Sex and the Court of Public Opinion

By Jonathan Price

Matt Lauer calls a woman into his office, locks the door via remote control under his desk, gets her to remove her blouse, then sexually assaults her from behind until she faints, and a nurse is summoned. Or that’s what I remember from the vivid and arresting account in the New York Times. The general direction of the article was that Lauer was summarily removed from his position on the Today show at NBC; though later a former NBC executive asserted that there were no complaints, rumors, or suggestions of sexual harassment while he had run the network. It’s fairly clear that there was a significant time lapse between the office assault and Lauer’s departure.

Sheep No More?

By Sharon Stoner

Ever ask yourself why people have “overlooked” the sexual misconduct of powerful men?
    Has it been out of respect for their positions, admiration for all they own, a hope someday to acquire similar power and wealth?

Penny for Her Thoughts: The State of Man

By Penelope Griffiths

Every day it seems that some rich or powerful, or both rich and powerful, man – on both sides of the pond that is the Atlantic Ocean – is being outed for sexual harassment or worse! It is never acceptable to be exposed (sometimes in more ways than one!) to a sexual advance that you don’t want. But what I can’t understand is why these women (or men, in a few cases recently reported) have left it so long – sometimes for decades – before reporting these heinous events, which, according to media reports, have greatly affected their lives.

If not Scooter, then whom?

So, you weren't surprised to learn that Bush had commuted Scooter's sentence? Neither was I. Nor should anyone have been. The handwriting was always there on the wall. But why should Scooter have been singled out anyway?

What about Cheenie himself (or "Himself" as he no doubt prefers, having arrogated unto Himself such Lordly powers as to be Untouchable)? What about the titularly head Bushevik himself? Georgie Porgie. Dubya. Shrub. The Twig.

But wait. What about the folks who should have known better but didn't and voted for Bush/Cheenie in 2000? Well...some of them didn't repeat that folly in 2004, so...what about the folks who voted for them in 2004? But...well, some of them regret it now, so...what about the folks who still approve of them?

And what about you and me, the ones who never voted for Bush/Cheenie once, having detected their true nature early on? What about our not having done much to oppose them? Maybe about all we've done is complain. Maybe made a few telephone calls to get out the Democratic vote in 2006? (To what end? we now wonder.) We haven't marched to Washington, haven't stood vigil outside the People's White House....

I joined a prayer group of unknown dimensions last night at 9 EDT. I had been invited the same day by an elderly cousin (not that I'm not practically "elderly" myself now) to pray "for the safety of the United States of America, our troops, our citizens, and for peace in the world." You can tell by the first three items in the list that this undertaking may have been inspired by our upcoming Independence Day celebration. Never mind.

At 9 o'clock, I found myself virtually drowned in my awareness of the vast array of creation that in some sense "needed" our prayers. I thought of my list of human attrocities posted Saturday. All of the attrocities have victims. And maybe the perpetrators of the attrocities are in need of prayer even more than the victims. And what could a prayer do? Surely God (be there a God, and be God "good") already knows all of this. None of our prayers would seem to be required to notify God. Could there, then, be some metaphysical force in prayer—in joined prayer—maybe a critical mass of prayerful awareness that could make some sort of difference, if its awareness were cast wide enough to include the potential victims of murder and mayhem in Iraq, and the violent men who massacre them, and the victims of the erosion of our Constitution, and the misguided men on Bush's Supreme Court who subvert it, and the indeterminate victims of Cheenie's arrogance, and Cheenie himself, and the teenagers in New York, and the police personnel who harrass them, and the wrongly convicted innocents, and the prosecutors who suppress evidence (and the oblivious jurors who allow themselves to forget about reasonable doubt), and the crowds of meek people facing genocide in Africa and other places, and the men who shoot, rape, and mutilate them, and journalists in Russia, and Putin's henchmen who murder them, and the disrespected women of the world, and the dark-minded people who "circumcise" them or stone them or imprison them in seraglios or burn them alive, and the children kidnapped and sold into sexual slavery, and those who kidnap and sell them, and those who pay to abuse them, and the children in American who have no health care insurance, and the politicians and insurers who ensure that they continue not to have it, and all of the unidentified victims, and their unidentified abusers, and ourselves who have done little to oppose their victimhood or the acts that make them victims...?