have responded to that exposure by getting stronger. Yes, they are getting well faster than other more vulnerable groups like the sick and the elderly. But, generally speaking, they do get sick a lot! My daughter was never sick until she started school. Then, she got sick every few weeks from something that was going around the classroom. 

Of course, she also got well. Often, not easily. A few times, I slept with my face on her bed to listen to her breathing. I wiped her brow with a cold face cloth, her neck, the inside of her elbows, to reduce fever. Of course, I used medicine too. And diet. As a practicing macrobiotic, my child has been macrobiotic since before birth. We ate and still eat very simply at home: brown rice, vegetables, beans, sea vegetables, occasionally fish when good quality fish can be found. When she was sick, I fed her simple, clean foods to get her well and strong, usually brown rice and veggies, and fruit.

But, why is this article titled “Nostradamus Says Wash Your Hands and Don’t Eat Meat?”

Nostradamus, besides being a prophet, was also a renown physician. Born in 1503, in France, the son of a grain merchant, Nostradamus was well educated in both Hebrew and Christian religions as well as Latin, Greek, astronomy and mathematics. At the age of 14, he entered medical school at Avignon where he pretended to learn all the wrong things in order to pass. As the son of a grain merchant, I like to think Nostradamus had a background in good quality food and cooking. He certainly had strong common sense. Nostradamus couldn’t hang around medical school and wait for his degree; he had to get out there - medieval France and Italy - and cure the Bubonic Plague. Nostradamus cured the Bubonic Plague, which had originated from flea bites from flea infested rats, using hygiene: he burned the infected clothing and bedding of plague victims; he encouraged them to wash and keep themselves clean at a time when washing was thought to be dangerous - one’s skin could fall off! He also used immune-strengthening Vitamin C that he had garnered from rose hips; he made his own rose pills and preserves. In order to keep their blood clean, Nostradamus advised his patients to not eat anything unclean, which in those days was a Biblical reference to animal food, that is, meat or anything coming from an animal, such as eggs or dairy. Lastly, and this is vital, plenty of fresh air!

PETA published an important letter today from their Australian Director saying this: 

“The virus, an anagram of carnivorous, appears to have emerged from a fish market that was also selling wild animals such as beavers, porcupines and snakes in the city of Wuhan, in central China. The 2002-2003 SARS pandemic was similarly traced to civet cats. In these markets, urine, faeces and other bodily fluids from live, wild animals end up mixing with blood from butchered ones, providing ideal breeding grounds for viruses and bacteria.

Overwhelmingly, human diseases start with the abuse of animals. Hunting and the appropriation of animals’ habitats has led to diseases such as Hendra and Ebola. The 2009 H1N1 epidemic started in pigs. Measles originally came from cattle, and whooping cough from dogs.” 

And what about that recommendation of fresh air? I can’t help thinking after stories of some of the quarantine situations I’ve read about - including a room in Vietnam that had no running water and no toilet - cruise ships, isolation rooms, army tents, that people being held together, sick and not sick, breathing the same stale, circulating air are just getting more and more sick. One passenger of a docked cruise ship said, “We’re sitting in a petrie dish.”

I mean, Nostradamus was curing the plague in 1536! He was telling people to wash their hands nearly 500 years ago! In Vienna, almost 400 years later, Dr. Semmelweis  couldn’t get doctors to wash their hands after examining cadavers - before they put these filthy hands up inside of women who’d just given birth. The doctors said, “Why wash our hands, they’re just going to get dirty again!” 

Dr. Semmelweis suspected that the death rate for childbirth in his hospital was being exasperated by infection from the examining doctors’ germ-ridded hands. After all, the midwives, who washed their hands frequently, did not have such a high infection and death rate among their new mothers. No one would listen to Dr. Semmelweis who died of the very infection he spent his life trying to prevent.

