The Baby and the Bathwater

It's two months post-Weinstein now, and everyone seems to have came to a sort of simultaneous mass agreement to enforce zero tolerance on sexual harassment or misconduct. All of a sudden, any man (well, ALMOST any man) who has ever behaved or spoken inappropriately has to be punished, severely and possibly permanently. 

Like lots of other #metoo women, I have mixed feelings about this. Weinstein deserves his comeuppance (the word of the moment), and so do lots of other prominent men. With super high-profile people like Weinstein and Matt Lauer, the worst offense is not so much the wildly inappropriate or even illegal sexual behavior; it's the gross abuse of power. In those cases, the public downfall is more than deserved. (And it should have happened to Donald Trump. And it should have happened to Bill Clinton. And it's not too late.)

But there's the baby and there's the bathwater. I would like to drain the dirty bathwater, and then thoroughly scrub the tub, but I don't want to discard the baby. I like the baby. I like a lot of men who might, at some point during their personal or professional lives, have said or done something offensive or stupid. In fact, I love some of those men, and I don't want to see them--my friends, or my brothers, or my cousins, or my colleagues might be among them--cast into outer darkness forever. Should we judge the behavior of twenty or even five years ago by the standard of today? Because if so, then who among us will stand up to scrutiny? 

On the other hand (there's always another hand, isn't there? It's why we have two) I have extremely limited patience with the men who are now crying that they just don't know where the line is anymore. They just don't know how to behave! They don't know what they're allowed to do or say! Because it's not that hard. If you're not intimately involved with a woman, then she does not want you to touch most parts of her body. If you work with women, then they do not want to see naked pictures of you or anyone else, and they don't want to talk about sex, either. Because it's work. See? Pretty easy. 

The larger implications of this whole thing are just beginning to become clear. Or at least one specific thing is clear, and that's that the sex-soaked culture of the last 50 years, in which every aspect of entertainment, art, sports, music, politics, and pretty much every other field of human endeavor is permeated and dominated by sex, will have to change. If we're going to hold men (and women, of course) accountable for maintaining a level of decorum that excludes recreational sexual aggression, then we probably can't shove near-naked bodies in people's faces 24 hours a day anymore. 

On its own, that's a good thing. Even if I wasn't a Catholic, I wouldn't actually want to see sex scenes in every movie. I'm disgusted and bored by crude sexual humor on the radio and on TV. I cringe when I hear the lyrics of some of my children's favorite songs. I'm tired of seeing so-called cheerleaders dressed like pole dancers.* 

But the baby is still in the dirty bathwater, isn't he? Bari Weiss** said something about revolutions taking on a life of their own, quickly swallowing everyone in their path, devouring the guilty, the innocent, and the indifferent bystanders, and it's not unlikely that this revolution will have unintended consequences. Ideally, the culture will shift toward an idea of sexuality that acknowledges and respects human dignity. But if you have been on this blog for more than five minutes, then you know that I never expect the ideal outcome. The worst case scenario is my default option. I even have a tag. 

And what's the worst-case scenario? There are any number, but the one that I can see rising to the top is a new Puritanism that combines the very worst of radical feminist hatred of men and radical religious hatred of women, in a country so divided that you won't be sure which standard prevails from one county to the next. In this scenario, Roy Moore wins in Alabama and ten years later, he's part of the moderate wing of whatever new party replaces the Republican party; the moderate wing being the one that believes that a man should only beat the women he's related to, and that a man shouldn't marry a 14-year-old girl without her father's permission. Meanwhile, in what we now call the blue states, men will be fined or arrested for smiling at women they're not married to, and state-financed abortion up to forty weeks will be a basic civil right. 

Or maybe the whole thing will blow over, and everything will be back to normal, whatever that is, in six months. I don't think so, though. I think that a hard rain is going to fall. I think there's going to be a sea change. I'm praying that it's the right one. 

*****

*That's not so much an attack on NFL cheerleaders as a defense of pole dancers. Why should we consider a stripper a social undesirable; while NFL cheerleaders, who dress and behave in the same manner, are held up as examples of wholesome young womanhood? 

**By the way, I agree with a lot of Ms. Weiss's column, but I've never heard anyone say "Believe all women." There's a huge difference between "Believe women" and "Believe all women," always and everywhere, just because they're women. It's the baby and the bathwater again. Don't throw away the very reasonable "Believe women" because it sounds almost like "Believe ALL women." They are two different things. 

