A little musical interlude

The New Neo Posted on by

(But lest you think we’re getting away from the subject of workplace harassment—alas, we’re not. Not totally, anyway.)

I was raised on Broadway musicals and their recordings, the lyrics of which I committed to memory, including the introductory patter. And that’s not just the major hits, but many minor ones that most people have never even heard about. To this day, my brother and I still have a little jokey game we play, one that’s probably either obnoxious or obscure (or both) to onlookers, in which we say just a couple of words from the lyric and the other fills in the song.

When I was a child, my parents used to take me to Broadway musicals quite regularly (and one straight play, “The Miracle Worker, which I saw with the brilliant originals Patty Duke and Anne Bancroft), when a ticket cost had a range of something like $2.95 to $7.95. Adjusted for inflation (according to this site, anyway), in 2017 dollars that’s $25.41 to $67.76. Try getting a ticket to a first-run top Broadway show for that these days.

Back then Broadway shows were magical. Later on, they seemed less so to me, and I really don’t think it’s just because I got older and more jaded. I’ve never been keen on the movie versions, either. Though some are better than others, all of them seem inferior to their stage originals. The suspension of disbelief that is relatively easy in the theater is not so easy in a movie musical, which always seems to teeter on the brink of the ludicrous (at least, for me). I say that even for achievements such as “West Side Story,” one of the very best movie renditions of a stage musical.

There’s an energy on the stage, an immediacy that is unavoidably diluted in a filmed musical. I’m pretty sure a lot of people will disagree with me, but I don’t think they would say that if they’d seen the originals I was lucky enough to see.

But that’s all a prelude to a clip that came to mind earlier today. Commenter “Mr. Frank” had written:

What is driving much of this is a major shift in the workplace that society has not adjusted to. Until fairly recently the workplace was a male place. There were a few female fields like teaching, nursing, and phone operator. Those jobs were largely dead end and not careers. Men at work were surrounded by men so sex was largely a non issue. Now that women have careers to lose, they can be pressured.

My reply was this:

Women have long been in the workplace with men, just in subordinate roles. The men were the doctors, the women the nurses. Lots of hanky-panky there. The men were the executives, the women the secretaries. I’m sure I don’t have to tell you how much sex there was.

I’m virtually certain that Mr. Frank is correct in saying that there are more women working alongside men today, and that in general their jobs now feature a higher percentage that are more career-like with higher relative pay than in the past. But those somewhat sex-segregated jobs he listed—or the ones I mentioned in which the interface with men in the workplace was constant—although not ordinarily a road to an executive position or a position of power and influence, were still jobs those women needed and were loathe to sacrifice. And there were still ways back then in which sex with a man in the workplace could earn advancement—either in the job, or the “advancement” of being promoted to the new position of “wife” (or “mistress,” depending on the level of aspiration).

But on reading Mr. Frank’s comment, what instantly sprung to my mind was this song from the Broadway musical “How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying,” which opened on Broadway in 1961. It was telling that I wasn’t taken to see this particular show at the time, probably because it was considered too racy.

But we had the record, and so I learned the songs. That’s why this song (the clip is, alas, from the 1967 film version and not the stage production) came to mind so quickly. Does it make you cringe a bit now?:

By the way, Robert Morse was the star of that show, and he also starred in the film version. But I never saw him in either. However, I have very strong memories of seeing Morse on stage before that, in a musical practically no one knows called “Take Me Along.” It was a musical version of Eugene O’Neill’s “Ah Wilderness,” and I had to look it up to see the year: 1959. Wow. It starred Jackie Gleason, who had been a big TV personality as Ralph Kramden (a show I used to watch), as well as Walter Pidgeon. But to me (and to much of the audience) the real star of the musical was Morse, who lent it tremendous charm, energy, and comic earnestness as he stopped the show several times.

But you know what? The show isn’t even mentioned in Morse’s Wiki link. Go figure.

Kate Steinle’s shooter is acquitted of murder and manslaughter

The New Neo Posted on by

In a verdict that shocked a lot of people, a jury in San Francisco has acquitted Kate Steinle’s shooter of both murder and manslaughter. The only thing they found five-times-deported and five-times-returned illegal immigrant Jose Ines Garcia Zarate guilty of was illegal possession of a firearm as a felon. His immigration status was irrelevant to the proceedings (although it’s been very relevant to the public), but the upshot of the verdict is that he will probably be sentenced for up to three years and then deported (again).