We are also vulnerable during this time from infections that occur only in hospitals that are resistant to any known antibiotics - resistant, ironically, back to PETA’s warning - because we consume animal products from animals that have been fed so many antibiotics every day, the bacteria become resistant. Why are these animals - usually cows, pigs and chickens - fed antibiotics? Because they live in filthy unnatural conditions with little or no fresh air, often in feces and urine, a veritable disease soup.

Recently, on the PBS talk show Greater Boston, an informative gem readily available to us online and on TV, Stephanie Leydon, WGBH News, talked about super bugs mutating and becoming resistant to drugs, saying, “100 years ago during the Spanish flu outbreak, it wasn’t the flu itself that caused most deaths, but bacterial infections.” https://www.wgbh.org/news/local-news/2020/03/11/coronavirus-surprised-the-world-but-doctors-have-been-sounding-the-alarm-on-another-global-health-threat-for-years

And, here we are. 

There are many sites for information on the coronavirus, much of it erroneous, so I’m going to advise going to the CDC for all coronavirus questions. I cannot speak to you as a medical professional, so I’m going to speak as a mother and as a friend.

We all wash our hands at home. We take off our shoes when we come in the door. I wash my hands whenever I touch something from the outside and before (and after) I touch food. 

The Triangle of Good Health: Nutrition, Sleep, Exercise has always been a basic part of my life and it’s so simple, though not always easy to implement. Often, we can’t get the sleep we need, nor do we have time to exercise. However, nutrition should never be allowed to slacken. Here is a good base for every day nutrition: the Healthy Plate:

Though recently re-emerged from Harvard, this simple plate has been with me since elementary school. I have, since then, updated my protein from meat to a healthy vegetable protein of beans, or occasional good quality fish. (Our fish supply has also been usurped by factory farms, so it is not as easy to find good fish as it used to be. Be careful: good fish looks good and smells fresh and clean; its edges are moist, not dry and curled; it smells sweet, not fishy; the flesh is white, not yellow or rubbery.)

Other sources for good healthy choices are:

Denny Waxman's macrobiotic cookbook, The Ultimate Guide to Eating for Longevity: The Macrobiotic Way to Live a Long, Healthy, and Happy Life

Denny Waxman's Up-coming Macrobiotic Lecture on the Macrobiotic Approach to the Coronavirus, sign-up link, $10 suggested donation (I am not affiliated with this program, nor do I profit from it, except by knowing I’ve given you the info!) 

Allen Campbell: Nutrition Studies Allen Campbell was Tom Brady's nutrition coach and chef. His advice on non-inflammatory foods has helped me a great deal with any occasional pain.

Please do your best and stay well and happy! And remember what Nostradamus says, "Wash Your Hands!" and "Don't Eat Meat!"

Edward Esko live online lecture on Coronavirus.

©Patricia Goodwin, 2020

Patricia Goodwin is the author of When Two Women Die, about Marblehead legends and true crime and its sequel, Dreamwater, about the Salem witch trials and the vicious 11-year-old pirate Ned Low. Holy Days is her third novel, about the sexual, psychological seduction of Gloria Wisher and her subsequent transformation. Her newest poetry books are Telling Time By Apples, And Other Poems About Life On The Remnants of Olde Humphrey Farme, illustrated by the author, and Java Love: Poems of a Coffeehouse.

Within this blog, Patricia writes often about non-fiction subjects that inspire or disturb her, hopefully informing and inspiring people to be happy, healthy and free.

***Disclaimer: The information on this blog is not meant to substitute for medical care. Please consult your physician before beginning any new dietary guidelines. 

The Godfather and Peaky Blinders: Why, Oh Why Did Apollonia and Grace Have To Die?

Michael Corleone and Apollonia 

on their wedding night

(Major Spoiler Alert!)

As I approach the computer I have the sensation that when I write this post, I will be playing music on the keys. Mozart, something gentle and soft, such are the emotions I feel toward these two characters that fate or writers or directors has decided to eliminate.

