.
We have to laugh, or we’d never stop crying. And the Washington Post‘s Alexandra Petri (here, with Christine Emba) remains a national treasure:
The allegations that have brought down powerful men in Congress and Hollywood are making things around the workplace uncomfortable. Men wonder: Is it still okay to hug a woman? Okay, well, is it still okay to hug a woman and whisper in her ear, “I have $5 million for you if you’ll let me put a child in your child-receptacle, whatever your name is?” Some men are looking back over their own past behavior, terrified they may have, unknowingly, made a woman feel uncomfortable. They want to know where the line is…
Some have lost their jobs for grotesque activity spanning decades, others for a simple query such as, “Okay, Rhonda, how MUCH money for me to rent your womb?” or, “What do you mean, you do not want a box of dildos?” It is those latter cases that have men sweating at their desks. Will they lose their jobs? Should they have offered money for sex instead? Or asked a male colleague to bear their offspring?
“My guy friends are all very alarmed,” says Angela, who asked that her last name be withheld on the grounds that she might have to interact with men again in the course of her life, although she hopes not. “They keep saying, ‘If I can’t ask my subordinates to bear my children, then what can I even say to women?’ and I’m like, ‘Literally anything but that is fine.’”
Some young men worry that courtship is dead. What of the tender, delicate dance, that old ritual “where you invite her into your office, push the door-locking button, and let things take their course?” Tim (who asked that his last name not be used) mused: “What of the unsolicited picture-sending that is the first step in any romance?”…
Just the Facts
Alexandra Petri is to Andy Borowitz what Hillary Clinton is to Donald Trump.
Just the Facts
And Petri really stuck the landing:
Chip Daniels
Maybe us straight guys should use the test of how we would react if a gay boss were to do it to us.
Like, if a gay boss were to kiss us without being asked, or if our slacks were a bit too tight, to impulsively caress our butt would we laugh it off?
Omnes Omnibus
@Chip Daniels: Slacks?
JMG
Best newspaper columnist in America.
Hunter Gathers
@Omnes Omnibus: I think that we’re supposed to call pants that aren’t jeans that cost more than 20 bucks.
Omnes Omnibus
@Hunter Gathers: Trousers.
joel hanes
I dunno, the last line in that Rall cartoon seems tone-deaf to me.
I can’t find a tone of voice that makes it seem woke.
Help?
Steeplejack
This could be useful in the days ahead: template for a boss’s generic sexual-harassment apology.
joel hanes
@Omnes Omnibus:
slacks
As opposed to tauts.
British public schoolboys useta call their voluminous, suspendered trousers “bags”, or so I’m led to believe.
Omnes Omnibus
@joel hanes: Rall is a terrible cartoonist.
Mnemosyne
@Chip Daniels:
Along those lines:
“The Rock Test: A Hack for Men Who Don’t Want to Be Accused of Sexual Harassment”.
Endorsed by Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson on Twitter, even.
FlipYrWhig
@joel hanes: I think the woman is supposed to be being deadpan-sarcastic. But you can’t tell because Rall appears to make his comics by haphazardly inking a raw potato.
ThresherK
Gail Collins had a column today and in the first paragraph I glimpsed while waiting to check out I caught the name Franken.
Please tell me her piece gets better and treates Franken like the warm-up act to Moore or Trump
(No, I’m not gonna click on it..I’m not gonna encourage them.)
Ruckus
@Omnes Omnibus:
Yes, yes he is.
Every once in a while he hits what might be considered a hit, you know where it rolls to the pitcher, who bends down, picks it up and lobs it to first before Ted gets half way there. Otherwise it’s strikes all the way down. And that’s after the pitch goes across the plate at about 20 mph, right in the middle of the strike zone. Every time.
Matt McIrvin
That cartoon is way better than average for Rall.
ThresherK
The Root takes apart an exceptionally silly AP piece on the “new atmostphere”.
Omnes Omnibus
@Matt McIrvin: Sadly true.
Quinerly
OT: This NYTimes piece makes Trump sound even more childish than I thought. Certainly not flattering..”I can invite anyone for dinner, and they will come!” and “The Christians know all the things I’m doing for them, right?” I especially liked the part about mocking a Saint Bernie in a wheelchair. That did make me chuckle. Did anyone think that Trump comes off as Kelly’s cuck? We were talking cucks a bit ago,weren’t we??
B.B.A.
@Amaranthine RBG: Minnesota Public Radio has given no details. Given how sudden it was, I have to figure it was something much worse than what’s in Keillor’s (self-serving bullshit) statement.
It’s also possible Keillor and MPR had strained relations for years, and this minor accusation was just the last straw.
WNYC has suspended Leonard Lopate and Jonathan Schwartz. At this rate, they’ll be reduced to 24-hour Terry Gross reruns by the end of the year.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
Tell me Anne; does it ever cross your mind that fears of Feminist driven revenge man bashing was one of the reasons why all those normally reliable vote blue rust belt workers turned on Hillary last election? I don’t know how these 1% dorks get away with but the HR rules have been really strict since the 90s. I can’t image what increasing those rules would be like since work does require human communication.
But threaten people’s livelihoods is so funny, isn’t it Ann?
FlipYrWhig
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
I’m not Anne, but, no.
Quinerly
@B.B.A.: It was some sort of shirt that had a back but somehow Keillor’s hand got under the shirt and rubbed bare skin. I kid you not…that’s the best I can put together from his story and her story. He did say she recoiled when he touched her bare skin. I guess we can debate logistics.
Amaranthine RBG
@B.B.A.:
I would expect something worse as well. But if his statement is true and that is all there is, it is a bit puzzling
David Evans
Call me immature, but Petri had me at “Greg Prong”
Amaranthine RBG
@Quinerly: I believe he also said he immediately apologized when she recoiled, then sent her an email with another apology and she said something to the effect of “Don’t worry about it” and this was over a year ago.
FlyingToaster
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: Nope.
You made an erroneous assumption, to wit:
Who’ve been voting Republican since Reagan. Specifically, white blue collar workers.
A lot of the people who didn’t vote for Hillary were people whose votes were suppressed by racist voter ID laws.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@FlyingToaster:
More likely, since Nixon.
SRW1
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
Not talking with your hands gets you to 90 percent compliance with those strict rules, if not more.
marv
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: @Enhanced Voting Techniques:
Dude (I’m assuming) – I was an English teacher for 20 years and thought I’d seen it all, but that is the best/worst misuse of a semicolon I’ve ever seen. Take my hat off to you.
Josie
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: That has to be in the running for the dumbest comment ever.
Mnemosyne
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
You mean misogyny? Yes, I think it’s been pretty clear that men’s deep-seated misogynist fears about powerful women helped lead to Trump’s election.
The fact that men are terrified of being held to account for their misogynistic behavior should be treated about as seriously as we take whites’ fears of being held to account for their racist behavior.
B.B.A.
@Amaranthine RBG: Again I say: self-serving bullshit.
If the woman doesn’t want to make her story public, that’s fine, I respect her privacy. But MPR hasn’t even told us how bad this is on a scale from Franken to Weinstein. Which means all we get to hear is Keillor’s self-serving bullshit.
debbie
@Quinerly:
I heard it explained as the blouse had an opening in the back, something like this, but a little deeper.
I’ve seen a few at work.
debbie
@Mnemosyne:
I kinda like that last line.
Mart
I was asked by a young woman I did not know if I knew how to turn on the Keurig brewer in the break room. Being hilarious I said, well first you talk nice to it. Snake eyes. I reached around the machine, turned it on, and ran. Later spoke to a HR woman at another company I have worked with for about twenty five years. I told her just a dumb joke, why the death glare. She said I was wrong, I did not know her. What if she had a bad work experiences with other creepy old men in the office, etc. Always room to get better.
Amaranthine RBG
@B.B.A.:
Maybe it is self serving bullshit. Maybe it is completely accurate. We don’t know.
And, unlike even sainted Senator Al Franken, we don’t have 1/2 doze other accusers.
schrodingers_cat
@debbie: Seriously, who wears that at work, in Minnesota that too.
ETA: It looks like fancy evening wear that you would wear to someone’s wedding or wedding related soiree’
if you were a Hindi movie starlet.
VincentN
@Mart:
She might have glared at you for making a dumb joke or seeming condescending when she was asking you for help.
debbie
@schrodingers_cat:
I don’t know! I hate that it makes me sound like a prude, but that isn’t work-appropriate.
wuzzat
@Mart: Your first mistake was trying to be hilarious before the young woman had her coffee. The joke’s not that funny in any case, but she may have been willing to humor you if you’d helped her get caffeinated before the stand-up routine.
schrodingers_cat
@debbie: We can be prudish together, it is inappropriate.
Omnes Omnibus
@debbie:
Doesn’t that depend on what “work” is?
debbie
@Mart:
I had a boss like that (sales manager in book publishing). All day long with the endless stupid jokes. I’d roll my eyes, shake my head, tell him he was an idiot; it didn’t matter. But I preferred those stupid jokes to him asking me almost every day to sit on his lap in front of other reps.
Tehanu
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: I was going to tell you where to put your stupidity but others more eloquent beat me to it. Hope you’re getting the idea. You know, it’s really not that difficult to treat women as human beings. Try it some time.
debbie
@Omnes Omnibus:
A valid point.
@schrodingers_cat:
Thanks. Sometimes, surrounded by all these young kids, I feel like I’m in a very strange land.
Teddys Person
@Mart: I hope your HR friend told you that the problem wasn’t that the joke was dumb or that you didn’t know the person. The problem was the sexual innuendo in the joke and therefore inappropriate in the workplace.
amygdala
@Omnes Omnibus: Exactly. In some creative workplaces, especially if it’s summer and there’s no AC, could well be the norm.
Cacti
#MeToo has done an excellent job of purging Democratic legislators.
Congrats.
debbie
@amygdala:
Not sure he’s referring to creative workplaces.
