"PURE AS THE DRIVEN SNOW"

"Pure As The Driven Snow" is a phrase that has been around since the 1500s, but not used much anymore.   It means very pure, i.e., sinless It probably will be coming back, however.  Nancy Pellosi says there should be zero tolerance for sexual improprieties.  In other words people, principally men, should be pure as the driven snow.  To apply this retroactively will be Armageddon for men.  I doubt you will find many men as pure as the driven snow.

For what it's worth, I don't recall my mother ever having conversations with me about the ways to treat women.  She definitely worried that some woman would get her clutches on me and marry me ending my educational career prematurely.  That I heard many times.  I also took a course in manners at the age of 12 where quite a bit of time was spent on the proper way to shake hands with a woman.

I thought that the big subject right now is Judge Roy Moore who is running for interim Senator from Alabama for two years who is accused of improper advances to teenage girls when he was in his early 30s.  I had thought that if he had shown contrition rather than saying all the stories were false, and said something like, "I saw the evil in my ways and reformed many years ago," that he would have disposed of the problem. Now I am not so sure.

I'm sure we are just seeing the tip of the iceberg, but for the current record on notables accused of sexual harassment , NBC has published a list.**  Note that not all those on the list involve men and women, but a couple are men and men.

Al Franken repeatedly has shown  contrition for seemingly putting his hand on women's bottom in taken a picture  together.  But it is turning out that he can't show contrition enough as he repeatedly apologizes for past actions and says he will be more careful.  Also I wonder how many women told him to get his hand off my butt (or equivalent) or just walked away?  It seems some women equate a man putting his hand on her butt is the equivalent to rape.  Apparently former President H.W. bush is also accused of putting his hands on women's bottoms.

I don't know that I ever put my hand on a woman's posterior, but I may have, perhaps as a joke to get a rise out of her.  I do recall slapping the behind of a girl I knew well  when I was in high school.  I did it for no particular reason except that she was bending over to look at something.  I remember doing this particular thing, because is was so not like me.

It seemed to me that things really started to heat up with the accusations against men in Venture Capital firms inducing women to "visit the casting couch" in order to get aid for their company 's start**  Of course things really exploded with Harvey Weinstein use of the "casting couch" tor women to get acting jobs.  Though Weinstein was a prominent Democrat, Republicans got into the act as well  e.g. Roger Ailes and Bill O'Reilly of Fox News.  Trials of Bill Cosby have been going on for years over shockingly drugging women to have sex.

I have to admit that I dearly miss both Charley Rose and Mark Halpeirn.  Charley Rose seems to be known among women for exposing his, um, equipment upon getting out of the shower.  I guess he was very proud of it, but it is a seerious charge (I once was on a jury of a man accused of "indecent exposure with lascivious intent.").  I watched his midnight show on TV almost every weekday.  It is not replaced although I believe NBR is trying to. (Oprah was apparently invited, for example).  Halperin, my favorite political reporter, is accused of making unwanted sexual advances to women when he was with ABC News.  Both these men have apologized for their very serious actions, but no matter.

Note: As this item was going to press, I heard that a principal at  NBC News Matt Lauer  (Co-host of the TV Today show)has been dismissed on charges of sexual harassment.  Quite a few people have said they are heart broken over this announcement, including a number of women like NBC Savannah Guthrie, who says she is very surprised and heartbroken.  Hoda Kolb also of NBC Today show also expressed her surprise and said she has known Lauer for 15 yrs.  As of this moment Lauer has not made a comment.  Before the day is over, Garrison Keillor is also added to the list of predators.

So maybe Roy Moore and Donald Trump are right that it is better to deny accusations than to be contrite.  Up to now, there is little to support that sexual improprieties effect political  campaigns.  We will see if things are changing in two weeks and see if Moore survives his widely accepted inappropriate harassment accusations with teenagers.

* https://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/harvey-weinstein-scandal/weinstein-here-s-growing-list-men-accused-sexual-misconduct-n816546
** http://stopcontinentaldrift.blogspot.com/2017/07/women-entrepeneur-harrassment.html
http://stopcontinentaldrift.blogspot.com/2017/07/women-entrepeneur-harassment-ii.html

SEX AND POWERFUL MEN

Do you get the impression that we have entered a new age?  It seems like the days are gone when powerful men , ah, "ask" women for favors to achieve something.

Think of what has gone on even this year.  There has been the ascension of a sexual predator to the Presidency,* Bill Cosby, the male Venture Capital sex scandal,** the sex scandals at Fox News (esp. Roger Ailes and Bill O'Reilly),*** the Harvey Weinstein sex scandal**** and we are only in October.  Of course these are only the most lurid cases, and there are many others.   We are only seeing the tip of the iceberg.In the past, there are also our presidents like Roosevelt who had a mistress while he was president, plus womanizers who have "IT" like Kennedy, and, of course, Bill Clinton.  We didn't know about Roosevelt and Kennedy until after they were dead.

One of scandal of note is the anti-abortion Repub. congressman Tim Murphy case who urged his mistress to get an abortion (http://nypost.com/2017/10/05/anti-abortion-congressman-caught-in-sex-scandal-wont-seek-reelection/).  This is more funny than anything because there is no indication the mistress was forced to be a mistress.

The idea is going around that that men knowing to be womanizers should have their political donations returned.  What they don't seem to realize is that most large political donations by men would have to be returned.

Some men run scared of being accused of a sexual harassment (https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/09/upshot/as-sexual-harassment-scandals-spook-men-it-can-backfire-for-women.html).  I know because when I was in a stage of my career and was the first- or second-line supervisor of 120 to 140 people (depending on the number of temps), I ran scared.  I used to have my administrative assistant (a woman) in the office when I was interviewing or having to discipline a woman employee.  As it was three times in five years I was accused of sex discrimination (but not harassment).  I managed to survive these.  Of a different note, I was accused of "gross misuse of trust" by the safety officer for not shown monthly safety movies to my employees.  This was right after I had received the Safety Manager Of The Year Award!  I won't go into the details because this is a side issue of this post, but I began to feel like big Julie, the guy in Guys and Dolls, who said he was a law abiding citizen, "... as has been proved by my record: Thirty-three arrests and no convictions!."

Sexual harassment is something I never approved of  because in my youth I had a very tight moral code; still, I can think of incidents where I might have been accused of sexual harassment.  I write some more about this in my piece "Some Men Have It, Most Don't" (http://stopcontinentaldrift.blogspot.com/2016/10/some-men-have-it-most-dont.html).  Women never seemed to have any qualms about telling me to get lost.  But then I not only did not have ""IT" but was not a powerful man.

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_Trump_sexual_misconduct_allegations
** https://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/news/2017/06/30/venture-capital-sexual-harassment-scandal/103336512/
*** http://www.newsweek.com/new-allegations-emerge-heres-rundown-fox-news-sex-and-harassment-scandals-646950
**** https://www.cnbc.com/2017/10/08/harvey-weinstein-fired-by-weinstein-company-board.html