Apollonia, “More Greek than Italian!” The stunner in the film “The Godfather” who caught Michael Corleone’s eye and heart as the thunderbolt hit him while he was in hiding in Italy. The thunderbolt. So Italian to call it that, a misnomer because, really, the thunder roars and the lightning bolts. But, in Italian slang, it hits the mark. “You were hit with the thunderbolt!” cries one of his bodyguards. 

Michael and his bodyguards are walking in the hills. Here is the description of Apollonia as Puzo wrote it in the novel: “They [the girls] were dressed in cheap gaily printed frocks that clung to their bodies…Three or four of them started chasing one girl…The girl being chased held a bunch of huge purple grapes in her left hand and with her right hand was picking grapes off the cluster and throwing them at her pursuers. She had a crown of ringleted hair as purple-black as the grapes and her body seemed to be bursting out of its skin. Just short of the grove, she poised, startled, having caught the alien color of the men’s shirts. She stood there on her toes poised like a deer to run…Her skin was an exquisite dark creaminess and her eyes, enormous, dark violet or brown but dark with long heavy lashes…her mouth was rich…and dyed dark red with the juice of the grapes. She was so incredibly lovely that one of the bodyguards murmured, “Jesus Christ, take my soul, I’m dying.”

Puzo describes what Michael is feeling: “…he found himself standing, his heart pounding in his chest, he felt a little dizzy. The blood was surging through his body, through all the extremities and pounding against the tips of his fingers, the tips of his toes. All the perfumes of the island came rushing in on the wind, orange, lemon blossoms, grapes, flowers. It seemed as if his body had sprung away from him, out of himself. And then he heard the bodyguards laughing. ‘You got hit by the thunderbolt.’" 

When Michael and his bodyguards describe Apollonia to a local café owner who happens to be her father, the man shouts, “No!” saying he does not know her. Michael immediately realizes he has insulted the father; he elegantly proposes marriage in the old way, saving the day. And unless you have been living on the moon, you know all this already and you also know that the old world courtship takes place so beautifully you want to die forgetting that in the old world not every groom was so handsome and fine and not every bride so happy. No matter! When Apollonia disrobes on her wedding night, we swoon. Her dark skin! Her breasts, so innocent and sweet! Michael! Into what unknown country have you ventured?

Here is how Puzo describes their wedding night: “Her flesh and hair, taut silk, now she was all eagerness, surging against him wildly in a virginal erotic frenzy. When he entered her, she gave a little gasp and was still for just a second and then in a powerful thrust of her pelvis, she locked her satiny leg around his hips…” We know from her lovemaking that Apollonia is more than a quiet virgin.

The next time we see Apollonia she is learning how to drive; she is chattering happily and waving her hands about explaining that now she knows everything, “Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday, Sunday!” Her long dark hair is up, in the old way, when a married woman no longer wore her hair down because a woman’s hair was considered flirtatious and now that she was married she should be more formal and refined.

We fall in love with Apollonia just as Michael did. In the throes of love comes despair. Apollonia is killed by a car bomb meant for Michael, even while we are laughing at the remark made by one of his bodyguards, “She’s gonna make a great American wife!” Even as we laugh at her cuteness at wanting to drive to Michael, as Michael softly smiles, then, as he sees one of the bodyguards sneaking off, he, realizing it’s a trap, screams, “Apollonia, no, no!” Disaster, horror, grief! How can this be?

But, we know. It was the author, Mario Puzo’s decision to kill Apollonia, when he wrote The Godfather. But, it is the director, Frances Ford Coppola, who explains in The Godfather Notebook, “Apollonia’s simple grace and overwhelming beauty MUST DOMINATE THIS WHOLE SECTION OF THE FILM. While she is alive, Michael can truly think of nothing else.” We surmise that Michael would have been too happy, too content with Apollonia, and he needed to be bitter, angry, hard for the work to come. His older brother, Sonny, has been assassinated in New York, making Michael’s return to the real world inevitable. Stylistically, Michael cannot continue to live in wedded bliss in Italy, in the old world, as though the new world and his new responsibilities did not exist.