I hadn’t followed the trial although I followed the initial shooting. It’s certainly possible that what we have here is a jury that was predisposed to let Zarate off easy, for political reasons—after all, we’re dealing with San Franciso. But in trying to understand the verdict it’s also important to read articles such as this, and get acquainted with some of the details of a case in which complex and competing testimony was presented about the possibility of an accidental firing of the gun and about what the trajectory of the bullet told us about where the gun was when it was fired.

I’m woefully unequipped to say much about these technical aspects. Perhaps the jury was confused, too. If you read the comments at the link I just gave, you can find a lot more information on which to base an opinion as to whether an accidental shooting would have been possible with this particular weapon (supposedly more prone to such things). The defense’s version of the killing—that the shooter found the gun wrapped in some cloth, picked it up without knowing what it was, and it discharged by accident (lots of testimony about the likelihood of an accidental discharge and the position of the gun when it fired, evidenced by the bullet’s trajectory—see this and this), seems improbable to me. But of course I didn’t sit on the jury and hear the evidence, and all the defense had to do was create reasonable doubt.

There certainly sounds like there probably is reasonable doubt as to first degree murder. But apparently, as described in that linked post from Red State, the prosecution pushed strongly for the higher charge of murder rather than the more readily-provable involuntary manslaughter. The possible crimes in the case were as follows:

According to instructions read to the jury, if Steinle’s killing on July 1, 2015, was willful, deliberate and premeditated, it would justify a first-degree murder conviction. If her killing was the result of a dangerous act likely to cause someone’s death, the jury could find Garcia Zarate guilty of second-degree murder. If he didn’t intend to kill anyone but was criminally negligent in handling a loaded firearm, he could be convicted of involuntary manslaughter.

The jury of six men and six women also will consider the separate charges of being a felon in possession of a handgun and assault with a semi-automatic weapon.

If you read the rest of that article, you can see how murder would have been a stretch, but involuntary manslaughter probably could easily have been supported.

This was an exceptionally emotional and tragic case in which a beautiful young woman had her life ended by gunshot, and we know who did it. The jury thinks it was an accident, but much of the rest of the country thinks it was at least manslaughter and possibly murder.

However, one thing seems pretty likely—if Zarate gets deported, he’ll probably be returning.

The Flynn plea

The New Neo Posted on by

Andrew C. McCarthy has this to say about the Flynn plea in the Mueller investigation:

…[W]hen a prosecutor has a cooperator who was an accomplice in a major criminal scheme, the cooperator is made to plead guilty to the scheme. This is critical because it proves the existence of the scheme. In his guilty-plea allocution (the part of a plea proceeding in which the defendant admits what he did that makes him guilty), the accomplice explains the scheme and the actions taken by himself and his co-conspirators to carry it out. This goes a long way toward proving the case against all of the subjects of the investigation.

That is not happening in Flynn’s situation. Instead, like Papadopoulos, he is being permitted to plead guilty to a mere process crime. A breaking report from ABC News indicates that Flynn is prepared to testify that Trump directed him to make contact with the Russians ”” initially to lay the groundwork for mutual efforts against ISIS in Syria. That, however, is exactly the sort of thing the incoming national-security adviser is supposed to do in a transition phase between administrations. If it were part of the basis for a “collusion” case arising out of Russia’s election meddling, then Flynn would not be pleading guilty to a process crime ”” he’d be pleading guilty to an espionage conspiracy…

Meanwhile, the only major case Mueller has brought, against former Trump-campaign chairman Paul Manafort and an associate, has nothing to do with the 2016 election. It is becoming increasingly palpable that, whatever “collusion” means, there was no actionable, conspiratorial complicity by the Trump campaign in the Kremlin’s machinations.

We’ll see. But McCarthy has been spot on so far in his analyses and prognostications.

Which is more than I can say for most pundits. Of course, McCarthy—former Assistant United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, and prosecutor in the trial of the conspirators in the 1993 WTC bombing—also knows a lot more than most writers on the subject of how prosecutors think.

I don’t feel like counting…

The New Neo Posted on by

…but how many of today’s stories featured at memeorandum deal with sex by public figures?

Many; very very many.

It’s a bit like the summer of the shark, prior to 9/11.

And the bulk of the rest of the stories have to do with Trump: he’s going to replace Tillerson with Pompeo (which certainly might happen, but I’ve noticed that a great many of those “Trump is about to do such-and-such” stories haven’t panned out in the past); or reports that he’s senile (that’s a perennial favorite).