Heidi Mom
@Quinerly: IIRC, his statement included a phrase on the order of “my hand moved up six inches or so.” Sounded creepy to me.
Dorothy A. Winsor (formerly Iowa Old Lady)
@Mart: Women have all experienced men telling them to smile. Sometimes they say “where’s my smile?” Maybe she heard “talk nicely” in that same category. I don’t know.
Chip Daniels
@FlyingToaster:
Isn’t it weird how the “fears of Feminist driven revenge man bashing” were only picked up by white men?
Black men somehow missed all that, and happily voted for Hillary.
Weird.
Cacti
@Chip Daniels:
And most white women voted for “grab ’em by the pussy”.
Your point?
Brachiator
@Chip Daniels:
Yeah, most of us would.
The comparison really doesn’t hold. Especially in the days of my youth, when I was young and beautiful, I got hit on by gay guys a couple of times. I laughed it off because I never felt physically intimidated.
And some gay men in general are probably cautious when trying to initiate some encounters because they may fear physical retribution if they get it wrong. Not just from the individual guy, but also from the guy and his buddies banding together.
And maybe outside Hollywood and the entertainment industry, and maybe except for situations involving very powerful men, a gay boss would risk much in trying to harass an employee.
So yeah, it could happen, but I think that men (as opposed to young boys and teens) could more easily navigate out of the situation.
I think that women have it much tougher.
Cacti
@Chip Daniels:
And most white women voted for “grab ’em by the p**sy”.
Your point?
marv
@Tehanu:
That was pretty eloquent.
Teddys Person
@Dorothy A. Winsor (formerly Iowa Old Lady): I’ve experienced the smile request more as a one word command – SMILE – or “smile, it can’t be that bad.”
schrodingers_cat
@debbie: I am a fairly conservative dresser. No plunging backs or necklines or thigh high slits for me.
Speaking of clothes did anyone take a look at Ivanka’s outfits during her Indian junket? Clearance sale in the the curtain department?
Omnes Omnibus
@debbie:I was just suggesting that what is or is not appropriate in an office or academic environment does not necessarily carry over to all workplaces.
Brachiator
@Cacti:
Bullshit.
I was vehemently opposed to Franken’s resignation but to blame a movement supporting women against harassment is foul, and ridiculous.
debbie
@schrodingers_cat:
I assumed she was wearing her own designs. They’re just horrible.
B.B.A.
@Omnes Omnibus: Keillor did his radio shows on stage, in front of a live audience, and my understanding is she was a performer. So his story is not totally implausible in that regard.
“Not totally implausible” isn’t good enough for me, though, not in these times. My standard is, women get the benefit of the doubt, men get the third degree.
(And that’s why I’ve been so hard on Franken. Even though – or maybe especially because – I was a fan of his comedy and thought he was a fantastically good senator. Doesn’t matter, if you’re shoving your tongue down women’s throats, you have no place in our society.)
debbie
@Omnes Omnibus:
That’s true. I assumed you were cracking wise about jobs involving poles and glitter. Apologies.
schrodingers_cat
@debbie: She wore a lot of Tory Burch, apparently.
schrodingers_cat
@B.B.A.: Okay so the backless/ low back blouse makes more sense, then.
Cacti
@Brachiator:
Trump is still POTUS, Thomas is still a Justice, Farenthold still has his House seat, Ditto for Joe Barton, Roy Moore will soon be a Senator.
Hashtag activist movement is on its way to becoming a punch line. Now excuse me while I go dump a bucket of ice over my head in solidarity with ALS patients.
Omnes Omnibus
@debbie: No problem.
Emma
@B.B.A.: Women should get the same treatment as any other crime victim should get. Begin with the assumption she’s telling the truth and proceed to the investigation. We are not a special breed of creature; we are human and our behavior has the same range as that of men.
debbie
@schrodingers_cat:
So much for being proud of her work!
Villago Delenda Est
You all laugh, but gamer-gate/MRA/PUA types actually have these fears. They’re morons, of course, but they have them.
WaterGirl
@joel hanes: I had the same reaction you did.
debbie
@B.B.A.:
I know he’s not a favorite here, but Keillor has never been associated with lying or other malicious behavior. I understand his reaction and sense of betrayal at being judged so quickly.
Mnemosyne
@wuzzat:
That was my thought, too — don’t get between a caffeine addict and their fix first thing in the morning.
debbie
@WaterGirl: @WaterGirl:
Icy sarcasm?
schrodingers_cat
@debbie: It was pretty tone deaf, AFAIK she wore no Indian or Indian American designers or even Indian textiles. She was dressed like she was going to some garden party instead of official events. Fashion fail unlike Michelle Obama.
WaterGirl
@debbie: Yeah, I got that it was supposed to be icy sarcasm, but it still fell flat for me. Maybe it’s what other people were saying – just not a great cartoonist.
patrick II
I worked with two young woman contractors some years ago — both of them excellent programmers. With the slightly older of the two, she would open the door for herself, and if you tried to get their first and open it for her, she would not be happy. The other young lady would stand aside and expected you to open the door for her. I commented to her on the difference, and she said “..and we expect you to pay for dinner, and then we take your jobs”. A true entrepreneur.
So, anyhow, during anytime of change there are mixed signals, and people draw lines in different places. I don’t work anymore, but I expect if I did I would just treat women like men, but probably still open the door? I don’t know.
Brachiator
@Cacti:
The people in the #MeToo movement are just as frustrated about this as you are.
B.B.A.
@debbie: His show was often enjoyable, and he had a voice like velvet, but I got the sense that he was a bit of a prick offstage.
zhena gogolia
@B.B.A.:
I never could stand that show. Just did not get it.
Lurking Canadian
@Emma: That doesn’t really work, though. Woman says “My boss grabbed my ass”. Boss says “no I didn’t”.
What is there to investigate? One of them is lying. Unless the whole thing’s on camera, all you have is two people with differing accounts. You have to believe one of them.
Fair Economist
@Brachiator:
Maybe you got hit on, but did you get kissed without asking or have your butt groped? So far we haven’t seen any consequences for somebody who just hit on women as I understand the term, barring a boss-subordinate relationship.
It’s not a perfect rule but for a straight guy “don’t do anything you’d mind a gay guy doing to you” is a pretty decent rule.
Brachiator
@schrodingers_cat:
Probably a no-win situation. Had she worn Indian textiles someone probably would have screamed “cultural appropriation.”
schrodingers_cat
@zhena gogolia: Same here.
schrodingers_cat
@Brachiator: Michelle Obama knew how to thread that needle. One Indian publication called her botoxed Barbie. Ouch.
ETA: The world wears Indian textiles, check out the labels on most of the cotton stuff that is sold in this country, 2/3 is made in India.
Mnemosyne
@schrodingers_cat:
Yep — here’s Mrs. Obama in India in 2015 wearing a dress from a New York-based designer who immigrated to the US from India. When you’re representing the US overseas, you do stuff like this because it’s polite and tactful.
And Ivanka thinks she’s qualified to be doing diplomacy on behalf of the US. If I rolled my eyes any harder at her presumption, I might sprain them. ?
Quinerly
@Heidi Mom: I seem to remember that now that you mention it. He was very dismissive. And, yes, it seemed creepy. It clearly wasn’t a backless shirt/outfit. His hand got under it somehow. As I said, “logistics.”
debbie
@zhena gogolia:
As a Midwesterner, I probably related to the show more than you, but it was more chuckles than rollicking laughter.
Mike in Pasadena
Odd that most men seem to be able to keep their hands to themselves and avoid asking women who are not their wives or girlfriends to carry their babies. Fortunately, most men, unlike Republican prosecutors, seem to be able to avoid having undie fun with underage girls. I have never met a woman who was unable to make it clear if they want to have sex or not. Maybe men who are unclear on the difference between words like “yes” and “no” could attend a class or google the definitions if they no longer own dictionaries. Is it really all that difficult to understand those concepts? Perhaps hearing tests are needed? I just don’t know what could possibly be done. Maybe fathers and mothers could help boys and young men learn how to behave? I guess that’s too much to ask in our busy modern age because that would be asking for men to be “politically correct.” Only pussies are politically correct, unlike the fine examples of manly men like Donald Trump and Arnold Schwarzenegger.
Brachiator
@Fair Economist:
Kinda irrelevant to my point. But the answer is yes.
Again, I don’t think the comparison is really there, but if it helps you respect women, then more power to you.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Mnemosyne:
The knee’s quite enough, gimpy.
Mnemosyne
@patrick II:
I think the “opening the door” thing has calmed down a bit. I will let men open the door for me, but I will also open the door for men if I happen to get there first. I also make a point of thanking anyone who holds the door for me, regardless of age or gender, though I try to be a little more enthusiastic when I thank kids to encourage them to keep being polite.
It sounds like you may have reached the age where nice young ladies will open the door for you based on your age. May as well enjoy it, I say.
Ohio Mom
@ThresherK: No, it doesn’t get better but if you look at the Readers Picks on-line comments, she is getting properly reamed.
Sometimes I wonder if the NYT op-ed page is trolling on purpose (with exception of Krugman).
Quinerly
@debbie: Reading from bottom up, so just got to your comment. You probably have a point re the style of the blouse. I haven’t a clue. I suspect there was something more than this one incident. Just don’t know.
Brachiator
@Mike in Pasadena:
Totally agree.
Bess
@B.B.A.:
So, is the Democratic approach going to be “Shoot ’em all. Let God sort it out”?
Or when men (gays, women, or anyone else) are accused of something and asks for a fair hearing do we give them a chance?
Franken asked right away for the Ethics Committee to look at the charges leveled against him. We had a group of Democrats decide to hang him instead.
What do we do when some anonymous person accuses a female Democratic Congress member of touching them on the butt, or whatever. Do we kick that person out of office without taking a look to see if there’s anything behind the charge?
