Lex Anteinternet: Creeps. The weird stuff people say.

Recently I ran an article about Creeps, dealing  with the revelations about creepy behavior we've been enduring. 

What I didn't appreciate is that people say some weird things, both intentionally and accidentally.  It's been interesting.  It reminds me, in part, of the bogus title I made up borrowing from the title of Al Franken's book, that being Creepiness, and the Creepy Creeps who act Creepy.  It otherwise has some real foot in the mouth aspects to it.

Harvey Weinstein so far takes the cake for his apology.  It's so special, I'm just going to repeat the whole thing, highlighting the particularly odd parts of it, and adding my own special commentary.

I came of age in the ‘60s and ‘70s, when all the rules about behavior and workplaces were different. That was the culture then.

It was?  I thought  the 60s generation was supposed to be the one that was all liberated and stuff.  Apparently not.  Apparently the 60s generation, if Harvey is right, bounced off of 1979 and all the way back to some date in the 1950s.  Oh well.

Where's Janice and Big Brother and the Holding Company when you need them?

I have since learned it’s not an excuse, in the office — or out of it. To anyone.

I realized some time ago that I needed to be a better person, and my interactions with the people I work with have changed.

I appreciate the way I’ve behaved with colleagues in the past has caused a lot of pain, and I sincerely apologize for it.

Though I’m trying to do better, I know I have a long way to go. That is my commitment. My journey now will be to learn about myself and conquer my demons. Over the last year, I’ve asked Lisa Bloom to tutor me, and she’s put together a team of people. I’ve brought on therapists, and I plan to take a leave of absence from my company and to deal with this issue head on. I so respect all women, and regret what happened.

Oh brother.  You need therapy for this?  How about a pamphlet on basic morality?

Lisa Bloom is an attorney.  Does Havey need tutoring that Lisa can provide? What's that like? "Harvey!  Put your pants on!  Bad Harvey, bad".

Sheesh.

I hope that my actions will speak louder than words and that one day we will all be able to earn their trust and sit down together with Lisa to learn more. Jay Z wrote in 4:44: “I’m not the man I thought I was, and I better be that man for my children.” The same is true for me. I want a second chance in the community, but I know I’ve got work to do to earn it. I have goals that are now priorities. Trust me, this isn’t an overnight process. I’ve been trying to do this for 10 years, and this is a wake-up call. I cannot be more remorseful about the people I hurt, and I plan to do right by all of them.

Turns out that Jay Z didn't write that.  Not that I'd know.  But apparently he didn't.

I am going to need a place to channel that anger, so I’ve decided that I’m going to give the NRA my full attention. I hope Wayne LaPierre will enjoy his retirement party. I’m going to do it at the same place I had my Bar Mitzvah. I’m making a movie about our President, perhaps we can make it a joint retirement party. One year ago, I began organizing a $5 million foundation to give scholarships to women directors at USC. While this might seem coincidental, it has been in the works for a year. It will be named after my mom, and I won’t disappoint her.

Wow. That's really weird.  In one single paragraph Harvey manages to become the victim (he's angry?), somehow attempt to deflect groping every good looking gal that comes across his path to anger against the NRA, President Trump and insult his own Jewish faith, at least unintentionally.  What a massive Creep.

Well, Harvey, rather than deflecting your "anger" on the NRA and seeking counsel from Bloom (Harvey, pants!), perhaps going back to where you had that Bar Mitzvah would be a good idea.  It seems that you didn't absorb much of the Torah while you were there.  Maybe you will now.  Maybe its time to take that Faith seriously.  Pretty much everything you need to absorb about how to act properly to other people, including women, was probably taught to you in that place you had to go to before our Bar Mitzvah.

The Rabbi who is there can read to you about Susanna.

In Babylon there lived a man named Joakim, who married a very beautiful and God-fearing woman, Susanna, the daughter of Hilkiah; her parents were righteous and had trained their daughter according to the law of Moses. Joakim was very rich and he had a garden near his house. The Jews had recourse to him often because he was the most respected of them all. 

That year, two elders of the people were appointed judges, of whom the Lord said, “Lawlessness has come out of Babylon, that is, from the elders who were to govern the people as judges.” These men, to whom all brought their cases, frequented the house of Joakim. When the people left at noon, Susanna used to enter her husband’s garden for a walk. When the elders saw her enter every day for her walk, they began to lust for her. They perverted their thinking; they would not allow their eyes to look to heaven, and did not keep in mind just judgments. Though both were enamored of her, they did not tell each other their trouble, for they were ashamed to reveal their lustful desire to have her. Day by day they watched eagerly for her. One day they said to each other, “Let us be off for home, it is time for the noon meal.” So they went their separate ways. But both turned back and arrived at the same spot. When they asked each other the reason, they admitted their lust, and then they agreed to look for an occasion when they could find her alone.