Honor/shame versus guilt; obedience to authority

The New Neo Posted on by

The Today show has never been part of my life. I’m most definitely not a morning person. And I’m not a TV news person either. So although I was familiar with the name “Matt Lauer,” he’s not only not been a fixture in my life, he’s someone who before yesterday I probably knew virtually nothing about except that he was a TV newsperson (and that he reminded me somewhat of Saturday Night Live’s Kevin Nealon in looks).

So my interest in the Lauer story—two longish posts yesterday, one short and one long today—isn’t an interest an Lauer himself. It’s an interest in what his story says about the phenomenon as a whole. Of course, there’s the danger of generalizing. But here’s what I’ve gleaned from today’s MSM revelations.

Lauer has released a mea culpa of sorts that goes like this [emphasis mine]:

There are no words to express my sorrow and regret for the pain I have caused others by words and actions. To the people I have hurt, I am truly sorry. As I am writing this I realize the depth of the damage and disappointment I have left behind at home and at NBC.

Some of what is being said about me is untrue or mischaracterized, but there is enough truth in these stories to make me feel embarrassed and ashamed. I regret that my shame is now shared by the people I cherish dearly.

Repairing the damage will take a lot of time and soul searching and I’m committed to beginning that effort. It is now my full time job. The last two days have forced me to take a very hard look at my own troubling flaws. It’s been humbling. I am blessed to be surrounded by the people I love. I thank them for their patience and grace.

What I take away from that statement—what fairly leapt out at me—was the emphasis on shame rather than guilt. You can read a lot of definitions of the difference between the two, but I’m using them in the way I learned them back in college, which differs from some of those definitions. What I see in Lauer—and what I suspect is common with a lot of the famous people who have been named as sexual predators—is that he seems to have never really considered what he was doing until the public revelations and condemnation.

In other words, he felt little or no internal guilt about it. He now feels shame, however, because it has become public.

This distinction is relevant even if Lauer thought every single sexual encounter he had was consensual. Leaving aside whether that’s true or not, let’s just assume it’s true. Even then, as a married man, he would be guilty of breaking his marriage vows. Not just once or twice, but over and over and over in a sort of compulsive womanizing. But he seems not to have considered taking a “very hard look” at his “troubling flaws” until they were publicly revealed. And that’s if we believe the sincerity of his statement; it may not even be sincere.

That’s not quite psychopathic territory, but it’s morally troubling just the same. And I don’t think it’s in the least uncommon. For many people, their internal conscience has gone awry, and it’s what the public knows (whether “the public” be as large as Lauer’s was or as small as a village) that counts. There are whole cultures that seem to run that way—called “honor/shame” cultures—but ours is not ordinarily one of them.

That brings us to a different topic that came out today, the story told by one of Lauer’s accusers. If Lauer’s “confession” brought shame/guilt to mind, her tale makes me think of Stanley’s Milgram’s “obedience to authority” research.

I’ve written about the research before; here’s part of my summary of what it was about:

The gist of it was Milgram’s shocking (literally) finding that ordinary people in this country could be persuaded to inflict what they thought were painful electric jolts to “subjects” (actually, actors) in what was billed as a learning experiment, if an authoritative “researcher” (also an actor) told them it was okay.

This was true for most subjects even if the “victim” was screaming in pain and complained of a weak heart. It was also true if the “doctor” didn’t have a white coat, and was in a lab in a seedier part of town. No actual shocks were administered, but I recall that, in follow-up interviews, most of the subjects thought the shocks were real.

Milgram varied the details of the experiment over and over (read his book if you have time; it’s a masterpiece of its genre), but the results always pointed to the troubling fact that the majority of people failed to “question authority”…

I brought up Milgram more recently in one of my posts on women’s reactions to sexual overtures by powerful men, wondering why so many seemed compliant even when they didn’t want to say “yes” (I’m leaving out the many silent ones who apparently said yes and wanted to, or decided to do it to further their careers). In that post I also mentioned the favorite saying of everybody’s mother “If he jumped off a cliff, would you follow him?”

Apparently, as with many of Milgram’s subjects (women and men) the answer is “yes, if he’s a powerful person who might hurt my career.” Or maybe even “yes, if he’s a powerful person.”

Which brings us to the newest story by a Lauer accuser, appearing in the NY Times [emphasis mine]:

The woman who described the encounter in 2001 with Mr. Lauer in his office told The Times that the anchor had made inappropriate comments to her shortly after she started as a “Today” producer in the late 1990s.