Ah, me!

I am bereft. I want it both ways. I don’t see why Apollonia can’t fit into Michael’s new life in America. I still imagine the scenarios. Apollonia in New York. Apollonia shopping. Apollonia wearing her new clothes, sophisticated in her new hat. Apollonia pregnant. Apollonia cooking. Apollonia listening closely to the advice of her mother-in-law, seriously nodding her lovely head. Apollonia with children around her. All these scenes are still in my imagination. I even have imagined Apollonia’s reaction to Kay’s abortion, as though both stories could exist at the same time. I see Apollonia’s face stone cold and proud. She would never, never do such a thing. Never would she think it.

Sigh. I never liked Kay. 

At the end of the day, I miss Apollonia for all the wonderful scenes, comedies and dramas, she would have played. Yes, Michael would have had his hands even more full. Yes, our attention would have been drawn from the decidedly masculine action. Who am I to re-write The Godfather? I am the one who misses her. Perhaps we have to have tragedy before we can appreciate what remains - Mary Corleone. Michael’s beautiful, Madonna-like daughter. 

Oh, nope. Sorry, she also dies.

Grace Shelby

Now, Grace.

Grace, of the Netflix Original series, “Peaky Blinders,” about the Shelbys, a Birmingham, England family, charming Romany criminals led by the noble, intelligent, handsome Thomas Shelby. I’m a sucker for the noble thief. 

When we first see Grace - and her music is tinkling, trés gentile (“dreamy, ethereal,” as the captions call it) - she is walking toward Tommy Shelby’s bar The Garrison where she applies to be a barmaid. What looks like a gentle falling snow surrounds her as she approaches the bar. Suddenly, you realize, that’s not snow, it’s falling ash. This is Birmingham, England and Grace is the only light thing in the darkness.

Grace is a delicate blonde beauty with patrician lines. In fact, we learn Grace comes from a good family. She has joined the police force as an undercover agent to avenge the death of her policeman father by the IRA. Tommy’s not Irish. He is Romany, (aka Gypsy), an English criminal, a bookmaker, who happened on some brand new automatic weapons whilst robbing the BSA company warehouse. Finding these guns becomes the mission of the Crown and law enforcement.

Grace stands out. She wears no make-up, yet her large blue eyes are beautifully expressive. Her light hair is delicate, flowing around her face in soft, natural waves. She’s wearing a sheer white blouse and a soft green suit. The bar manager at first refuses her, saying she is “too nice.” “How do you know I’m nice?” Grace accuses him. She might not be nice.

She tells him she can sing, and she does, not in a sweet high voice you might expect from such a delicate form, but in a clear, bold alto. Riveting.

In fact, Tommy is struck (much like Michael Corelone) with the thunderbolt when he sees Grace for the first time. She obviously doesn’t fit. Unlike Michael, Tommy keeps his head. “Are you a whore?” he asks her, “because if you’re not, you’re in the wrong place.” Grace is hurt, but she perseveres.

Tommy doesn’t allow singing in the bar. He hates the Irish songs. But, he allows Grace to sing. He is feeling particularly down one evening. He tells her to sing. They are alone after hours in the bar. He tells her stand on a chair and sing. She stands on a chair. “Happy or sad?” she asks Tommy. “Sad,” he chooses.

As Grace sings beautifully, Tommy does something we know he can’t do - he falls asleep. We happen to know Tommy cannot sleep; he uses opium to sleep, to block out the night terrors of digging the tunnels in the mud of Flanders.

Grace remains standing silently on the chair.

Scene.

Grace doesn’t remain a barmaid for long. She quickly moves up to bookkeeper, making her privy to a lot of Shelby family business information. Grace falls in love with Tommy, but she betrays him anyway. Soon, she realizes where the guns are, and she reports this info to her superiors. After killing a few IRA guys, Grace becomes closer and closer to Tommy. Though she betrays him, she also protects him, hiding him in her room in a poor rooming house. The couple make love; they are in love. Tommy sleeps again, through the night. 