One day, while they were waiting for the right moment, she entered as usual, with two maids only, wanting to bathe in the garden, for the weather was warm. Nobody else was there except the two elders, who had hidden themselves and were watching her. “Bring me oil and soap,” she said to the maids, “and shut the garden gates while I bathe.” They did as she said; they shut the garden gates and left by the side gate to fetch what she had ordered, unaware that the elders were hidden inside.
As soon as the maids had left, the two old men got up and ran to her. “Look,” they said, “the garden doors are shut, no one can see us, and we want you. So give in to our desire, and lie with us. If you refuse, we will testify against you that a young man was here with you and that is why you sent your maids away.”

“I am completely trapped,” Susanna groaned. “If I yield, it will be my death; if I refuse, I cannot escape your power. Yet it is better for me not to do it and to fall into your power than to sin before the Lord.” Then Susanna screamed, and the two old men also shouted at her, as one of them ran to open the garden gates. When the people in the house heard the cries from the garden, they rushed in by the side gate to see what had happened to her. At the accusations of the old men, the servants felt very much ashamed, for never had any such thing been said about Susanna.

When the people came to her husband Joakim the next day, the two wicked old men also came, full of lawless intent to put Susanna to death. Before the people they ordered: “Send for Susanna, the daughter of Hilkiah, the wife of Joakim.” When she was sent for, she came with her parents, children and all her relatives. Susanna, very delicate and beautiful, was veiled; but those transgressors of the law ordered that she be exposed so as to sate themselves with her beauty. All her companions and the onlookers were weeping.

In the midst of the people the two old men rose up and laid their hands on her head. As she wept she looked up to heaven, for she trusted in the Lord wholeheartedly. The old men said, “As we were walking in the garden alone, this woman entered with two servant girls, shut the garden gates and sent the servant girls away. A young man, who was hidden there, came and lay with her. When we, in a corner of the garden, saw this lawlessness, we ran toward them. We saw them lying together, but the man we could not hold, because he was stronger than we; he opened the gates and ran off. Then we seized this one and asked who the young man was, but she refused to tell us. We testify to this.” The assembly believed them, since they were elders and judges of the people, and they condemned her to death.

But Susanna cried aloud: “Eternal God, you know what is hidden and are aware of all things before they come to be: you know that they have testified falsely against me. Here I am about to die, though I have done none of the things for which these men have condemned me.”

The Lord heard her prayer. As she was being led to execution, God stirred up the holy spirit of a young boy named Daniel, and he cried aloud: “I am innocent of this woman’s blood.” All the people turned and asked him, “What are you saying?” He stood in their midst and said, “Are you such fools, you Israelites, to condemn a daughter of Israel without investigation and without clear evidence? Return to court, for they have testified falsely against her.”

Then all the people returned in haste. To Daniel the elders said, “Come, sit with us and inform us, since God has given you the prestige of old age.” But he replied, “Separate these two far from one another, and I will examine them.”

After they were separated from each other, he called one of them and said: “How you have grown evil with age! Now have your past sins come to term: passing unjust sentences, condemning the innocent, and freeing the guilty, although the Lord says, ‘The innocent and the just you shall not put to death.’ Now, then, if you were a witness, tell me under what tree you saw them together.” “Under a mastic tree,” he answered. “Your fine lie has cost you your head,” said Daniel; “for the angel of God has already received the sentence from God and shall split you in two.” Putting him to one side, he ordered the other one to be brought. “Offspring of Canaan, not of Judah,” Daniel said to him, “beauty has seduced you, lust has perverted your heart. This is how you acted with the daughters of Israel, and in their fear they yielded to you; but a daughter of Judah did not tolerate your lawlessness. Now, then, tell me under what tree you surprised them together.” “Under an oak,” he said. “Your fine lie has cost you also your head,” said Daniel; “for the angel of God waits with a sword to cut you in two so as to destroy you both.”

The whole assembly cried aloud, blessing God who saves those who hope in him. They rose up against the two old men, for by their own words Daniel had convicted them of bearing false witness.^b They condemned them to the fate they had planned for their neighbor: in accordance with the law of Moses they put them to death. Thus was innocent blood spared that day.

Hilkiah and his wife praised God for their daughter Susanna, with Joakim her husband and all her relatives, because she was found innocent of any shameful deed. And from that day onward Daniel was greatly esteemed by the people.

Consider it Harvey.  The counsel wasn't that the unjust judges seek tutoring from Lisa Bloom.