Commentary and review

I never intended for this to become a book review blog, but I tend to write about what I do, and in the winter, I read.  Well, I also complain about the cold and contrive to find ways to avoid taking my clothes off and/or going outside, but those things don't make for compelling content.  So it's books for now.

*****

Books and current events, actually.  Right now, half a million women, give or take, are marching on Washington, just a few miles away from the couch where I sit with my laptop.  I sympathize with their cause, mostly, but the organizers of the march made clear that they don't want pro-life women anywhere near their protest, so I didn't go.  Just as well.  My son had a swim meet today, so I held a clipboard instead of a sign.  Now I'm back home and about to return to my book: Rumer Godden's In This House of Brede.

Every so often, I'll hear someone mention a book that I've never heard of, and I'll be curious about it.  Then someone else, in a completely different context, will mention the same book, and I'll think about how odd that is, that twice in a day or so, I'm hearing two different people praise the same relatively obscure book.  When I then see or hear a third mention of that same book, I consider critical mass to have been reached, and I immediately buy the book.

*****

Total non sequitur alert: I just watched Sean Spicer's first press room briefing.  That was the type of performance for which the phrase "I can't even" was invented. No words.

*****

OK, maybe a few words.  Was it completely unexpected that the Trump administration's very first concern was not how to reunite this very divided country, nor how to create jobs for the working-class voters who supported the new President, nor how to defeat ISIS or address any of the myriad threats to national security?  Was it any surprise that on their very first full day in the White House, the Trump administration's very first message to the country was a petty, whining little complaint about the media's supposed misrepresentation of the allegedly huge crowds at yesterday's Inaugural events? Does Donald Trump ever do anything other than cry like a big orange baby?

*****
Anyway.  Back to This House of Brede.  It is, appropriately for today, a book about a group of women; specifically, Benedictine nuns in post-war England. The protagonist is a successful Oxford-educated professional woman who at age 40 or so abandons her high position in a government agency and joins the Benedictines as a novice.  Although the action, such as it is, all occurs inside a quiet and isolated religious cloister, it's still page-turningly gripping.  Like all great novels, Brede creates a completely self-contained world like no other, but still completely recognizable.  I recommend it.

*****

Because I like to suffer, and Lent is still months away, I decided to take an online HTML class. It's still too soon.  I graduated in 2014, but I find that I'm still all full up with book learning and can't do with any more just now, so no more HTML class.  I'll just wing it.  That approach usually works really well.

*****

Books, politics, and incompetent coding.  If you were looking for sharply focused thought neatly distilled in spare and concise prose, then you came to the wrong place. Live and learn.

Party politics

We have a party every year, on the night before Thanksgiving. It's not even a party, really, more of a get-together. Food and drinks and a fire bowl and music, and people coming and going, and most of us talking about how we can't believe that the holidays are upon us, and that soon enough, we'll be saying that we can't believe that it's summer already.

I have friends whose beliefs span the whole political spectrum, so if nothing else, then I guess that the conversation at this year's party might be a little more lively than usual. I'm wondering if I need to post "No Politics" signs around the house that night, just to keep things from getting out of hand.

My Trump-supporting friends voted for him either because they had such serious reservations about Hillary that they felt that they had no choice, or because the Democratic party is anathema to their pro-life beliefs.  I sympathize with their concerns about Hillary Clinton; and as a pro-life person, I also share their dislike of the Democratic party.  

HOWEVER:

1. The Republicans are no better. They controlled the House, the Senate, and the White House from 2001 to 2007, and what they accomplished on the abortion issue can be filed under N for not a damn thing.  They’ll have full control of the Executive and Legislative branches again beginning in January, making it put up or shut up time for the GOP.  Personally, I no longer believe that politics is the way to approach this (or most other issues), which is why I don’t worry much about party affiliation when I vote.  The idea of abortion as a human right is a monstrous lie, and unless we can change the culture and help people to see the truth about abortion, then no lawmaker or judge can make even the slightest difference.  What does make a difference is a genuine understanding of the dignity and worth of every single human life, and that makes it hard for me to understand how people believe that Donald Trump is the person to advance the cause, but I suppose we'll see.
2. Yes, friends who voted for Trump, I will concede that he has been gracious in victory.  I’ll also point out that it’s very very easy to be gracious in victory.  Graciousness in defeat is a whole other thing, and nothing that Mr. Trump has said or done suggests that he’s even remotely capable of losing with dignity.  I have no plans to demonstrate on the streets to protest the results of a fairly contested election.  Democracy is a bitch sometimes.  But please don’t make me laugh with ridiculous assertions that Trump supporters wouldn’t have done the exact same thing if he hadn’t won.  Trump would have cried like a big orange baby about rigged systems and biased liberal media, and angry Trump supporters would be demanding recounts and threatening revolt or civil war or worse.  Spare me.
3. The draining of the swamp appears to be underway.  News reports suggest that Trump’s cabinet picks will include Rudy Giuliani as Attorney General,  Newt Gingrich as Secretary of State, Sen. Jeff Sessions as Secretary of Defense, and a retired Goldman Sachs executive as Secretary of the Treasury.  Maybe the President-elect forgot to mention that he was planning to replace the swamp with a cesspool.  P.S. You keep saying "Blind Trust." I do not think that this means what you think it means.

ON THE OTHER HAND:

1. To anyone who has posted or shared the horrible meme of four or five former First Ladies in dignified and regal attire, juxtaposed with a nude shot of poor Melania Trump, which was probably taken under duress when she was 18 or 19 years old: Have the rules on “slut-shaming” changed?  Is it now OK to slut-shame, as long as the slut in question is affiliated with the wrong political party, or married to the wrong man?  Talk among yourselves and get back to me on that.  Meanwhile, if you share or post that meme or anything like it, for the purpose of shaming or degrading Melania Trump for her youthful indiscretions, then I will immediately recognize you for the misogynist that you are, and I will decline to take anything you say seriously, ever again.  
2. If you’re calling for Democrats and other Trump-resisters to treat Trump with exactly the same obstructionism and lack of respect that Republicans heaped on Barack Obama, then just stop it with the Michelle Obama “they go low and we go high” quotes.  That’s exactly the opposite of “going high.”
3. Not everyone who voted for Trump is a racist or a hateful hating hater filled with hatred. The "Love Trumps Hate" rhetoric is just silliness. And by the way, "hate" is a verb. It should be "Love Trumps Hatred." I get that the former sounds better. But it's just wrong.

See how fair that is? Three each. Now enough of the politics. It's party time.

Current events

I work from home.  When my husband is at work and my kids are at school, the house is sometimes too quiet, so I keep the TV on, on low volume, because the background noise is helpful.  I'm usually tuned to MSNBC, alternating occasionally with the local all-news channel.

Even though I don't actually watch most of the time (I usually sit with my back to the TV), the talk still enters my brain, which means that I know more about politics right now than I necessarily want to.  I was shocked last week when my husband, commenting on the New Hampshire primary results, asked me who John Kasich was.   He's an intelligent and reasonably well-informed person, but he'd never heard of John Kasich; didn't even know that he was running.  

Right now, MSNBC and every other news network are covering the death of Antonin Scalia and the emerging fight over whether or not the President should appoint a replacement and whether or not the Senate will allow a nomination to come to a vote.  Anyone who wonders why most Americans now hate both parties needs only to watch five minutes' worth of Scalia coverage.  The poor guy's body probably isn't even cold yet, and the politicking is fully underway. 

I'm on both sides of this issue.  As a pro-life person, I don't necessarily want to see another Obama appointee to the Supreme Court; however, I also don't think that the Supreme Court is actually that important.  The misbegotten idea of abortion as some sort of human right took hold over a period of 50 years or so.  People who still believe that abortion is anything except a horror for women and for humanity aren't going to change their minds because of a court decision or a political fiat.   

On the other hand, it seems pretty clear that President Obama, who has almost a year more to serve, should appoint Scalia's replacement. It is also manifestly and transparently obvious that if the current lame-duck President were a Republican and not a Democrat, then Cruz, Kasich, Rubio and the rest of them would be vigorously defending that President's right to appoint the next Justice, and would be asserting his Constitutional responsibility to do so with dispatch.  And, in that very same hypothetical case, Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren and the rest of THAT gang would be expressing fake outrage over the supposed power grab of a sitting President making a judicial appointment and would similarly threaten to delay, filibuster, or otherwise stymie the process.