How long before James O’Keefe sets up Elizabeth Warren?
Mnemosyne
@Fair Economist:
@Brachiator:
FWIW, Terry Crews is now suing the male agent who grabbed his crotch.
Quinerly
Speaking of NPR and affiliates…anyone following the whole sorted John Hockenberry stuff? He borders on evil. I guess that’s a strong word but between the harassment of women and his treatment of minority women he worked with, he’s pretty awful.
Brachiator
@schrodingers_cat:
You’re preaching to the choir.
Trump may have put a foot wrong, but I doubt that she could do anything right in the eyes of some people.
However, this is probably made worse by this administration’s tendency to ignore good advice when it comes to matters of protocol.
Mnemosyne
@Quinerly:
I was kind of wondering why his rising star in the late 1990s seemed to suddenly stop rising and he was relegated to NPR. I’m guessing this may have been the reason.
clay
@debbie:
As is appropriate for a Midwestern show.
Bess
@Cacti:
That does not mean that we should accept that sort of behavior in our party. But we do need to police ourselves wisely and not toss a noose over the closest tree limb when someone claims their chicken was stolen.
And we need to punish wisely when punishment is deserved. Touching a bare back, immediately apologizing, and later sending an email apology does not warrant the same consequences as locking your office door and raping an assistant.
WaterGirl
@Mnemosyne: I watched the video you linked to. As the newscaster said …” [India] cheering depending ties with eh United States.”
Those days are over with the entire world. :: sob ::
zhena gogolia
@debbie:
I’m a Midwesterner too. I went to college in Wisconsin, and my friends from Minnesota loved Keillor. My first husband (a Bostoner) loved him too so we had to listen to it all the time. I would always fall asleep — it just seemed so boring to me.
mike in dc
Off Topic: The dust up on Twitter between Josh Marshall and Glenn Greenwald is quite entertaining. Josh is well-capable of defending himself and, in my opinion, “reads out” Glenn’s biases for all Twitter to see.
Quinerly
OT: These kind of mistakes and then having to apologize sure don’t help us. I hate this kind of crap. Fuel for Trump: http://thehill.com/media/364124-washington-post-reporter-apologizes-for-tweet-on-crowd-size-at-trump-rally?rnd=1512857962
zhena gogolia
@Mike in Pasadena:
Good comment!
Cacti
Since it’s an open thread…
Here’s a video you can share with friends who might be indifferent about climate change/environmental issues. Most people like polar bears, and this is a case where the picture is worth a thousand words.
National Georgraphic captures video of a polar bear, emaciated and starving, because there is no sea ice to go out and hunt seals.
When scientists talk about the extinction of polar bears from climate change, this is what it will look like.
debbie
@Quinerly:
Tom Ashbrook of NPR’s On Point announced he was taking a leave following an accusation of harassment.
debbie
@zhena gogolia:
Definitely low key. I also liked the musical guests.
Quinerly
@Mnemosyne: And his female producer at “The Take Away” basically has been protecting him.
I think her title is producer…whatever, many women and minority women complained to her and nothing was done.
Bess
@zhena gogolia:
Some of us got it. And loved it. I’ve listened most Saturday afternoons since the show began airing. It brought a warm feeling of community and a bit of nostalgia for times gone by. As well it gave an audience to musicians who weren’t being heard by many people as “Americana” music was not on many radio station play lists.
What would be nice is if people who didn’t care for the program would, well I’m not going to say ‘shut the fuck up’, but at least realize that one size does not fit all.
Emma
@Lurking Canadian: It is one of the most vexing problems in this situation. I think context matters. I think character matters. I think harrassers are serial, so if one accuser comes forward others will.
zhena gogolia
@Bess:
Oh, okay, I’ll “shut the fuck up.” I wasn’t aware we had a rule against expressing personal taste around here. No one else seems to be observing it.
Cacti
@Bess:
The most egregious part of it is that they allowed themselves to be manipulated into it by Roger Stone.
Brachiator
@Mnemosyne: RE. Terry Crews.
Yep.. And he considers himself part of the #MeToo movement.
And if you dig deeper here, you will get to certain people in Hollywood, and elsewhere, who enjoy fetishising black bodies. And reminds me of James Toback, who in interviews made odd comments about football great Jim Brown.
Quinerly
@Bess: I enjoyed the show. Always great musical guests. Listening to the new version of it right now while planning my New Mexico trip.?
Chet Murthy
@Bess:
Oh please. Nobody hanged him. He decided to resign. If I think some jerk at the office is a pussygrabber, do you think I’m going to continue to treat him like anybody else? Really? Being the target of social opprobrium is not the same as a criminal sentence. Oh, and “fallen women” never got “due process” either. FFS. He’s been convicted of nothing. OF NOTHING.
He *chose* to resign for his own reasons, and perhaps those reasons included the good of his party. But the idea that he’s somehow been denied due process …. sheesh.
[And I say this as somebody who thinks he (and Conyers) should both have made a public show of handing their female caucus-members their gavels and votes, and a further public show of consistently, daily, calling for the resignation of every rapist and assaulter in the R caucuses. Every one. Daily. I think that as a matter of strategy it didn’t make sense for any D to resign, unless they took down every asshole R(apist) with them. And I think if the Dems had any sense, they could craft a media strategy to use their bloc position to hammer the R(apist)s.
Oh and something else: gosh golly, some men might get railroaded for things they never did. Those men might think to themselves that this is some form of cosmic justice for centuries of injustice the other way. If all that happens to them is that a few lose their cushy cushy jobs, well gosh golly, that’s just too much now, innit?
When women hold more than half the positions of power in this country in govt & business, when women have done that for a few
centuries[ok, ok] decades, perhaps we can talk about (shudder) the injustice.ffs.
ETA: LizardBreath said something good about this too: http://www.unfogged.com/archives/week_2017_12_03.html#016318
Ruviana
@ThresherK: I’ll jump in to back up Ohio Mom. I thought the column was disappointing and in a lot of these columns and follow-up stories I’ve been seeing Franken’s behavior conflated with “sexual assault” and descriptions (much like B.B.A. at 62) of behavior taken as given–probably because we must “believe the women.” I am still suspicious of the women who said these things given all the problems with the whole situation. It’s one of those moments when I liked Kathleen Parker’s column way better than what I’ve been reading on the liberal/progressive/left side.
fuckwit
@Chip Daniels: I have applied that test for many decades now and it has always served as a helpful guideline.
zhena gogolia
@Ruviana:
So why did he resign? If he’s innocent he should have stayed.
Now I’m going before I get told to shut the fuck up again. This blog isn’t much fun any more.
gene108
@Brachiator:
You got it backwards. Liberals scream cultural appropriation and we don’t really care what she wears. She is not a fashion icon to us.
Conservatives, on the other hand, are all for her and her daddy, and they would freak out if she didn’t dress and act as the purist white bread American, with regards to clothes to at least what they perceive as classsy and fashionable, even if it isnt something they would wear.
Bess
@zhena gogolia:
Sorry, my comment came off as if I was aiming at you.
I’ve gotten tired of all the slagging off about Keillor. The guy basically rescued public radio single handedly.
Perhaps he was a bit prickly offstage. James Brown and Prince were reported assholes. They pushed the people around them to perform at the top of their game. The same charges are leveled at Elon Musk. Perhaps you can’t be Mr. Rogers offstage all the time and put something good together.
Chet Murthy
@Chip Daniels: Any (straight) guy who claims that he wouldn’t wanna run the offender over with a truck, is a liar. Or a goddam saint. And I’m no saint.
It’s a tell when a man thinks this isn’t a big deal, just like when somebody says Roy Moore hitting on 14-year-olds isn’t a problem.
Mike in Pasadena
@Mart: Mart, those coffee machines are the worst. I think sympathy is called for when anyone has a problem with a machine and asks for help. A wise person who helped me with a photocopy machine once said something like: “The designers of this machine hid the on/off switch in the back to prevent us from finding it. I couldn’t find it the first time. I had to ask somebody for help too.” Then, she showed me where the switch was so I could find it in the future. Her words helped me feel less stupid, inept, helpless, insulted, threatened, and less like I’m the only person who has ever had a problem with a machine.
LurkerNoLonger
Some news that’s not news, everyone hates Trump: https://www.yahoo.com/news/donald-trump-apos-approval-rating-041434118.html
Mnemosyne
@zhena gogolia:
It sounds like Franken got forced into resigning by the Democratic caucus when another, more serious, anonymous accusation was made to Politico and when a somewhat looney woman wrote a long think piece about how Franken harassed her by squeezing her waist while taking a photo and now she was reconsidering her support for the Democrats.
I think it’s going to come out within a few months that this was all a coordinated campaign by the right wing to force him to resign based on anonymous complaints and weak allegations, but by that point it will be too late.
Ruviana
@zhena gogolia: So are you being sarcastic or is that your actual question? If the latter then I under stand it as if everyone you work with on a continuing and intense basis suddenly refuses to back you up then you can’t work easily with them, you may no longer be able to trust them, they may avoid you blah blah blah. This is how humans in groups act. He would also be a distraction if he stayed and I know the republicans would have happily used that to their benefit. It’s difficult to take that kind of a stand. It would have been great if he’d done that but his reasons for what seemed to me was falling on his sword were probably more complex than just sticking around.
ETA: Or what Mnem said more briefly and pithily than I. I think she’s right too.
Chet Murthy
@B.B.A.:
No man in Keillor's position ever minimized his offenses; nope, they always confess fully their actions, in careful and accurate detail. Yeap.Bess
@zhena gogolia:
He had a large number of Senators from his own party, including the Democratic leader telling him to resign.
Here’s what I think we should consider:
Franken said that he would resign “in a few weeks”. Would there be any damage done if there was a hearing before he actually leaves?
What if there really is no there, there?
schrodingers_cat
@Brachiator: @gene108: Cultural appropriation and diplomatic protocol aside, her clothes were fugly. Check them out here.