While traveling with Mr. Lauer for a story, she said, he asked her inappropriate questions over dinner, like whether she had ever cheated on her husband. On the way to the airport, she said, Mr. Lauer sat uncomfortably close to her in the car; she recalled that when she moved away, he said, “You’re no fun.”

As far as I’m concerned, all of this is fairly mild and commonplace stuff, particularly in the late 90s. The bad part come later [emphasis mine]:

In 2001, the woman said, Mr. Lauer, who is married, asked her to his office to discuss a story during a workday. When she sat down, she said, he locked the door, which he could do by pressing a button while sitting at his desk. (People who worked at NBC said the button was a regular security measure installed for high-profile employees.)

The woman said Mr. Lauer asked her to unbutton her blouse, which she did.

Let’s pause here and contemplate that. Lauer is about to be unfaithful to his wife and is sexually approaching a subordinate as well; not good. But he asks her to unbutton her blouse and she complies. What was he supposed to think other than that she was consenting? Of course, there’s the power differential that he is ignoring and that was operating. But still, it seems that no overt coercion of any sort was involved (except whatever coercion she felt in her head, including being afraid of losing her job if she didn’t comply). But surely an adult ought to be able to resist something he or she really really doesn’t want to do—something as unusual as a woman unbuttoning a blouse—even if she thinks she might suffer some job consequences?

Would she obey anything Lauer had asked her, because of this fear? Or because of obedience to authority? What are the limits? What on earth is going on here? Is she an automaton with no mind of her own and no ability to say “no”? What kind of people are we churning out (she’s not of the younger generation, either; by my estimate she must be close to 60 now)? Her reaction seems to not be atypical, either. But why would she unbutton her blouse unless someone had a gun pointed at her head? Yes, yes, I know; he’s the boss, he’s a big wheel and all that. But what about integrity? What about self-respect? Are these archaic words?

To continue the story:

She said the anchor then stepped out from behind his desk, pulled down her pants, bent her over a chair and had intercourse with her. At some point, she said, she passed out with her pants pulled halfway down. She woke up on the floor of his office, and Mr. Lauer had his assistant take her to a nurse.

The woman told The Times that Mr. Lauer never made an advance toward her again and never mentioned what occurred in his office. She said she did not report the episode to NBC at the time because she believed she should have done more to stop Mr. Lauer. She left the network about a year later.

So at some point during the awful incident she actually seems to have fainted, which is rather classically Victorian. Until the moment she passed out, however, she seems to have remained silently compliant; at least, the article doesn’t mention her saying she even tried to fight him off or to verbally object. As the story stands, it seems that Lauer probably took her unbuttoning her blouse for consent to intercourse, and nothing disabused him of that notion until she passed out, when he became alarmed and summoned help. He never repeated the act, she never reported it, and there’s no mention of any consequences to her job (although she did leave a year later, perhaps because of how uncomfortable she was in that atmosphere).

This is not an excuse for Lauer, who is at best a compulsive philanderer and an insensitive clod. The story, however, is about something worse than that—a rape from her point of view. But should he have seen it that way, given her seeming compliance? And why did she cooperate? She sounds like the proverbial deer in the headlights, frozen in fear or shock. I can well understand acting that way if there’s a threat of bodily harm for resistance, but she doesn’t even allege that sort of thing. In fact, she (or the article, anyway) doesn’t explain her frozen state at all.

No doubt there’s more to the story. I don’t know if we’ll ever hear it. I probably won’t write anything more about Lauer, either; I’m heartily sick of the subject. But I think it tells us quite a bit about the mindset of offenders who are seemingly-conscienceless-but-shame-based and of certain frozen-in-fear/confusion/shock victims who cannot seem to muster up the courage to say “No!” to authority.

It’s Jewish Refugee Day

The New Neo Posted on by

Today I noticed this at Legal Insurrection:

Today Israel marks a national day to remember the departure and expulsion of Jews from Arab countries and Iran.

The commemorative day, which was designated by Israel’s legislative body three years ago, comes as a belated recognition of the collective traumas experienced by between 850,000 to 1 million Jews who were expelled or who fled from their homes in the Middle East and North Africa over a span of three decades (from the 1940s until the 1970s).

Most people are not even aware of what happened, because for the most part these Jews were assimilated into Israel (or countries such as the US; I personally know someone whose family emigrated from Iraq in the 1949s) without the world having to hear all that much about them.