I don't remember exactly when the term "litmus test" began to be used in discussions of judicial appointees' views on abortion.  Sometime in the 1980s, I think.  I also don't recall having heard of a litmus test applied to any judicial nominee's views on eminent domain, say, or Fifth Amendment rights, or interstate commerce, or even gun rights.  Only for abortion, it seems, are both sides, but especially the pro-choice side, so determined to try to guess the potential candidates' views to be sure that they'll vote the right way.  On the pro-choice side, I think, it's because there's no other way to sustain the whole monstrous lie--that abortion is about women's rights, or that a fetus is anything other than a human being--than to prop it up with phony "settled law," ideally by appointing young judges who are likely to sit on the bench for the next 20 years or so.  Then keep sharpening the "choice" and "war on women" rhetoric during that 20 years, and hopefully, you'll fool just enough people that the next generation will produce politicians who will do what's necessary to sustain the lie for the next 20 years or so after that. 

Right now, on social media, smug pro-choicers are circulating a meme that reads something like "Justice Scalia expressed a wish to be cremated; however, women will need to meet first to decide if that's what's really best for his body." Hilarious!  Gotcha!  I really NAILED those idiot pro-lifers this time; they can't argue with that!  Except for this: Justice Scalia is already dead, and abortion, of course involves two bodies, not just one, both of which are alive, at least until Planned Parenthood gets hold of them.  Right-wing social media friends are just as bad; they're flooding Facebook with rumors that Scalia was murdered by nefarious pro-choicers and gay rights activists.  Sleep with one eye open, Justices Thomas, Alito, and Roberts, because I suppose you're all next. 

And that leads right back to what's wrong with politics right now.  Nothing can be solved with politics, because politics is about nothing but politics, and no one on either side actually cares about truth.  The people in power care only about holding onto power, and the fight is about only the fight.  The politicians all know this and they have known it for some time.  Unfortunately for them, people are beginning to catch on.  Unfortunately for all of us, the people who are catching on are in reaction mode; nothing else can explain the rise of Donald Trump.  Maybe it will take two years, or maybe five, but it's entirely likely that sometime in the not-all-that-distant future, the debate over Supreme Court appointments and filibusters will seem quaintly nostalgic, because the Constitution and the United States as we know them now won't even exist.   Or maybe I just need to get out more. 

Nothing to see here...

If you ask the Washington Post or NBC News, then this didn't happen.

Interesting.

Is it not news because it happened in a foreign country?  Because I'm guessing, just guessing, that if the pro-life demonstrators had sexually assaulted the pro-choicers, in public, then it would have been worldwide headline news no matter where it occurred.

I'm sure, though, that Gloria Steinem, and Cecile Richards, and Terry O'Neill, and Nancy Pelosi, and Barbara Boxer, and Debbie Wasserman Schultz are all going to issue statements condemning this hideously violent attack against religious and free-speech rights, and asserting that their cause is not helped by such behavior.  Maybe they already have!  Yes, I'm sure that's it.

Or not.

Even Planned Parenthood GLOBAL (because maybe Planned Parenthood US feels that it's just none of their business, right?) has absolutely nothing to say about this.  So if they're not morally outraged, it doesn't occur to them to think that perhaps public, violent, obscene attacks on pro-lifers will not win converts; that if someone is on the fence on abortion (as I once was), then the sight of abortion supporters attacking peaceful pro-life protesters might just lead these fence-sitters to decide that they'd rather not be on the side of the people who publicly sexually assault their opponents? And spare me any suggestion that a woman rubbing her bare breasts in a strange man's face, or spray-painting his genitals, is not sexually assaulting him.  If the spray paint can belonged to a man and the crotch belonged to a woman, we'd all be clear on the definition of sexual assault.

I used to believe that abortion should be legal, although I never referred to myself as pro-choice because I have never felt that it was a legitimate choice (and among the women I personally know who have had abortions, most of them say that they didn't feel that they had any choice). I have many friends on both sides of this issue.  And I KNOW that pro-lifers have behaved very badly indeed in some cases.  How do I know this?  Not from personal eyewitness, nor from word of mouth, but because when a pro-life protester assaults a pro-choicer, it's NEWS, and rightly so.

I'm going to wait and see.  The national media took a long damn time to say anything at all about Dr. Gosnell, but they finally did, because they finally had to.  I'm the most obscure blogger in the world right now, but fortunately, I'm not the only one writing about this.  Maybe some actual paid professional journalists will eventually decide that this is news after all.