Grace writes to Tommy proposing a new life in America. Tommy writes back that he will consider her proposal. He says, “I learnt long ago to hate my enemies. But I’ve never loved one before. The idea of New York is interesting, but I have worked so hard for this day. For this victory. (Though Grace betrayed him, Tommy still won the fight.) I have responsibilities here. For people I need to protect and people who I love…I will give you my decision in three days.” He signs the letter, “All my Love, Thomas Shelby.”

Grace is already at the train station, where she must defend herself against her former boss who holds a gun to her head. :51 seconds to the end, Grace shoots her gun through her purse.

Scene.

I suppose it’s the same as Michael Corleone. Thomas has responsibilities. His way of life is extremely dangerous. We wouldn’t want Thomas to become too soft or too happy. But, unlike Apollonia, Grace is trained in warfare. It was and still is hard for me to suffer that the day they return from their honeymoon, Grace dies from a bullet meant for Tommy. She would have been sooo much fun to watch develop as a character, she might have even stolen the show from Tommy.

I wonder, too, as I watch, how deep does this phenomenon go? I mean, Apollonia, Grace, Mary Corleone, these are the things we fight for, die for: home, hearth, love, family, all the good and beautiful things in life. These we fight to protect. Yet, these are the sacrifices. Are the stories saying, in effect, I guess we can't have nice things? Someone, or some force, is always trying to take them from us.

Peaky Blinders is not the same without Grace. All the other blondes on the show are brassy, fakey, creepy, angry, stupid. They’re just not Grace. They don’t have her natural, well - grace. Not her intelligence. Her stature. Her poetry. Her way with Tommy. Grace goes deep.

I couldn’t bear to watch the new season. Season 5. It took me a long time to come around, but when I did, what a lovely surprise! 

Grace. Tommy talks to Grace. He sees her. She speaks back. “Happy or sad?” she asks. And she holds Tommy’s weary head to her breast. Tommy has a death wish. Twice, we see him struggle with the urge to harm himself. Then, after a colleague is killed by a car bomb, Tommy hesitates to start his car. Grace is in the backseat. “Push the button, Tommy. Come home to me,” Grace says. Tommy pushes the button. The car starts up safely and Grace disappears again.

At the end of Season 5, we have what people are calling “a strange ending.” This is the third time Tommy expresses his death wish. He is unable to stop a fascist movement in England. He has said he would stop when he met the man he couldn’t defeat. The screen goes X-Files blue. Tommy and Arthur are at home, in front of their house, with Arthur trying to console Tommy about the events gone wrong, “Let’s go inside. We’ll work it out. Have a drink.” “I need to walk.” Tommy sets off into the blue fog over the field where the landmines had been; he sees Grace, there is a dark horse, as in the Jew’s dream. Grace says, “The work’s all done, Tommy. It’s all done. We can walk away from all of this. It’s so easy. It’s so soft. Such a small change.” 

Tommy puts his gun to his head and screams. 

Scene.

Epilogue:

Spoiler Peaky Blinders - There will be a Season 6 and 7 - Cillian Murphy (Tommy Shelby) has already signed on. After all, we didn't hear a gun shot.

Two things I learned about The Godfather while researching this post - 1. Michael and Apollonia lived in Italy for months before she was killed. When Apollonia died, she was pregnant. 2. The guilty bodyguard disappeared after the bombing, but many years later, Michael tracks him down to a pizza parlor in Buffalo where a Corleone soldier kills him with, “Michael Corleone sends his regards.”