I’ve long had a link in my blogroll to a blog that’s dedicated to the subject of the Jewish expulsion from Arab lands. If you want to read more about it, take a look. An excerpt:

In just 50 years, almost a million Jews, whose communities stretch back up to 3,000 years, have been ‘ethnically cleansed’ from 10 Arab countries. These refugees outnumber the Palestinian refugees two to one, but their narrative has all but been ignored. Unlike Palestinian refugees, they fled not war, but systematic persecution. Seen in this light, Israel, where some 50 percent of the Jewish population descend from these refugees and are now full citizens, is the legitimate expression of the self-determination of an oppressed indigenous, Middle Eastern people.

This website is dedicated to preserving the memory of the near-extinct Jewish communities, which can never return to what and where they once were – even if they wanted to.

Clarification on the Lauer door lock

The New Neo Posted on by

A little detail I wrote about yesterday was the remote-controlled door lock on Lauer’s office. I wrote:

Why do I focus on that detail? Because it’s unusual: to the best of my knowledge, it’s highly uncommon to install a button that lets a person lock an office door from his or her desk (if I’m wrong, and this is standard operating procedure, please let me know).

Here’s the answer [emphasis mine]:

There was also a stunning revelation that he had a button under his desk that would lock to the door to his office.

It was a security-measure used by most high-profile employees at NBC, but Lauer allegedly used it at least once so he could have sex with the NBC staffer in 2001.

So apparently the button was standard operating procedure there. If true, it’s interesting that Variety didn’t see fit to clarify that fact in its Lauer exposé.

(“Exposé” is really a good word for this story, isn’t it?)

Matt Lauer: variety, spice of life

The New Neo Posted on by

Earlier today I reacted to the initial news of Matt Lauer’s firing and NBC’s first explanations for letting him go. There wasn’t that much specific information given out. But there was this:

..there’s another hint of what might be going on here””a rumor that the NY Times may have been researching stories on Lauer. So perhaps NBC wanted to get ahead of the Times.

Well, the Times may have been working on it, too, but it was Variety that seems to have gotten there first.

And on reading that article, I have to say it’s no wonder NBC acted with such haste. The Variety story contains allegations that are serious rather than mild, and from multiple accusers. If we can categorize these types of allegations into groups, I’d say this story is much closer to the Weinstein variety than the Franken bunch, although it lies somewhere in that vast territory in-between.

Once again, it’s necessary to say that we don’t know what’s true and what’s false in these allegations. But the number and quality of the accusations, as well as the fact that these women are said to have told other people at the time of the alleged offenses, indicates a good possibility of a fire in all the smoke.

What’s more, the story in Variety mentions that Lauer “was known for making lewd comments verbally or over text messages.” Text messages can be retrieved even if erased, at least as far as I know. So if these texts existed and especially if they still exist, that would constitute strong evidence. The only defense I can imagine for such messages would be that Lauer could say that he and the woman were in a mutual consensual sexual relationship at the time. But I would guess that such a thing could be proven or disproven by other evidence.

There’s also this:

As the co-host of NBC’s “Today,” Matt Lauer once gave a colleague a sex toy as a present. It included an explicit note about how he wanted to use it on her, which left her mortified.

If she saved the note, and it’s in his handwriting, that would constitute evidence as well—although it would also matter whether they were having a consensual sexual relationship. But again, these are things that could be proven or disproven.

My mind is open to hearing any defense and/or rebuttal, but at the moment I find these charges more likely to be true than untrue, and relatively serious in nature. And they’re not just serious for Matt Lauer. They’re potentially serious for NBC and even serious for the women who worked there and remained silent in the face of what may have been widespread knowledge of what was going on.

There’s one aspect of the story that I find especially curious. According to Variety:

Lauer, who was paranoid about being followed by tabloid reporters, grew more emboldened at 30 Rockefeller Center as his profile rose following Katie Couric’s departure from “Today” in 2006. His office was in a secluded space, and he had a button under his desk that allowed him to lock his door from the inside without getting up. This afforded him the assurance of privacy. It allowed him to welcome female employees and initiate inappropriate contact while knowing nobody could walk in on him, according to two women who were sexually harassed by Lauer.

Why do I focus on that detail? Because it’s unusual: to the best of my knowledge, it’s highly uncommon to install a button that lets a person lock an office door from his or her desk (if I’m wrong, and this is standard operating procedure, please let me know). It’s also verifiable: was there such a lock and such a button in Lauer’s office? When was it installed? Who approved its intallation? Was it clandestinely put in there, or did other people know about it? Did he have the cooperation and approval of the higher-ups? Did he give any reason to them to justify it?