Patricia Kayden
@schrodingers_cat:
OUCH!! LOL. Was it really that bad? She has loads of money so I would expect her to dress to the nines anywhere she goes. It’s not as if she can’t afford to do so.
Daddio7
@Mnemosyne: You must mean Democratic men who voted for Obama because Trump got less votes than Romney.
Brachiator
@gene108:
Many liberals who whine about cultural appropriation are fools.
Conservatives are a different brand of fool. Many will idiotically applaud Ivanka just because she is white. The worst of them will think she is showing ignorant Indians how they should dress. And the bulk of them want her and her daddy to look white and “American” wherever they go.
B.B.A.
@Bess: At this point I’m just glad Mr. Rogers is dead. Because if he turned out to have done something, I’m not sure I could take it.
grubert
@patrick II:
Because I had a tough and self-sufficient mother who made unfeminine career choices at a time when it was radical and unpopular, and basically was the family breadwinner, I’m pretty much a self-taught second-wave feminist man.
I have always treated women much like men, with decency and basic respect. But also expecting them to deal with difficult situations with a minimal of complaints and not overly accommodating them if they won’t. Don’t care at all for emotional manipulation.
Women who dress provocatively and who act super sexy… I always found them creepy and avoided them, at work and at play. Prefer Mary Ann over Ginger any day of the week.
IMO, the guys who have these worries are themselves not what most women would consider desirable, and the kind of advances that women would welcome when coming from a desirable man would seem creepy. Sure, tell them to stuff it and not be creepy, problem solved, right? But these guys fear that just “being themselves” and treating women the way I do would mean being alone, and they might be right. Expressing desire for a woman who doesn’t want that desire feels creepy.
This isn’t my problem, I’m desirable enough to have had a satisfactory love life. But have some sympathy for the less fortunate, even as I abhor creeping from anyone.
mike in dc
@Mnemosyne: I thought perhaps that Franken refrained from immediate resignation and didn’t set a date certain, on the off-chance that such a concerted effort against him was uncovered. If serious doubts are publicly raised about the accounts in the next few weeks, he might dig his heels in and insist upon the ethics investigation.
Of course, all this speculation may be swamped by a wave of allegations against dozens of sitting members.
Mike in Pasadena
@Mnemosyne: On a streetcar in Brussels, a young woman offered me her seat. I guess I looked older and more decrepit than I thought, but I was charmed, not insulted.
Brachiator
@schrodingers_cat:
Holy shite! I’m not big on fashion, but this stuff is horrible!
Mnemosyne
@schrodingers_cat:
What the hell is up with the collar on that dress? I’ll conceal my neck and reveal my cleavage — that always looks professional!
Quinerly
@Bess: A lot of NPR haters here. We have a great station here in St. Louis that does a lot in and for the community. I have listened and supported for years. Yes, there are some problems and I take the good with the bad or turn it off. Made the mistake in the morning thread a few months ago mentioning a particular guest who was going to be on a particular show. I was shocked by the irrational rage of some commenters over the fact anyone would listen to NPR. They were much like Repugs with their irrational rage.?
And, I’ll add…a lot of rage at 5:00AM. Makes you wonder.
Patricia Kayden
@schrodingers_cat: Oh dear. They are ugly — especially that first floral monstrosity. Sigh.
Bess
@Chet Murthy:
I think it’s fairly common for most murders to proclaim their innocence or claim self defense. Our practice is to use what evidence we have to give them a trial, let them defend themselves, before we convict.
Perhaps Franken and Keillor are guilty as hell. Perhaps they performed heinous acts. But that has not been established. Try before executing.
And sometimes the guilty will get off because their is inadequate evidence. That is a decision we have made in our judicial system. We attempt to err on the side of not convicting the innocent.
Quinerly
@B.B.A.: And I don’t even want to think about what would be dug up on Captain Kangaroo and Mr. Green Jeans.?
Steve in the ATL
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
Hey–you appropriated my pet name for Mnems–not cool!
schrodingers_cat
@Patricia Kayden: @Mnemosyne: @Brachiator: Somewhere in the Foggy Bottom offices, Tillerson and his minions are having a belly laugh.
Mnemosyne
@grubert:
There is a certain type of guy (present company excepted) who feels entitled to date beautiful women and gets enraged when it doesn’t happen. Those are the kinds of guys who end up in the Men’s Rights/Pick-Up Artist groups where they get further recruited by white supremacists.
And sometimes those guys lash out with deadly results — that was the explicit motivation of a mass murderer in Santa Barbara (CA) a few years ago. He couldn’t get the women he thought were worthy of his greatness to date him, so he went on a killing spree.
Bess
@B.B.A.: @Quinerly:
From time to time I want to throw something at the radio because of something I hear on NPR news. But I need to hear that stuff. I spend too much time in the left-wing bubble. NPR gives me a little insight to what the other side is thinking.
Mnemosyne
@Quinerly:
Everyone braced themselves after Mr. Rogers died, but it turned out that, yes, he was just as kind and gentle in real life as he was on TV. I think the worst they were ever able to show was that he once said the “D” word (damn!) in an outtake when he couldn’t get a tent to work.
B.B.A.
@Bess:
Which too often means nobody gets convicted at all, and shitty men can continue being shitty with impunity.
Ezra Klein had a column a couple of years back that “affirmative consent” standards would mean innocent men would sometimes get wrongly punished, but that’s a cost we should be willing to pay. He was widely excoriated for it, but I thought it was a good point.
Brachiator
@schrodingers_cat:
I also note and appreciate the cattiness of the article, which implied that her wardrobe choices were poor quality knockoffs of the work of much better Indian designers.
J R in WV
@Just the Facts:
I thing you got that backwards, didn’t you? Shouldn’t it be :
Andy Borowitz is to Alexandra Petri what Hillary Clinton is to Donald Trump.
Because from what I read, Ms Petri is pig ignorant and not funny. While Borowitz is smart and sharply amusing. YMMV of course.
Mnemosyne
@Steve in the ATL:
Eh, my spouse beat both of you to it when I injured this same knee 12 years ago. ?
Emma
@schrodingers_cat: ye gods. What’s with the pearly queen jacket?
B.B.A.
@Bess: I like NPR. It’s, how shall I put this… not as bad as the alternative.
Quinerly
@Bess: No argument from me. I keep our local station on 24/7 in my third floor bedroom….BBC throughout the night and Morning Edition in the morning. Although for the last couple of weeks I have fallen into the Morning Joe hole….and Stephanie Ruhle’s show at 8:00 AM is usually quite good. She’s sharp.
Brachiator
@B.B.A.:
Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit.
This is a repudiation of every principle of justice which used to be embraced by liberals.
I have a hard time believing that you are serious about this.
Emma
@B.B.A.: you get to explain to the man’s children that their father — hell their whole life — is acceptable collateral damage.
Mnemosyne
@Emma:
There’s something weird with rich people where they wear ugly, tasteless, expensive clothing because it’s ugly, tasteless, and expensive. It’s more important to them to wear something the plebes can’t afford than it is to wear something that looks good on them, and having the outfit be ugly and tasteless just draws attention to that fact.
That’s one of the many reasons they hated Mrs. Obama — she looked good in mass market clothes and gave the plebes ideas above their station.
sukabi
@Patricia Kayden: worse…fugly is being nice…
grubert
@Mnemosyne:
Yes, of course that happens. It’s horrible. Gah!
When trying to understand human sexual behavior, I tend to go to evolution and history. The role of the male appears to be to act as the genetic variation wild card, and females as a whole select those with superior genes. And so females are much more likely to reproduce then males. ( supported by science, this is ) It’s not surprising that males engage in a wide range of strategies and that some of those will be immoral from a civilized point of view.
Of course, understanding is not condoning or approving. We need to behave better then animals.
Also will point out that females can have their own, significantly different strategies that may not be all that moral either..
patrick II
@Mnemosyne:
You are right about nice young ladies opening the door for me — especially when I am using my cane. It always surprises me though, cause I’m thinking to myself “do I look that old?”. I guess I do.
One taller, athletic young lady even pulled down my bag from the overhead on a flight for me. I’m was surprised, and my pride a little hurt, but secretly thankful. Well, not so secretly as I thanked her cause I was having a little trouble with it.
Chet Murthy
@Bess:
Yeap, and they’re both in the slammer. In the Franken case, there’s been no *conviction*. He *voluntarily* resigned. None of us know what factors induced that decision. None. Of. Us. In the Keillor case, again, no further evidence is provided, but he was *fired*. He has legal recourse. Oh, perhaps he’s a poor man, and can’t afford to hire a lawyer? Shocker!
Steve in the ATL
@debbie:
As I understand it, all his harassment was above average
Omnes Omnibus
@grubert: Nature, Mr. Allnut, is what we are put in this world to rise above.
B.B.A.
@Brachiator: @Emma: I know it’s terrible. Hell, I’m horrified at myself for even making these arguments. But we tried the whole liberal society thing, and it doesn’t work – can’t work. So if we care about righting these actual harms, we go draconian.
And in my heart of hearts, I’m afraid that won’t work either.
grubert
@Mnemosyne:
Sort of like, “I’m so rich that I can afford to look ugly in a $10,000 dress!”
Reminds me of a comment about John Gotti the mobster wearing pink ties because he was so macho he could get away with it.
Mike in Pasadena
@Bess: NPR’s political coverage during the 2012 presidential campaign repeatedly sounded like this: “Governor Romney gave a speech in Flyover City, Iowa yesterday. [Cut to lengthy clip of Romney’s speech.] Obama made a campaign stop where he spoke to about 50 people in an airplane hangar.” [End of segment.] Not, “President Obama,” just “Obama.” No clip of what he had to say. NPR did this kind of thing almost daily. But that wasn’t as bad as CNN’s coverage in 2016. While Secretary Clinton was giving a speech one morning, CNN had a camera trained for 30 to 45 minutes on an empty podium waiting for his majesty Trump to arrive. When he spoke, they never left the scene. As far as I know, the only coverage Ms. Clinton got that day was Wolf Blitzer quoting one sentence from her speech and he then gave Lewandowski or some other Trump operative plenty of time to respond to and criticize that one sentence.
