Our last item on the eruption of the exposition of creeps in our society was here:
Lex Anteinternet: No surprise, no shame, and the Old Standards:
The number falling, and the oddity of it all, seems to go on and on. Added to this list recently have been George Bush (tush pinching, apparently), Charlie Rose and Al Franken. And of course the Roy Moore saga just goes on and on (when will that election ever arrive?). I wrote about this a couple of weeks ago in my entry entitled Creeps; which started off:
I noted a couple of things in that article which could perhaps be expanded on a bit, and should.
The first is that Michael Reagan's confidant prediction that there'd be more women coming forward on Franken proved correct. We're now up to four. Tweeden's event has been the worst so far, and hopefully will remain so. Otherwise Franken seems to have felt he had license to grab the female tush, uninvited, at least as to three other subjects.
None of which has stopped Ruth Marcus from defending him for the second week in a row. Last week her column started off:
The national debate over sexual harassment and sexual assault has reached an important and precarious moment as it shifts from what behavior is acceptable to what punishment is warranted. Having underreacted for too long, are we now at risk of overreacting?
In fairness, I think she might have been right on that, at least to a degree. I'm not going to regard tush grabbing, inappropriate though it be, as a national crisis. Indeed, in pondering it I can recall a certain female lawyer I worked against early in my career who loved to drop in inappropriate terms of endearment and gynecological comments in order to attempt to embarrass young male attorneys and I know of one male attorney (not in our firm, by the way) who makes slightly suggestive comments to female lawyers in an effort to rattle them. Well, to heck with them, but I don't think any exposes are warranted, and I don't think the senior (and likely by now senile) Bush's wondering hands nor Franken's are that much of a national crisis, although I think Franken has otherwise been pretty gross.
This week Marcus' column is entitled:
Al Franken’s defenders are right to speak up
Is she right? Maybe, but only if we're going to agree that defenders of the various people in the public eye right now all deserve to have their defenders aired, no matter who they are. That is, if Franken's defenders can defend him in spite of tush grabbiness, well I suppose that Moore's can for what is very clearly worse. A standard is a standard, after all.
I.e, there shouldn't be a political litmus test for who gets their defense aired and who doesn't, not matter how icky their behavior is alleged to have been.
Speaking of really icky behavior, columnist Laura Hollis went after Harvey Weinstein in a big way, detailng some of his big spending effort to cover up his misdeeds. Suffice it to say any reading of them makes Weinstein's statement;
I came of age in the ‘60s and ‘70s, when all the rules about behavior and workplaces were different. That was the culture then.
even more absurd than it already was.
Hollis actually ties the latest creep eruption to the Democratic Party, maintaining that its now dead. In spite of the claims the GOP is dead, I'd note that Time recently ran this as a cover story recently as well, proclaiming it dead for other reasons. I think Hollis' claim that the wolf like libidos of some figures in Hollywood equate with the death of the Democratic Party is a huge stretch, but there is a slight point to it in that people of both parties are really sick of the close ties between political elites and other "elites" including Hollywood elites. Both Sanders and Trump really picked up in that during the last election and Democrats have been dim enough about it that they've let the moldy oldies of the Democratic Party keep on running it, tainted in every way though they be. I mean, after all, if you can recall when the Beatles! were a hot new band, you probably aren't a hot new anything.
Otherwise, it seems to me that both the Democrats and the Republicans both manage to look like they have a bunch of figures lurking around East Colfax in Denver. Ick.
On Weinstein's weird, weird claim that he was going to channel his anger ("Aaargggg" thought poor Harvey, "now I might have to keep my pants on! I'm so angry") towards battling the National Rifle Association ("Argggg, Wayne. . I have my pants off and I'm coming your way"), the producer of Wind River yanked control of that film away from Weinstein, not wanting the independent film to go down in an explosion of Weinstein pantsless, braless, creepiness news. I can't blame him, but its interesting in that I hadn't realized that Wind River had a Weinstein connection.
I liked Wind River and gave it the thumbs up here, but I'll note that it rivals The Wild Bunch in its use of firearms violence. Indeed, frankly it rivals The Wild Bunch in regards to violence in general, and for all its antiquity, The Wild Bunch remains a shockingly violent film. On that, however, it comes pretty close to being about as pro firearms as a story of its type can be. The solitary nature of life in the west and the fact that "This isn’t the land of backup, Jane. This is the land of 'you’re on your own'." is pretty much right and explains why people here think self relying on their own marksmanship is probably a better bet than relying on the distant police. Anyhow, I note this as its interesting how Hollywood makes millions on grossly exaggerated depictions of firearms use in every sense, but then will, so often, come out against individuals owning firearms. I'd accord them more respect if they did with the same things they otherwise positively portrayed but which many question. I.e., if they came out and said, "you know, living like we show in sitcoms will probably get you poor as well as a STD. . . don't do it". But no, as Harvey and Franken show, they're fine with really immoral behavior in general. Take off the pants, grab the boobs, pet the tush, and snort the cocaine (Franken on that last one) , but for goodness sakes, keep your hands of those guns. Hmmmm
Well, to quote a Hollywood item, Tombstone:
It appears my hypocrisy knows no bounds
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