And why would that ensure privacy, exactly? Oh, I understand it would mean that no one could ever walk in on Lauer during the hanky-panky. But wouldn’t it also have meant that people would discover a mysteriously locked door on occasion? Would that not have aroused some sort of suspicion?

Unless, of course, it was common knowledge that this sort of thing was going on with great regularity, and it was winked at. If that was in fact the case (as I suspect it may have been), then the problem was widespread and systemic. And even if it wasn’t common knowledge, there may have still been a systemic problem: the silence (and therefore complicity) of the women who knew.

Or did the vast majority of the people who knew think it was all just mutually consensual sex, and therefore nothing to be all that concerned about? The situation seems to parallel the Weinstein/Hollywood one in terms of the culture of the institution and the norming of the practice within it.

All of which would make this sort of interview—Lauer grilling Bill O’Reilly about the charges of sexual harassment against the latter—especially cringeworthy. One might have thought that, on learning of the allegations against O’Reilly, Lauer would have felt a cold chill over the prospect of whether he might be next in line. Or did he feel immune? O’Reilly had been the big moneymaker at Fox. Lauer was a big star in NBC’s firmament:

Several women told Variety they complained to executives at the network about Lauer’s behavior, which fell on deaf ears given the lucrative advertising surrounding “Today.” NBC declined to comment. For most of Lauer’s tenure at “Today,” the morning news show was No. 1 in the ratings, and executives were eager to keep him happy…

Lauer’s conduct was not a secret among other employees at “Today,” numerous sources say. At least one of the anchors would gossip about stories she had heard, spreading them among the staff. “Management sucks there,” says a former reporter, who asked not to be identified, speaking about executives who previously worked at the show. “They protected the s”” out of Matt Lauer.”

Some producers told Variety they were conflicted about what to do around Lauer. They worried that their careers would be sidelined if they didn’t return his advances…

According to producers, Lauer ”” who had considerable editorial clout over which stories would ultimately air on “Today” ”” would frequently dismiss stories about cheating husbands. However, in the wake of Roger Ailes and Harvey Weinstein, Lauer had to keep up with a national conversation about sexual harassment. It often made for awkward moments on TV for staff members who knew about Lauer’s private interactions.

That’s what I mean by “systemic.”

Variety also mentions, almost in passing, that Lauer had “a lot of consensual relationships.” Minimizing that aspect of things is leaving out at least half the story, and it’s an important half. We haven’t heard a thing about the many women who said “yes” and had a sexual relationship with Lauer either because they genuinely liked him or because it would further their careers. Whether they are the silent majority or the silent minority we don’t know, but apparently there were a great many such women.

Consensual workplace sex is not harassment, if it’s truly consensual. And it’s probably fairly common, not just in Hollywood or at NBC. But for someone like Lauer, who grew ever more powerful at NBC, it probably set up a perception in his own mind that he’s some sort of irresistible charmer, a gift to any woman he might approach. Unceremoniously dropping trou—which one woman has alleged Lauer did—could be self-rationalized by an increasingly narcissistic Lauer, who may have felt that of course it was one of her deepest desires to get a look at his attributes.

Just as much of Hollywood covered up its knowledge of Weinstein’s (and others’) predations while standing on a holier-than-thou pedestal, so did NBC. Both institutions have been kicked off those lofty perches, and I’m not at all sure they’ll ever be able to claw their way back up there again.

No sooner do you go out for a few hours of simple, carefree pleasure…

The New Neo Posted on by

…like I did this afternoon (that is—to the dentist, to discover I might need a root canal; to the eye doctor, to get the staff to finally hand over my new prescription in the right format instead of the wrong format; to Walmart’s Vision Center to choose new driving glasses in an attempt, perhaps vain, to keep up with the ripening cataract in my left eye), and what do you know?

You return home and discover that a whole new article has come out about the story you thought you’d already covered earlier this afternoon.

So back to the drawing board for a while to digest it (I know, I know; mixed metaphor).

[ADDENDUM: My new post is now up, reflecting more recent developments.]

Apple’s Christmas dance

The New Neo Posted on by

I saw this ad on TV the other day and it caught my attention for obvious reasons—the dancing. I think I may have seen a shorter version, but whatever I saw I rather liked it.

I didn’t understand what they were actually advertising (not atypical of me; I’m not so up on current technology, and I’m not an Apple fan at all), but I liked the atmosphere of the ad, the movement, and especially that nifty slo-mo flip at the end.

Enjoy:

And the latest firee is…

The New Neo Posted on by

…Matt Lauer of NBC.