Chet Murthy
@B.B.A.:
Hot damn! Good for him! Indeed, it *is* a price we should be willing to pay. After …. a few millennia of paying that price, perhaps we can revisit it. But not until -plural- millennia have passed.
Omnes Omnibus
@B.B.A.:
Bullshit.
Bullshit with cat shit sauce.
PJ
@B.B.A.: As the gunlovers say on their bumperstickers, Kill ‘Em All, and Let God Sort Them Out.
Chet Murthy
@J R in WV: Yeah, sorry, you got it backwards. But hey, de gustibus …. I think she’s a national treasure.
J R in WV
@B.B.A.:
“…voice like velvet…” ??? Are we talking about the same guy? Garrison Keillor??? He can’t carry a tune in a bucket, and had NO business trying to sing with the best performers in the business.
Brachiator
@B.B.A.:
Sorry. I regret that I can no longer take your comments seriously.
Lurking Canadian
@Brachiator: But that’s what “Believe the woman” implies. And up until the accusations were being leveled at Franken, pointing out that this was a potentially dangerous standard earned you a snide “‘Cuz bitches be lying, amirite?”
It took a long time for “Believe the woman” to be accepted as a standard, even on the left, but a lot of people have proven willing to throw it out as soon as the accused is somebody they like.
Emma
@B.B.A.: thanks but I pass.
Ruviana
@B.B.A.: Isn’t the liberal society thing a work in progress? I think part of the endless…ahem…debate about these issues here over the past few days is trying to come to terms with a lot of broad and important changes that we (as a society) need. Society, liberal or otherwise, isn’t static, it’s always changing, usually slowly but sometimes fast. Sometimes people become collateral damage as norms change. In some sense that’s probably what happened to Franken, in another it’s what’s happening to lots of different groups of people. But if we want to keep liberal society we have to keep working at it.
PJ
@Chet Murthy: The factor was the majority of his caucus calling for his resignation.
grubert
@Chet Murthy:
Keillor has an attorney.
https://www.mprnews.org/story/2017/12/07/keillor-attorney-mpr-must-set-record-straight
PJ
@B.B.A.: Well, the Republicans, fundamentalists, and fascists will welcome you with open arms in their quest to destroy liberal society.
Mnemosyne
@B.B.A.:
Wait, back up — when did we actually try the whole liberal society thing? We had maybe 10 years of it, tops, before Reagan threw the whole project in reverse.
Chet Murthy
@Emma: There’s a famous saying I once heard:
It covers this situation. Until male rapists/sexual assaulters/harassers (and I feel it’s already minimizing, to not write rapist separately from assaulter, b/c too often it’s fukkin *rape*) get convicted and sent to prison regularly and with high probability, I’m sorry, but this is a false even-handedness. Sure, there’s that guy who got falsely tarred. But each one of those, there are *how* *many* women who got raped, got harassed at work, and were *powerless* to do anything about it?
PJ
@Chet Murthy: Injustice should be met with injustice, and the innocent punished for the sins of the guilty.
grubert
@Lurking Canadian:
Rather then “believe the woman,” how about “take the accusations seriously?”
Because “believe the woman” has become a synonym for “believe all accusations.”
Emma
@Chet Murthy: you cannot balance accounts in any moral sense, especially on the backs of innocent people.
debbie
@schrodingers_cat:
Boy, what a waste of fashion dollars. Even the shoes!
Heidi Mom
@Mnemosyne: That would explain that wild blouse with the fish on it that Ann Romney wore. (At least that’s how I remember it.)
PJ
@Chet Murthy: I mean, somebody raped that woman running in Central Park, so who cares if those five black and Hispanic boys did it or not, amirite?
Sab
@schrodingers_cat: Her clothes are fugly and they also look to be incredibly uncomfortable. Like 1950s clothes where you need a knee to neckline corset underneath just to look presentable.
Patricia Kayden
@B.B.A.:
Nope. That sounds way too much like the pro-death penalty argument that posits that it’s okay if a few innocent people are put to death because we’ll get to kill the guilty folk. Nope. Nope. Nope.
Quinerly
@grubert: Thanks for posting this.
Mnemosyne
@grubert:
This is, in fact, what women are asking for: when they say that a man acted inappropriately, that the accusation is treated seriously and not just dismissed. There were women who publicly complained about Harvey Weinstein for years and refused to work with him. Rose McGowan even won a lawsuit against him. But somehow that steady stream of accusations never resulted in Weinstein having to pay any kind of penalty until this last one.
This will work out about as well as “believe the children” did during the childcare molestation scare did. But there is definitely something to the notion that when you have multiple women who don’t know each other all telling the same story on the record as happened with Weinstein and Moore, it should probably get a serious investigation rather than assuming that each and every incident was an unrelated one-off.
Omnes Omnibus
@Ruviana: There are authoritarians on the left as well. Liberalism is about process and some people don’t have time for that.
In addition, liberalism requires a belief that most people can become better and, B.B.A. has already come forward with his opinion that men are basically evil.
J R in WV
@Chet Murthy:
Me too, and I like Andy Borowitz too. Just didn’t work for me either way I guess.
Bess
@Chet Murthy:
Franken was led to the side of the ship by his fellow Democratic Senators and told to jump.
Let me assume for a moment that Franken did nothing wrong. I am not assuming that in real life because I do not know if the people accusing him are credible or not.
OK, assuming innocence.
Franken appears to be a good guy. He was put in a position where he was given no opportunity to defend himself. He could stay and fight, potentially creating a mess inside the party and giving Republicans ammunition to be used against Democrats. Or he could take one for the team, accept a personal setback, and hope the truth emerges over time.
I think Franken understands that publicly calling his accusers liars would be bad for women in general.
OK, end of assumption.
I want our party to find out, to the best of their ability, to discover the truth and make a just decision.
SiubhanDuinne
@Mnemosyne:
I find myself assaulted by a long-repressed memory of Ann Romney wearing a particularly hideous $1000 t-shirt.
Ruckus
@zhena gogolia:
Don’t leave, use the pie filter.
You still get the rich rewards of everyone else’s company without having to hear that your opinions are crap because some one disagrees with you. Now of course if a large percentage of the commenters think you just stunk up the place, maybe there’s more than just a difference of opinion in play. But when someone disagrees with an opinion about some entertainment and then gives you far more crap than that deserves, I just ignore them. Or pie them.
We all have differences, sometimes I’m amazed that any 2 humans can ever have a polite discussion.
LosGatosCA
If women could just make men more comfortable at work they wouldn’t have to keep pulling out their penises at work to make sure they are actually men and not some castrated she-male.
it’s a fine line for men to walk – workplace rapist/rapist wannabe vs neutered cuck incapable of rape. No self-respecting sexual predator wants to fall into the latter category.
B.B.A.
@Everyone: Thanks for the counterarguments. Really. I’ve backed into this position against my moral principles because I’m afraid, as a straight white man, that my “principles” are self-serving and can’t be justified in the face of truly horrific crimes committed by people like me, who close ranks and hide behind these principles to continue committing their crimes.
Patricia Kayden
@Brachiator: I also love that the article negatively compared Ivanka to Mrs. O who actually chose an Indian American for the outfit she wore when she arrived in India in 2015.
mike in dc
@Chet Murthy:
I think that’s a bit much. I would say that sometimes the general tenor of an initial paradigm shift is not going to finely calibrated. More like adjusting the water until the temperature is right. We need due process, but we also need transparency and expeditiousness. In a perfect world, the matter is investigated immediately, testimony is taken under oath, evidence is examined and debated, and then a finding is made within weeks to months, NOT 3 years as happened in the Packwood case.
danielx
@SiubhanDuinne:
Lime green golfing trousers….:::shudder::::::
John Revolta
Well I don’t know what happened in the Keillor incident but I gotta say, I’m at least glad to hear somebody talking about it. I dunno why but since he got the boot I haven’t heard any discussion at all about it, and it’s weird.
danielx
@Ruckus:
Read a line back in the day somewhere about how the Vietnamese are a very friendly, peaceful people who love war. Lock two friendly papa-sans in a room for 24 hours and one of them will emerge victorious.
Mnemosyne
@Bess:
I also think that at least some of this is due to changing standards and peoples’ various levels of comfort with being touched by strangers. If you’re a politician who gets asked for photos at every public event, you’re not going to think it’s odd to put your arm around strangers and pull them close. But some of those strangers will find your comfort with that to be weird and creepy, and that’s how you end up with women saying he was creeping on them while taking a photo while he remembers it as just ordinary photo-taking behavior.
Projecting out even further, I could see a liberal, womens-rights guy like Franken questioning his own behavior after these things started coming out. Maybe he was making women uncomfortable without meaning to and he didn’t realize it until it was pointed out to him. That’s the kind of self-examination you’ll never see a true harasser do, but it can come across as excuse-making since we’re much more used to guys making excuses for themselves in these situations.
WaterGirl
@grubert:
That’s it in a nutshell.
Gvg
@Lurking Canadian: no, you check with other people around. There may be witnesses, there may be other instances, one may have a reputation for lying, there might be other things going on….
It MIGHT be that you can’t get any resolution then, in which case try to separate them and watch both. If boss is an ass grabber, and you pay attention, you will find out. Also re emphasize rules about open doors when not alone etc.
Mnemosyne
@SiubhanDuinne:
I think that’s the same one that Heidi Mom is remembering.
Bess
@Mike in Pasadena:
If we want a 100% Democratic Party/liberal/progressive station then we should start and fund one.
I want at least one source that attempts to present both sides. @
B.B.A.