While on the topic of odd citations to religion, one of the commenters on This Week went off on a long tirade about everything that needed to occur to address what we're seeing.  He's a liberal commentator and that means that what he said is really easy to mistake, as he said that "more non Christians need to be in power".

At first its hard not to gasp at that.  While it's become a habit in some liberal quarters to blame everything on Christianity that's just a flat out weird statement.  Certainly all of the recent male bad actors have run the range in their expressed beliefs, as have their accusers, and as have the commenters.  This definitely isn't a Christian thing, or  Jewish thing, or any any religion thing, it's the opposite, the unless a worship of money and self can be regarded as their religion.

Their destiny is destruction, their god is their stomach, and their glory is in their shame. Their mind is set on earthly things.

Which in listening to the rest of what he had to say, was actually what he meant.  He meant to say that this was horrible conduct which more than Christians needed to condemn.  Okay, I agree with that, and I think everyone else does as well. At least the religions of these various bad actors would all agree that they were acting immorally.

Speaking of gaffs, but not on this topic, people are going after Joe Biden for stating a week ago that the man shot the Texas killer "shouldn't have had that rifle", with that rifle being some sort of AR.  What Joe clearly meant (I saw the television interview) is that the killer shouldn't have had an AR.  That's not what he said, but then Joe isn't a spring chicken and he responds a little more rapidly than me means too.

Back to odd commentary, one of the odd comments that's come up in the Roy Moore things is that one of the mothers of a 14 year old thought he was a good catch, or words to that effect.

That's weird and no mater what people think that people once did or what is common in some cultures, that's really strange.

All the commentary from commentators seeking to relativize respective bad behavior is odd.  Some people are cheering Franken being in trouble while saying that its all just an Alabama thing for Moore.  Or vice versa.

People are, and I'm glad, starting to go back in time on their prior excusing of some prior stories.  Quite a few Democrats are starting to say that maybe Bill Clinton was a bit creepy in this department.  Of course, that may just mean that the Clintons have finally bit the political dust.  Others are now reopening the wounds from the Thomas confirmation hearings and reconsidering what was said there, although perhaps that's something that can't really be easily judged even now, maybe.

Nobody seems to be willing to reconsider John F. Kennedy, however. Too bad.

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Addendum:

Oh, I managed to miss one when I did these the other day.  And its from Alabama State Auditor about Roy Moore:

Take the Bible — Zachariah and Elizabeth, for instance. Zachariah was extremely old to marry Elizabeth and they became the parents of John the Baptist.  Also take Joseph and Mary. Mary was a teenager and Joseph was an adult carpenter. They became parents of Jesus.  There’s just nothing immoral or illegal here.  Maybe just a little bit unusual.

Umm. . . . .

Well, these are really odd examples, to say the least.  And let's start with the Jospehite Marriage of  Mary and Joseph.

The Josephite Marriage?

Yes, the Jospehite Marriage..

A Josephite Marriage is one in which a couple is married with the understanding going into it that they will not have sex.  In our sex obsessed culture that concept is completely foreign to most, even to Christians, but it's been a relationship that has long existed in  history, still actually exists now (although rare) and apparently is completely outside of the understanding of Auditor Zeigler.  Or maybe he was just grasping (his other examples would suggest so).

There's lots of reasons that these occurred in the past and some reasons they occur now.  In the past, a complete lack of a social safety net explains a lot of the reason that these occurred.  I.e, men sometimes married women as they had means and some relationship with the woman and it was so she didn't become destitute.  Sometimes this arose due to familial reasons.  I.e, there was a family relationship between the couple that basically required the union, and other times because it was a type of an act of chairity.

In this particular case, while a lot more is known about Mary than people, particularly those not too familiar with the early church, suppose, the exact reasons for the marriage between Mary and Joseph, outside of divine will, are not really well known, but a long standing and fairly well supported tradition is that Mary was a Consecrated Virgin and Joseph was fully aware of that.  Additionally, it's a tradition that has some support that he may have been a widower with an existing family.  Therefore, while more would need to be added on this, he was taking Mary in as a spouse but not as one that he intended to have sex with or that he ever did.

That of course fully credits that Mary was a virgin at the time of their marriage and fully remained so until her assumption, a position that's fully accepted by all of the Apostolic Churches and all of the Protestant churches based on them.  Only in much more recent Protestant thought in some Protestant churches is this not accepted, but those same bodies usually are unaware of the fairly rich body of knowledge on Mary from the early Church or of Jewish customs at the time.  At any rate, Joseph likely was quite a bit older than Mary (contrary to a cartoon that's circulating now) and he was taking her in as somebody who would be legally his wife but with whom he'd never have sexual relations with and he knew that and was fine with that.

That's a lot different than the Roy Moore story, no matter what it is.