That is, formerly of NBC.

Lest you rejoice because you don’t like Matt Lauer, consider this:

Matt Lauer allegedly sexually assaulted a female NBC staffer during the Sochi Winter Olympics in 2014, sources told Page Six.

An NBC insider said Lauer’s alleged victim complained to HR on Monday: “This happened so quickly. She didn’t go to the media, she made a complaint to NBC’s human resources, and her evidence was so compelling that Matt was fired on Tuesday night. The victim says she has evidence that this has also happened to other women, but so far we don’t have evidence of that.”

Another source tells us that the decision to fire Lauer was made late Tuesday by NBC News chairman Andy Lack.

The woman’s lawyer, Ari Wilkenfeld, told ”‹t”‹he New York Times they met with NBC officials Monday evening.

“My client and I met with representatives from NBC’s Human Resources and Legal Departments at 6 p.m. on Monday for an interview that lasted several hours. Our impression at this point is that NBC acted quickly, as all companies should, when confronted with credible allegations of sexual misconduct in the workplace,” Wilkenfeld said.

We have not been told the substance of the assault. That word covers a great deal of ground, from something mild to something very very serious, and many things in-between. We also have no idea what her evidence was. It might have been very compelling—for example, emails from Lauer alluding to the assault (apologizing for it, excusing it, but at any rate admitting in some way that it had occurred). Or it may not be compelling evidence at all. The assault is alleged to have occurred three years ago, so it couldn’t be something in the nature of recent bruises or DNA evidence, for example. And certain kinds of DNA evidence—something akin to Monica Lewinsky’s blue dress—wouldn’t be likely to indicate whether the event was consensual or an assault.

We just haven’t a clue. All we know—at least, all reports indicate—that the accuser went to the NBC legal brass one evening, was interviewed at length, and Lauer was gone the next day. The rest is a mystery. That’s too soon for an investigation to have occurred, if the evidence wasn’t definitively probative rather than merely “credible.”

Yes, we’ve seen that word I discussed on Monday, “credible”—surface here. The context was this, from a statement by the accuser’s lawyer, “…NBC acted quickly, as all companies should, when confronted with credible allegations of sexual misconduct in the workplace.”

“Credible” merely means “believable.” All allegations are believable if they allege something physically possible: the two people were in the same place at the same time, they had the opportunity to be alone; that sort of thing. At least as I read this, any person (I won’t even limit it to women, although I assume it would be mostly women) has the power to get anyone fired by making a “credible” allegation against him (I won’t limit it to men, although I assume it would be mostly men). Is that the standard we want to see?

I seem to be an outlier in this as in many other things, but it’s not the standard I want to see. At the very most, a suspension and an investigation might be appropriate. But unless these charges are not just “credible” but are pretty much proven and relatively serious rather than trivial, a firing is the equivalent of a kangaroo court, as well as a dangerous precedent.

I’ve been saying it and saying it and saying it, but I feel like this is not the way things are going. For me, it has little to nothing to do with who is being accused and whether I like that person or not or what the person’s politics are. I don’t like it no matter who it topples. Lauer may be as guilty as the day is long, but I want him to have at least something resembling due process, even though NBC is not a court of law and should not be held to the standards of a court of law.

NBC News chairman Andy Lack, who apparently made the firing decision, also had this to say [emphasis mine]:

“On Monday night, we received a detailed complaint from a colleague about inappropriate sexual behavior in the workplace by Matt Lauer. It represented, after serious review, a clear violation of our company’s standards. As a result, we’ve decided to terminate his employment,” Lack wrote.

“While it is the first complaint about his behavior in the over twenty years he’s been at NBC News, we were also presented with reason to believe this may not have been an isolated incident,” he continued.

“Our highest priority is to create a workplace environment where everyone feels safe and protected, and to ensure that any actions that run counter to our core values are met with consequences, no matter who the offender.

“We are deeply saddened by this turn of events. But we will face it together as a news organization ”” and do it in as transparent a manner as we can.”

Transparent? Hardly. We don’t know what the charges were. We don’t know who the accuser was. We don’t know what the evidence was. We do know this was done with lightening speed, and that there have been no other complaints.

As for an environment were “everyone feels safe and protected,” if I worked at NBC—particularly if I were a man, but actually whatever sex I might belong to—I would feel the opposite of “safe and protected.” I would feel that any enemy I had would have the power of making up a “credible” story about me and that I would be fired at a moment’s notice.