@Mnemosyne:
That’s me in a nutshell. Except I’m aware I could be making excuses, driving me further into a vicious cycle of self-loathing.
Have I mentioned I’m on the edge of the autism spectrum, clinically depressed, and neurotic to the bone, no doubt about it? Just to give you a sense of where I’m coming from.
EDIT: Sorry about this post. I should stop making this conversation about myself. It’s not about me. It’s about the real victims.
dmsilev
@SiubhanDuinne:
The one with a print of a large fish wrapped around it? Yeah, that was pretty bad.
Bess
@John Revolta:
I’m not clear on ‘her shirt was open”. If you assume innocence then it might mean a short shirt, not tucked in and the “pat” was a sort of “pat/rub” on her lower back. Putting your hand on a friend’s back and rubbing it is something somewhat common.
Again. I assume neither guilt nor innocence for Keillor. Or Franken. I want a fair investigation before sentencing or releasing in all case for all of us.
Mike in Pasadena
@Omnes Omnibus: As I said in an overlong comment, above, most men seem to be able to treat women as they would like to be treated themselves, with respect and good manners. We just have a few prominent bad examples like Trump who are teaching men to behave like animals. President Obama always acted like the gentleman he is, but because he had dark skin, some men missed the point. Even though Republicans tried to portray BHO as the devil himself, I never saw footage that showed him misbehaving. I think I would have seen it if it existed.
West of the Rockies (been a while)
I know up front that what I’m about to propose won’t work for several valid reasons.
Nonetheless… how about this: if you feel you were molested by anyone famous with whom you now have no contact, come forward now. If, hypothetically, Tom Hanks grabbed your butt in 2006, say so before, maybe tax day, April 15th.
debbie
Well, in this atmosphere, why isn’t this a fireable offense?
B.B.A.
@debbie: It takes half the House and two thirds of the Senate to fire him, and have you seen those guys?
dmsilev
@dmsilev: Google Image Seach reveals the Romney Fish Shirt. Yes, it was as horrible as I remembered.
B.B.A.
@Bess: As I said above, either (a) that’s not the truth, or (b) if it’s the truth, it’s not the whole story. How much has MPR been paying him for basically nothing?
Sab
@dmsilev: Wow! UGLY!
SiubhanDuinne
@danielx:
Spare me!
SiubhanDuinne
@Mnemosyne:
I think so. I typed my comment before I saw hers.
Bess
How do you know that? Are you willing to go into court and swear to your claim under the penalty of perjury?
Paying him for something you don’t value?
Or paying him based on the audience he attracted?
As far as I am concerned there are multi-millionaire musicians who don’t deserve a penny for what they have produced. But they appeal to others so it’s none of my business.
Ruckus
@Mnemosyne:
We had that maybe ten years of unfinished legislation and howling to beat the moon about how this was going to end the world. It wasn’t close to an actual liberal society, not within a thousand miles.
It was that first step on a long road that was taken. It has, step by step actually gotten a bit better but we still have a long ways to go. And a year ago we took at least a hundred of those steps backwards.
@Lurking Canadian:
To me what “Believe the woman” implies is that we do what Franklen wanted, have an investigation. An actual investigation about the allegations. A criminal investigation if that’s what it takes. Because as some here said earlier, the usual first response used to be “Sure, he did that” said with a wink and a nod to his fellow officer with mouthing the word, “women, can’t live with them, can’t live without them.” I don’t take it to mean that we just accept whatever a woman says as absolute truth, any more than we should the man, because that’s been the problem. Let’s fix the problem we have, not make another one.
Heidi Mom
@dmsilev: Yes, that’s it. Why wear something with such a bizarre, unavoidable focal point? Even the rare onlooker who likes the shirt will be looking at the fish, and not at the person wearing it.
Bill Arnold
@patrick II:
My current rule (work and elsewhere) is that the first person (gender is irrelevant) to get to the door opens it, and tries to make sure that the next person catches it in a lowest-wasted-energy handoff. Seems to be working… most of the time. Adjusted realtime as required depending on what people have in their hands, which hands, which way the door opens, ability (crutches/wheelchair), etc. With strangers (especially from unknown cultures) it’s harder because the expected protocols haven’t been agreed-upon.
grubert
@Mnemosyne:
Absolutely.
Feathers
@grubert: Sorry, but I had to jump in on this sorry ass bullshit. The idea that men are “naturally”rapists is nothing but an evo-psych libertarian fantasy. One of the real problems in evo-psych research, as well as much of psychology, is the tendency to look at individuals only. “Man” must have evolved to do X because X is something some people would want to do if they could get away with it. But “man” is a highly social creature, who if anything has evolved to live in groups. And there is no healthy human social group where rape is acceptable. It is invariably a sign of social breakdown. It is generally unheard of in the hunter gatherer societies which are supposedly the closest analogs to the conditions humans evolved under.
;tldr The whole evo-psych research fantasia falls apart when scientists start playing the various scenarios out into second and third rounds of choices. What one individual may choose when they believe there will be no consequences is entirely different from what they will chose within the constraints of a group. Pretending the natural state of humans is as an individual, rather than part of a group, is a harmful construct.
B.B.A.
@Bess: Speculation on my part, to be clear.
I say “paying him for basically nothing” because he was mostly retired. The only new content he was producing was the daily five-minute “Writer’s Almanac”, which I doubt was worth all that much. Other than that, it was reruns and licensing his intellectual property to the Chris Thile show. Now the reruns are gone and the Chris Thile show is continuing under a different name.
Bess
Here’s audience data for 2014. Shows in order of number of weekly cumulative audience. Keillor’s show aired one time a week. I don’t recognize any other 1x per week shows on the list. Divide most of the totals by five to get a handle on his draw.
All Things Considered 13.3[15]
The Rush Limbaugh Show 13.25+
Morning Edition 13+[16]
The Sean Hannity Show 12.5
Delilah 8.8[17]
Marketplace 8.7[18][19]
The Dave Ramsey Show 8.25+
The Glenn Beck Program 7+
The Mark Levin Show 7+
Elvis Duran and the Morning Show 5.5[20]
The Savage Nation 5.25+
Fresh Air 4.5[21]
A Prairie Home Companion 3.5[22]
Mary G
Ivanka’s clothes are indeed hideous. I wonder if Twitler told her not to wear designers who have spoken out against him, which is most of the good ones.
Garrison Keillor – he was quite offended that flirtation had been turned into a crime and I suspect most of his harassment was verbal, but I don’t know.
@B.B.A.: Sorry, but no, no, no. The solution is more women in places of power and less tolerance for bullshit. A lot of these guys start small to see what they can get away with and complaints about minor incidences get brushed aside or not made, so they ratchet up.
I had a problem with a creep who made comments to me that started fairly innocuously, like calling me Mrs. (my boss’s name) and got more and more offensive. I started writing them all down by date and time and that I always asked if there was some work thing he wanted, to which he always said no, with another lecherous remark. I’d mention it to my boss and he’d tell me everyone knew the guy was awful. Wrote that down too. Finally he caught me alone in a conference room and started stroking my forearm and talking about how soft my skin was. He had also started harassing a 21-year-old whose boss was always out playing golf and I had had it.
I informed him in a shouty voice that the next time he put a hand on me or the kid, he would lose it, copied all my notes and gave them to HR and my boss and watched the fur fly. It was fun. I got us both promotions and an apology in front of the corporate counsel and the CEO. I told them there were worse offenders and they needed to change the company culture, which at manager level and up, included a lot of drinking.
He took a medical leave and the few times I saw him again, he would turn and run. They didn’t change anything else and like three years later another manager punched out a woman who worked for him in the parking lot in front of the whole staff coming back from the office’s annual secretary’s day lunch and broke two of her teeth.
I gave her all my notes for her lawyer, who had worked for Gloria Allred. She took me on a lovely vacation to Hawaii in thanks. A number of early retirements took place and suddenly there was no drinking or harassing allowed and everybody hated me for it.
Mary Ellen Sandahl
@B.B.A.: Some years ago I knew somebody (a woman) who knew someone else (also a woman) who had worked for Keillor on his radio program and found him to be a pretty lousy person to work with – bad temper aggressively expressed, basically. Sorry can’t give more specifics. Interestingly, pre-Senate Al Franken once conducted a TV interview with Keillor. This was back in the early 2000s. Keillor was scowling and unresponsive, evidently in a not-good frame of mind, and Franken tiptoed warily around him, obviously wary of setting him off. It was uncomfortable to watch.
Ruckus
@B.B.A.:
If they really are principles instead of “Fuck you I got mine” then stick to them. Use them, express them, adjust them when you get feedback telling you that you are wrong. Many here have been telling you this for a while and you keep over reacting. Blacks, as a group didn’t want all the white people killed they just want the equality they deserve and women want that as well. And we all want that against the wealthy that want all the rest of us to pay their share. The word is EQUALITY. You aren’t better than me or anyone else, not because of your color, gender, religion, country of origin, money, etc….. But you aren’t any worse either, until you are. What is desired in a world with billions of us in it is equality, equality of treatment, equality of opportunity, equality of healthcare, just fucking equality. We don’t have to go overboard, we just have to treat each other like we want to be treated and respected.
Bess
@B.B.A.:
Garrison was doing a 5x a week “Writer’s Almanac”.
He was doing Prarie Home Companion tours and cruises. He was selling merch.
theturtlemoves
@Mnemosyne: And for that self-examination and maturity he was rewarded by being crucified by his own colleagues and told to resign. This gives the Republicans a number of wins. First, they get rid of Franken in the Senate, second they still get to keep Moore because he’s of course denying everything, and third they get to discredit the entire metoo movement because hey, look what those stupid liberals did to the guy who was trying to play their game; why should we bother even trying to be nice if we’re going to get crucified no matter what we do, right?