©Patricia Goodwin, 2019

Patricia Goodwin is the author of When Two Women Die, about Marblehead legends and true crime and its sequel, Dreamwater, about the Salem witch trials and the vicious 11-year-old pirate Ned Low. Holy Days is her third novel, about the sexual, psychological seduction of Gloria Wisher and her subsequent transformation. Her newest poetry books are Telling Time By Apples, And Other Poems About Life On The Remnants of Olde Humphrey Farme, illustrated by the author, and Java Love: Poems of a Coffeehouse.

Greta the Great

Greta in 2018, her first climate strike,

alone in front of the Swedish Parliament building

Every time I type her name, I type Great. Freudian dyslexia. I’m not too ahead of my time writing about Greta, and I usually don’t write about people everyone else is writing about. But, this time, I got into a bit of trouble on Facebook over her. It was her meltdown at the United Nations. I said something to the effect of how sad it was to see her like that and the comments - from friends of mine who know me and should know better - took the opportunity to rage against my lack of political correctness, as if I were suddenly Fox News attacking Greta’s Aspergers. Comments like “You don’t have to be normal to be wonderful!” As if anyone had ever accused me of being normal.

I had to look up Aspergers. I won’t bore you with the details you probably already know about Greta having read about her so much. I couldn’t care less what conditions Greta the Great has or doesn’t have. I read that people have commented on her clothes, her diet, her hair, her size, what the fuck ever!

I also said something about how they - operative word, “they,” my definition of “they” is anyone who has more power over your life than you do - said once, “We wait for you to get tired.” I got attacked for being tired. “We can’t get tired in our work!” came the comment back to me. Sorry, you’re actually one of the people who burned me out.

I saw something that day, the day Greta raged. I saw a person who had tried so hard. I remember her first day at the UN, when she was calm and quiet and told the world leaders, “My comments to you today will be this report on climate change from the world’s leading scientists.” She, a rational, thinking, caring, intelligent person had thought, “This is all I need to say. After they read this report, there will be no dispute. No more questions, only action.”

Look at the science. Look at the polar ice melting. Look at the animals going extinct. Look at the storms, and the floods, the fires and the drought. Now, now, now, act, act, act!

Nothing.

I’ve seen it before. Nothing, a terrible reaction to the truth.

She’d just come off a dramatic journey across the Atlantic on a sailboat powered only by sustainable energy. She disembarked to march and speak. Millions of people - and remember she started with only one, herself - my favorite picture of Greta, sitting alone outside of the Swedish Parliament building with one sign - now followed and supported by millions marching and shouting in the streets of national capitals around the planet. 

Greta Arrives in NYC, August, 2019

Millions of Marchers in cities around the globe

Climate Strike, September 20, 2019

Now, September 23, 2019 was the time to speak to the leaders and, it seemed, though probably it wasn’t the first time she realized, she saw quite clearly that she may as well be alone. Because, she realized that the throngs of marchers are the choir. The throngs of marchers are not polluting the planet. The men and women in front of her representing nations and corporations ARE POLLUTING THE PLANET and they are the ones who were not listening to her or to science or to anyone.

Greta the Great Lioness 

hissing and snarling

at the United Nations, September 23, 12019

Two articles recently appeared about the despair Greta must feel. These articles urged me to write today, as the authors were the only ones who seemed to see what I saw. From Smithsonian, reposted from 2013, “The Money Behind the Climate Deniers” by Colin Schultz, and from Truth Dig, September 23, 2019, “Saving the Planet Means Overthrowing the Ruling Elites" by Chris Hedges. These articles are about the powers that be, the powers out there, not only denying climate change, but contributing to it daily.

The Guardian reported, “In an impassioned speech (at the UN, September 23, 2019), Thunberg told those who hold office, ‘you all come to us young people for hope. How dare you?’ Greta snarled. “You have stolen my dreams and my childhood with your empty words, and yet I'm one of the lucky ones. People are suffering. People are dying. Entire ecosystems are collapsing.’"

Scolding the world leaders, she cried out, "This is all wrong. I shouldn't be up here. I should be back in school, on the other side of the ocean.”

