Wednesday, November 22, 2017

sex -- the feeding frenzy

In the long ago and faraway, when the Soviet Union was so big that it had 13 time zones, I used to wonder at the muffled coverage accorded to that behemoth by The New York Times, a newspaper whose motto was, "All the News that's Fit to Print." How could so little be accorded to so much? How could nothing of note be happening in so much inhabited space? Was "Moscow" really the alpha and omega of Soviet datelines? The word "arrogance" did not cross my mental lips at the time ... this was The New York Times, after all.

A little of the same awe crosses my mind lately as one sexual allegation after another is laid at the feet of powerful (mostly) men. Every day, there's a new member of the club. Politics, sports, business, medicine, religion ... and I seriously doubt that the no-name women are included or assuaged.

The allegations are decades old, perhaps, but enough disparaging of women appears, for the moment, to be enough... and it makes an easy news story ... the feeding frenzy ... whose facts are probably true, but it's still a feeding frenzy that tends to blunt the very cause it seeks to air. I hope it benefits the women who have come forward and whose courage I applaud.

Day after day.

Here's a truncated laundry list.

And it's hard not to wonder what is happening in the other time zones where news organizations are now assiduously not looking. It's sort of like a blackout: What a great time to rob a bank.

1 comment:

  1. I doubt many parents knew they should counsel their children on the subject of such behavior. Maybe that will change now.

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