Jim, Foolish Literalist
I wonder if Obama is going to start speaking out more aggressively:
Tilda Swintons Bald Cap
Tom Arnold’s Twitter:
Ruckus
@danielx:
That is not limited to Vietnamese. That is a learned human trait. We live in a world that has been for almost all of it’s existence a place where only the strong survive. It’s been not that long ago that we learned how to keep kids born premature alive. But now lots more of them survive and they can go on to prosper. We know how to, if not cure at least hold a lot of cancers at bay, how to fix hearts, or replace them even. But we haven’t learned how to live and let live, how to regard each other with equality. It’s worse, men against women and bad in this country and others, white against black, etc……. We’ve evolved in many ways, but only really poorly in equality.
It takes desire and practice to find that in our lives and as more and more of us survive and live longer we will have to find that balance between survival and survival of the worst. Because that’s what happens, the worse often end up surviving when the shit hits the fan.
sharl
@Feathers: You are reminding me of the story of the baboon troop in Kenya,* whose aggressive alpha males were wiped out by bovine tuberculosis, and the resulting change in internal troop social dynamics. True, it’s not a story about homo sapiens, but seems like it could be relevant to our species just the same.
*Apologies for the Friedmanesque start of the sentence.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@sharl: Friedmans baboons ride in cabs and assure him they are hopeful about the Saudi Crown Prince’s reform efforts
grubert
@Feathers:
I agree about this: a lot of evo-psych is “just-so” nonsense. But this is very simple logic. You’ve asserting that rape has always been very rare because no societies, recorded or studied, agricultural or hunter-gatherer, have ever condoned it. I disagree. Isn’t it obvious that the moral code wouldn’t exist if it wasn’t a common enough occurrence to require a taboo?
People have been around a lot longer then recorded history, and archeology can only tell us a bit. What is and what isn’t rape is a cultural contextual matter. By today’s standards, a lot of pre-historic sex would look a lot like rape. And since few men have reproductive success ( see link, ) it would have been as successful as not. Can’t you agree that the prevalence of sex initiated by male pressure is real even today? And doesn’t that also support this theory?
Unlike the MRA or PUA community, I am *not* arguing that our “natural” behavior is a guide for what should be OK. Exactly the opposite. I am saying that our natural inclinations and behaviors are not going to be easy to eradicate. Very difficult, takes generations.
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/through-history-more-women-have-reproduced-men-180952840/
https://psmag.com/environment/17-to-1-reproductive-success
( I study this stuff because .. well, people are so dang fascinating )
gene108
@theturtlemoves:
We are rarely in an environment, where nuance can be effectively communicated.
A large part of this is conservatives have invested heavily in the media. They can create a frenzy in the public and the rest of the media. Whitewater dominated headlines, because conservative publications pushed it into the mainstream.
Obama was forced to have a beer summit, because of right-wing freak out over saying a Harvard professor entering his home should not have been detained by police.
The playing field is not level. Republicans and their backers have invested heavily in the media.
If Franken had stayed on there would be a steady drip of allegations bubbling up through Breitbart, Fox News, etc, until the accusations against Roy Moore would be met with “what about Franken?”.
It sucks, but there are no liberal rich people, who want to transform America into a Scandinavian democratic soc$ialist utopia and therefore they are not willing to sink their billions into transforming our politics to counter rich conservatives.
And what more can we do about Roy Moore? It is drilled into everyone’s skull he creeped, molested and attempted to rape teenage girls 35-40 years ago. But Republican voters in the Age of Trump don’t give a shit.
Because after all the Democrats foisted a Negro President on America for eight years.
The only thing we have to push on now is Farenhold and his 84k settlement that is not getting enough attention. And when (if?) it does get pushed, Republicans can’t say “what about Franken?”
mike in dc
@Tilda Swintons Bald Cap:
On the one hand, this does sound highly plausible. On the other, Tom Arnold has been blowing smoke up everyone’s ass about having seen the Apprentice outtakes, and yet, somehow, for this reason or that, he just can’t seem to release it, or persuade the people who have it(who, he won’t say of course) to release it. So, I’m really not sure how credible this assertion is, on balance. If Arnold had a better track record of actually producing, maybe it would be more solid to me.
Bess
@Tilda Swintons Bald Cap:
On the same USO tour when Franken posed for what looks like a joke picture (he certainly is not groping Tweeden’s breasts but holding his hands in front of her flack jacket) she walked across the stage and rubbed her ass against a performer’s leg. Then they exchanged ass grabs.
https://youtu.be/rJidGI-NMd0
I would need something significant from another ‘event’ before I could convict Franken. An arm around the waist along with a squeeze is weak tea.
His hand on a butt. Was it just below the belt line or did he grab cheek?
We hung the guy for stealing a chicken. Now let’s go look to see if there any fresh chicken bones at his house.
grubert
@B.B.A.:
For what it’s worth, Randi Rhodes worked with Franken for years at Air America and she says that he was never the least bit sex creepy to her or any other woman there. ( To be clear, she and Franken did *not* like each other..) But she does say that he’s a very huggy guy, and a “full-frontal kisser,” her exact words. I can believe that he’s a bit socially clueless in that way. And I’ve known families that did the full kiss thing.
sharl
Hahaha, Friedman should have pointed this out during his Slate interview with Isaac Chotiner; it would have been gangbusters!
Omnes Omnibus
@Bess: Hanged, not hung.
Bess
@Omnes Omnibus: Looking it up, you’re correct. But people would look at you funny around here if you used “hanged”.
B.B.A.
@mike in dc: Yeah, I’m not saying Tom Arnold is the least trustworthy source I can think of, but… but I can’t think of a way to finish this sentence.
mike in dc
@B.B.A.: He’s below Seth Abramson but above Taylor/Mensch. Which is probably not great.
Steve in the ATL
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
This is quality satire.
Lizzy L
I don’t know why Franken agreed to resign; I am pretty sure there are multiple causes. But to all the folks, here and in my FB feed, who keep insisting that he should have demanded an Ethics investigation — the Senate Ethics Committee is majority Republican. The Chair of the Committee is Isakson from Georgia. A Senate Ethics Committee investigation of a key Democratic Senator run by the Republicans could last for months, and be entirely biased — think Benghazi. I can’t see Franken choosing to submit to that.
Kathleen
@Ohio Mom: Speaking of trolling, Alexandra and Christine were trolling NYT with this article according to Twitter. Christine had a pretty funny thread.
https://twitter.com/petridishes/status/939311294825533440
Anne Laurie
@Cacti:
This won’t change your mind, but that particular “viral challenge” actually has been credited with securing funds that lead to an important scientific breakthrough. Which may have been a one-off, given the novelty-driven nature of the internet, but it makes a bad fit for #hashtagactivism mockery.
Ruckus
@grubert:
I knew a family that both of the teenage sons would kiss the dad goodby, on the mouth. It surprised me when I saw it. But it was normal to them. My dad hugged me for the first time that I ever remembered when I was 42 and he was 75. Families are different, no doubt about that.
Ruckus
@Lizzy L:
Franklen asked for an ethics investigation first thing. And I’d bet he knows of the committee makeup and that the senate is majority repub. He still asked for one.
Omnes Omnibus
@Bess: You don’t hang with lawyers, do you?
CarolDuhart2
@gene108: Whenever I hear the “rich liberals don’t fund media” argument, I wonder if it’s a way to avoid doing the hard work of building something that could be funded in the first place?
And that’s not the way alternative media works anyway. Someone starts something, makes it run, and then have people fund it. With something that runs and is actually working, you can go to someone with millions who is willing to add to the pile. That’s really the way conservative media started anyway. Not with glitzy studios, but with fading AM radio stations out in the middle of nowhere that needed programming once music went away.
Which is why I sent $20 to Free Speech TV for the first time on Friday. More money means they can expand into something that reaches more people, who then may actually bring in a millionaire or two.
Anne Laurie
@Villago Delenda Est:
Yup. And Nazis actually believe that “the Jews/blacks” are subhumans determined to parasitize hard-working white people, but (until the GOP decided they could use it as a weapon) “decent people” didn’t waste their time making excuses for their morbid fantasies.
The MRAs choose to live in a self-reinforcing bubble of resentment & terror. It’s one thing to feel sorry for them, but pretending that every woman in the world and the vast majority of men who aren’t MRAs should structure our lives around their terrors makes as much sense as insisting that everybody should use a wheelchair because some people can’t get around without them.
glory b
@Emma: Emmitt Till, Scottsboro Boys……
Brachiator
@Lurking Canadian:
Uh, no. This is only what it means in the Internets court of instant judgement.
It can only mean, take the accusations seriously and investigate. Otherwise, the WaPo, for example, would only have printed the accusations against Moore without any backup.
I don’t know why this should be so difficult.
Bess
@Lizzy L:
Testimony before the Ethics Committee is not classified (as far as I know). If Republicans were holding up the process or trying to hide evidence supporting Franken I would think Democratic members could speak out. Perhaps not identify the witnesses/accusers, but at least let other Senators know that foul was afoot.
Lizzy L
@Ruckus: He did — and then he dropped it. That seems significant to me.
Bobby Thomson
@Omnes Omnibus: obligatory.
Bess
@Omnes Omnibus:
I have standards.
Omnes Omnibus
@Bobby Thomson: Without looking… Blazing Saddles.
ETA: Woohoo! “Civil Service, baby.”
magurakurin
@Mnemosyne:
or not. But Al Franken has stopped fighting it, maybe it’s best to let it go and move on. Al just isn’t all that, and personally, no way I’d bet even a penny on your scenario coming true.
Omnes Omnibus
@Bess: High or low?
Bess
@Lizzy L:
Franken said that he did not want an Ethics Committee review? When?
Not something I’ve heard about.
The Lodger
@Bess: Half the audience of Mark Levin? Sweet Jesus, that’s awful.
Bess
@Omnes Omnibus:
Weak stomach.
Actually I have nothing against lawyers. I’ve known some upstanding individuals and I’ve met a sleazeball or two. Just like one finds in most occupations.