There were more strikes for Climate Change today, Friday, October 4, 2019. Greta herself will join activists in Iowa City and she is calling for more strikes, “Fridays for Future.” Next, she will move on to march in Chile.

I wondered why I was writing at all about climate change, burned out as I am. I’ve never been politically correct and I hate following a crowd. Possibly because I like the way Great (oops, I did it again)*, Greta had started - with diet. I’m sympathetic to this approach because I’ve been macrobiotic since 1974, 45 years. I’ve been climate friendly my whole life, as I was brought up in a traditional Italian household. Yes, we grew our own food and bought only from the North End and East Boston traditional markets. Greta changed her parents first, getting them to stop eating meat and to adopt better dietary and lifestyle habits. Here is where climate change will happen, and happen naturally. Those who eat well, live well. They do not take, they give.

I have no idea how to stop the greed of our current leaders: presidents, kings, prime ministers who are selling their land, their water and their people for a few pieces of silver. I only know how to go around and under them. Good food is getting harder to find. Real food is no longer as nutritious as it once was because of soil depletion and water and air pollution. Fake food, which is often the only food available to people, inundates our supermarkets and makes us sick. We may find ourselves sick and dying before we actually drown or burn up.

What do we do? We keep on. Our dollars speak loudly at the cash register. The millions who are marching represent voters and customers as well as future leaders. Plenty of people are out there visibly fighting with us, and invisibly striving and working.

Thank you, Greta, for all that you do. Greta the Great is no longer alone.

*These typos are absolutely genuine.

©Patricia Goodwin, 2019

Patricia Goodwin is the author of When Two Women Die, about Marblehead legends and true crime and its sequel, Dreamwater, about the Salem witch trials and the vicious 11-year-old pirate Ned Low. Holy Days is her third novel, about the sexual, psychological seduction of Gloria Wisher and her subsequent transformation. Her newest poetry books are Telling Time By Apples, And Other Poems About Life On The Remnants of Olde Humphrey Farme, illustrated by the author, and Java Love: Poems of a Coffeehouse.

Within this blog, Patricia writes often about non-fiction subjects that inspire or disturb her, hopefully informing and inspiring people to be happy, healthy and free.

It Ain’t Fiction!

Fictional Jeffrey Epstein (Jordan Hayes) Being Led Off By Fictional Feds

Law & Order SVU 2011 Episode, "Flight"

Fiction is the best way to tell the truth. Many writers agree with me and over the years they have tried to tell us many times about things that are going on all around us that we are too busy or too good to see. Good people, I find, can imagine evil, but they usually don’t. They usually assume most people are like them, busy minding their own business, not busy trying to hurt others.

To name a few fictional truth tellings - Conspiracy Theory starring Mel Gibson, along with revealing certain CIA mind-bending antics, Conspiracy Theory was the first to call John Lennon’s death an assassination. Michael Clayton, “I am Shiva, God of Death!” aimed at a fictional Monsanto-like super company busy poisoning the world. Prime Suspect for its 1993 Season 3, "The Keeper of Souls," about the organized abuse and, sometimes, murder of street kids and orphans by rich and powerful men. Even comedian Seth MacFarlane tried to tell us with his 2005 Family Guy cartoon of Stewie running naked through the mall screaming, “Help! I just escaped from Kevin Spacey’s basement!”

For years, I have been reading in The Daily Beast about this fellow named Jeffrey Epstein who was a pretty intense partier. Thank you Daily Beast for your courage in speaking out. You’ve been telling us about Epstein’s Fantasy Island, about his ranch in New Mexico, about his buddy Ghislaine Maxwell who procured very young girls for him, about Prince Andrew, Trump, Bill Clinton, about the parties and the after-parties, and the wee small hour romps with under-aged girls in the manses of rich and powerful men. You have told us oh, Daily Beast, about the Catholic Church, about the Vatican, about the culling of child sex slaves from private schools, from orphanages, from the homeless children on the streets. We still haven’t paid attention to these last, “suffer the little children to come unto me” said Jesus to his disciples.