I read somewhere recently a description of the current spate of sexual harassment allegations that went something like this: The Sexual Revolution has entered its Reign of Terror phase. Obviously that’s hyperbole; no heads are literally rolling. But it’s an apt metaphor, although a better one might be The Feminist Revolution has entered its Reign of Terror phase.

I hold no love for Lauer, and if he’s guilty of sexual assault I would support his firing. But I don’t see how that could be known at present.

In the linked article there’s another hint of what might be going on here—a rumor that the NY Times may have been researching stories on Lauer. So perhaps NBC wanted to get ahead of the Times.

The last part of the article I linked features quotes from colleagues of Lauer’s who have known him for years, some of them women. They are clearly devastated. They just as clearly are trying to thread the needle and state the proper PC respect for the accuser—an accuser who has not been named, so they haven’t officially been told who she is (but whose name they may know through rumor or suspicion). It’s a daunting task, as you might imagine, since they’re clearly shocked and stunned and just found out the news.

For example, the woman who was given the job of reading the statement from Lack on the air was a colleague of Lauer’s and had just been given the statement (and the news itself) moments before she went on air. That’s kind of cruel, IMHO; she didn’t even have a chance to compose herself:

A visibly shaken Guthrie, who has worked with Lauer since 2012, said she was informed about his ouster just a few moments before going on the air.

“We just learned this moments ago, just this morning. As I’m sure you can imagine, we are devastated and we are still processing all of this,” she said.

“And I will tell you right now, we do not know more than what I just shared with you…

She added: “We are heartbroken. I’m heartbroken for Matt ”” he is my dear, dear friend and my partner, and he has been loved by many, many people here. And I’m heartbroken for the brave colleague who came forward to tell her story, and any other women who have their own stories to tell.”

Lots more in that vein from other women at NBC. This one is the one that strikes me as best—withholding judgement on everyone and not assuming anything:

Guthrie’s co-host Hoda Kotb called it a “tough morning,” noting that she has known Lauer for years and “loved him as a friend and a colleague.”

“It’s hard to reconcile with what we are hearing with the man who we know, who walks in this building every single day,” Kotb said. “We were both woken up with the news, kind of pre-dawn, and we’re trying to process it and trying to make sense of it ”” and it’ll take some time for that.”

If you’re playing on the team and you hear something like this, it’s apparently way too dangerous to openly question whether there has been a rush to judgment, or to say we need to know much more in order to evaluate the truth or falsehood of the accusation. It’s also dangerous to do that in public or on Twitter these days, or you risk the wrath of the PC patrol. After all, you might be next. Who knows where the Reign of Terror (or the KGB) will strike?

The Air Force’s failure to report church shooter’s previous conviction wasn’t just an isolated case

The New Neo Posted on by

You may recall that the gunman in the recent Texas church shooting was able to legally obtain a gun because of a failure on the part of the Air Force:

A day after a gunman massacred parishioners in a small Texas church, the Air Force admitted on Monday that it had failed to enter the man’s domestic violence court-martial into a federal database that could have blocked him from buying the rifle he used to kill 26 people.

Under federal law, the conviction of the gunman, Devin P. Kelley, for domestic assault on his wife and toddler stepson ”” he had cracked the child’s skull ”” should have stopped Mr. Kelley from legally purchasing the military-style rifle and three other guns he acquired in the last four years”¦

The Air Force also said it was looking into whether other convictions had been improperly left unreported to the federal database for firearms background checks.

That was written about three weeks ago. I guess when the Air Force looked into it, they found that Kelley’s was not an isolated case:

A review by the United States Air Force has found several dozen cases where the military failed to report service members convicted of serious crimes to the federal gun background-check databases, Air Force officials said on Tuesday.

“The error in the Kelley case was not an isolated incident and similar reporting lapses occurred at other locations,” the Air Force said in a statement. “Although policies and procedures requiring reporting were in place, training and compliance measures were lacking.”

There have been about 60,000 incidents in the Air Force since 2002 involving service members that potentially should have been reported to the federal background-check database. All of those incidents are now being reviewed by Air Force officials. Air Force officials were unable to say on Tuesday how many of those 60,000 cases have gone through the review process so far.

The only good thing about this—the only good thing—is that now that the Air Force is aware of its failure it might actually correct it before there are more murders.

Of course, it’s also true that if someone is determined enough to kill, that person can obtain a gun illegally or can use other mass murder methods (bombs, for example). But let’s not make it so very easy for them. When the enforcement of a law depends on the efficiency of an organization, that organization had better not slip up or the law can’t work as intended.