Bobby Thomson
@mike in dc:
Not that Arnold is necessarily telling the truth, but Evil P3cker Mark Burnett owns the rights to the tapes and they are subject to an NDA with a pretty big liquidated damages provision. And the National Enguirer, which is the most likely outlet to try to get their hands on something like that, is securely in the camp of Team Trump.
Brachiator
@grubert:
Actually,no.
Of course, any claim about natural society is somewhat wrongheaded. Apes, including humans, are social animals, always have been, and “natural” behavior is in part bounded by societal rules.
Also, I don’t think we need to try to jump deep into evolution to try to deal with the problem of harassment.
ETA. I appreciate the links. I will check them out in more detail later.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
If we lived in a decent country where young women were taught from puberty that physical intimacy with appropriate peers to whom one is attracted is appripriate, normal and healthy, young adult women of age would be equipped to address an unwelcome advance, and the person serving up the advance would be able to handle it.
Consider the following exchange in utopian America:
Instead, we dance up to everything, and too many never internalized the social tools to a) make a good attraction approach or b) reject, as an ostensibly competent adult, a bad or unwanted approach. So what we get is a bunch of clumsy assholes who leverage power and money on targets who are too mentally weak to split from the room or to say “no, I’m not attracted to you”. We’re handling this like a bunch of college sophomores in an overwrought po mo lit crit class.
I find myself wondering what kind of sexual harassment rates occur in the more sexually open cultures of Northern and Eastern Europe.
Bess
@The Lodger:
7 / 5 = 1.4 per show.
Steeplejack (phone)
@schrodingers_cat:
“This? Oh, it’s just something I saw in the window.”
(h/t Carol Burnett)
Lizzy L
@Bess: He didn’t say it, but he stopped asking for it almost immediately.
Here’s an interesting take on the work of the Senate Ethics Committee, by Pat Kessler, a Minnesota reporter. Judging by this, my suggestion that the Ethics Committee investigation might be like the Benghazi investigations appears to be incorrect.
Omnes Omnibus
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: Romania is rife with harassment. From wolf whistles in the street to classic quid pro quo workplace stuff.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@Omnes Omnibus:
I’m thinking the Netherlands, Belgium, Norway, Sweden, Denmark….
Omnes Omnibus
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: Why did you mention Eastern Europe then?
ETA: The stats with which Stieg Larsson opened each chapter of his Dragon Tattoo books didn’t paint a pretty picture.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@Omnes Omnibus:
Goddamned autocorrect on Kindle. Was SUPPOSED to be Northern and Eastern Europe. I have to type everything three times.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: northeastern?
Bess
Here is Franken’s initial statement upon hearing Tweeden’s charge.
http://www.cnn.com/2017/11/16/politics/al-franken-apology/index.html
I highlighted the part about Franken asking for an Ethics Committee review in his first statement. I recall nothing said by any other senator earlier than that. Do you?
I haven’t heard that Franken called off an investigation. Have you? When did it happen?
Franken did announce that he would be resigning in the next few weeks. I don’t think he said anything one way or another about the Committee. He was told to leave by his peers and fellow Democrats and he said he would.
Brachiator
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: From one study.
Posting the link from my mobile browser
http://m.dw.com/en/what-do-europeans-consider-sexual-harassment/a-41346892
ETA. I recall another story noting that some Scandinavian stats may be problematic because they may have been defining some types of abuse or assault differently than other countries. Still, not a Nirvana here.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: western – WESTERN
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@Brachiator:
So i other words, what the bowler monkeys are screeching for exists no place in earth, and may be hard wired into our biology?
Omnes Omnibus
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: Okay. I will point to the comments above about Scandinavia. Also, Dominique Strauss-Kahn.
Omnes Omnibus
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: No. Not every man does it; too many do; and too many of us don’t call it out when we see it. We are capable of better. Just because 81% of women report having been harassed, it doesn’t mean that 81% of men are harassers. But too many of us are.
mike in dc
@Bobby Thomson:
If someone like Tom Steyer is willing to shell out 10 million for impeachment ads, someone else can offer 20 million plus for the outtakes, if they exist and show what Arnold claims. Trump commenting negatively about women’s bodies and using racial slurs openly won’t move his base much, but establishment pols and media talking heads will be forced to admit the obvious(at least, some of them will).
Lizzy L
@Bess: As I said earlier, I know that he asked for an Ethics Committee investigation. However, if the reporting from Kessler is accurate, that’s not entirely in his favor. The Ethics Committee appears to be where the Senate buries stuff they don’t want made public.
Hell, I don’t know what’s really going on here. I hate like hell to think that the Democratic party simply abandoned one of its better Senators, based on nothing. But Franken is a tough politician. If he thought he could fight this shit and win, I think he’d have found a way to make a case to his fellow Democrats.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@Omnes Omnibus:
I agree.
Brachiator
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes.
No
Bess
@Lizzy L:
Hell, I don’t either. What I’m most bothered by is what looks to be as a rush to judgement. For both Franken and Keillor.
chopper
@Mnemosyne:
god, the comments are awful. “visualize my coworker as a man?! that would ruin my office boner!”
Omnes Omnibus
@chopper: This website is one of the few exceptions to the general rule of never read the comments.
chopper
@Mike in Pasadena:
god, NPR infuriated me with that shit in ’16. “donald trump gave a speech today…” followed by like a 45 second clip. “…also, apparently hillary clinton also gave a speech. on to weather”
Luthe
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: I think you’re focusing on the wrong gender here. Women not knowing how to reject someone is not the issue. Men not knowing how to take rejection is the issue.
Women live in a world of wolves. Wolves who look like dogs. You never know when you could be bitten for pissing off one of the wolves. Most of the time we are interacting with dogs and are perfectly safe. But there is no way to tell that. So we have to act as if each and every encounter is with a wolf. This means rejecting someone is fraught with danger. Am I dealing with a dog who will go away when I reject them or am I dealing with a wolf who will bite me? This is why women have to hedge their answers and hope the other party can take a hint. Because we don’t want to get bitten.
What we need is to teach every young boy to respect the boundaries of others and to accept rejection with grace. Men and boys thinking they are entitled to a woman’s attention is what creates wolves. If women knew their straight out “no” would be accepted, they would say it more often. But until that happens, every dog out there is potentially a wolf.
Mnemosyne
@magurakurin:
We shall see. I think some people here may end up eating crow before the end of 2018.
Mike in Pasadena
@Bess: @Bess: @chopper: that’s my point, there was a distinct bias in favor of the Republican. I don’t expect a liberal slant, but some balance would be helpful.
TerryC
@Mart: I have a good friend who lost his job because he told a co-worker, “Don’t have a cow, man!” The complaint was the the co-worker, a mother, thought he was comparing giving birth to a baby in a degrading way to a calf being born. Absolutely zero comprehension in HR or anywhere that it was humor, and a Simpsons quote. I couldn’t save him. They would not listen. ??
Another time a co-worker of mine left a meeting angrily, came back in and threw a full water glass at me and said I was the worst person she had ever worked with. (We are friends now.)
Next day university HR is over, interviews her and then starts interviewing me. After a thirty seconds in which I realized that they were considering me the aggressor, I reminded them that if I had thrown a full glasss of water at my co-worker I would already have been fired. I could see their heads creakily shifting away from the base assumption of male as aggressor. Uncanny, but they did discipline her, not me.
SFAW
@debbie:
I thought BU (owner of WBUR,where On Point is produced) did not specify the actual charges/complaints. At least, that was the case on Friday. Has something changed?
SFAW
@magurakurin:
If there weren’t a reasonable likelihood of more (possible) ratfucking — as may be the case with Franken — “moving on” might be appropriate. But while Roger Stone (for example) is still breathing, keeping Franken’s resignation in mind might be more appropriate. (Yes, I’m not yet convinced that Stone had nothing to do with Tweeden coming forward in the first place.)
As far as Franken’s performance as a Senator: who IS “all that,” in your opinion? I’m curious, because even though I like Elizabeth Warren (my senior senator), she’s not perfect. And it seems unlikely that Sessions would have “recused” (so to speak) himself from the Russia investigation, had Franken not dealt with him in the Senate hearings. [“So to speak” because, like The Traitor Nunes, KKKeebler Elf appears unable to separate himself completely from the Russia/Mueller investigation.]
grubert
@Brachiator:
Well, I can tell when I’m making no progress with someone, so have to agree to disagree.
I was just educated last night as to why Franken has resigned, by an old friend, a doctrinaire Democrat who’s often as intellectually obstinate as you’re being here, Brachiator. He had his mind made up that Franken had to go, that even if the charges are silly that we can’t defend them because then we’re the same as the the other side, and worst of all he believes the charges even though he can’t deny the obvious that all the behavior is open to interpretation and non-disprovable.
A judgmental brick wall in the face of all reason and logic. If Franken was surrounded by this in the senate, I can totally see why he would resign.
No One You Know
@B.B.A.: This helped me feel a lot better about your comments. I do feel sorry that you felt you had to make it. It wasn’t in vain. I get the relationship between those things and how you talk. It isn’t always easy to know what to say in response. You have a big heart to write your explanation. Thank you.
Lyrebird
@Mart:
Yeah when I was younger, if you’d said that to me, I would have been scared. Bummer that lousy behavior by others can make things fraught for everyone else.
Also, I would actually never have been in that scenario, but that’s because I worked in tech development as a young woman, and I stringently avoided ever associating myself with anything having to do with coffee. That way, if asked to prepare it (which was never part of my job description), I could honestly say I didn’t know how.
Anhyow, go you for asking your friend later on.
I have a knack for saying the wrong thing, so I try to cut others some slack in hopes of good karma.
Kayla Rudbek
@Mike in Pasadena: dude, there are deaf and hard of hearing men who are better at hearing a no from a woman than the Orange Excrescence :)