I find it remarkable that people still need to see it on TV before they will get it. No, that’s not so because it WAS on TV and they still didn’t get it.

Thank you Law & Order, Special Victims Unit, cast & crew, and especially creator, Dick Wolf, who along with writers Dawn DeNoon and Christina M. Torres, tried to tell us in their 2011 episode, “Flight,” about the exploits of super-rich financier Jeffrey Epstein. Specifically “Flight” echoes the time Epstein, fictionally called Jordan Hayes (cloyingly played by Colm Feore) received a French girl as a birthday present. (In real life, Epstein has been accused of having received three twelve-year-old French girls as a birthday present.) In the episode, the French girl is tricked into giving Jordan Hayes a massage, during which he requires her to be naked. (What is it about this guy and massages? Epstein seems to have gotten several nude virginal massages daily. Ugh!) She’s trapped in the room. Later, before she is allowed to leave, an attendant makes her offer up a friend to be Jordan’s next victim. In fact, SVU went on to describe several underaged girls paid to give weird, creepy massages to Jordan Hayes, Jordy to his friends, namely an older French girl who used to be is lover and was now his procurer of very young girls. This dark-haired young woman eerily reflects the real life older beauty, Ghislaine Maxwell, a beautiful socialite who allegedly procured Epstein’s victims, one wonders why she didn’t have better things to do with her life. Perhaps like many real life female sex slavery procurers, she’s angry about her own victimization and just doesn’t care about anyone else. Or maybe she’s just plain evil. According to the SVU episode and also the real life victims, the procured girls were kept hostage till they performed whatever bizarre sexual act Jordy (Epstein) wanted or the tender, underaged girls would be sent out to perform for Hayes’ (Epstein’s) rich old cohorts.

The Real Life Ghislaine Maxwell

Spoiler alert:

Unlike the real life Epstein who supposedly committed suicide (I think he was murdered, hung, dispatched by his old cronies who wanted to silence him. They always kill their friends.), in the SVU story, Jordan Hayes isn’t punished for his crimes. The Feds swoop down to save Jordan in a deus ex machina move because he is too valuable as a witness to allow him to rot away in prison with other Level 3 sex offenders. As Jordan is swept away by this accommodating nebulous Federal agency, his ex-girl friend turned pimp now facing 80 years in prison, is handcuffed and left screaming, “I love you, Jordy!” 

Fictional Ghislaine Maxwell (remarkable resemblance!) handcuffed, facing 80 years

In real life, Epstein’s facilitator, Maxwell, who was photographed aprés Epstein’s arrest having a carefree lunch at an In & Out Burger, seems to have gotten off Scott-free. I would think she knows too much. Remember, they always kill their friends. Her brain must be what we used to call “a little black book” full of names and dates and addresses. 

All perfectly useless now. Unless real life coppers step up to do what fictional ones have done.

Fictional Special Victims Unit

Next time you hear yourself talking about Jeffrey Epstein and others like him, don't just talk, do something - stop for a minute to give to the orgs that are out there fighting for the victims of sexual abuse. Anything you can afford, even $10, can help someone escape their captors. Here are two of my favorite orgs - The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children and Polaris.

©Patricia Goodwin, 2019

Patricia Goodwin is the author of When Two Women Die, about Marblehead legends and true crime and its sequel, Dreamwater, about the Salem witch trials and the vicious 11-year-old pirate Ned Low. Holy Days is her third novel, about the sexual, psychological seduction of Gloria Wisher and her subsequent transformation. Her newest poetry books are Telling Time By Apples, And Other Poems About Life On The Remnants of Olde Humphrey Farme, illustrated by the author, and Java Love: Poems of a Coffeehouse.

Within this blog, Patricia writes often about non-fiction subjects that inspire or disturb her, hopefully informing and inspiring people to be happy, healthy and free.