Yeah, I think we’ve accomplished that already.
1 Like
Believe the women
Treat the issue of assault with utmost seriousness
Obey the rule of law (including Constitutional due process)
None of these is intrinsically incompatible with the other.
3 Likes
Several other comments:
- This is more and more like the Title IX impact on university treatment of sexual assault. We have gone to a de-facto version of “preponderance of the evidence”. 1 allegation is considered, 2 allegations are serious, 6 allegations get calls for resignation. Nowhere in this anywhere is there a PROCESS to evaluate the credibility of the evidence, the level of seriousness of the events, etc. This is having a greater and greater effect ON MEN, although the time will come that a woman-on-woman accusation is made.
- People used to make snarky comments about Mike Pence. “Oh, he never appears alone with women. What a snowflake”. Pretty soon, no man will even consider being alone with a woman. For any reason in the office. This will have an impact on women, and it will not be good for their careers.
4 Likes
So are any of Keillor’s legions of fans at NPR standing up for him at all? Or are they all fine with him getting fired for touching someone’s back?
Keillor (reputedly) has a long history of acting like a jerk with respect to women, including repeated trading in of romantic partners for fancier models when their youth or business utility is done. MPR may have the problem of having covered for previous allegations in ways that leave the organization liable should they raise those occurrences as reasons for firing him.
1 Like
You are hereby challenged to cite your sources for GK’s “long history.” If it’s that he has divorced and remarried, you’re alone in being scandalized.
1 Like
I liked your comment simply for this. Not sure I agree with everything else.
Also, note that it isn’t just his career. It’s his whole body of work, and it’s not just his, it is all his crew and performers and guests and people who sent in those happy anniversary notes he read mid-show. It’s also his listeners. This is burning down the museum because someone said they spotted a forgery.
What repulsive moralistic bullcrap. Take your moralistic superciliousness and cram it up your butt. You have no business passing judgement on your betters.
1 Like
Well, that’s an explanation that makes more sense than anything else I’ve heard. And yes, he does have a reputation of acting like a jerk, or actually, of being difficult to work with at times (who doesn’t?). But if he’d ever had a reputation of being a harasser that’s news to me.
I’m really curious to know what is going on at MPR.
1 Like
What bothers me about how MPR is handling this is the expunging of decades’ work by myriad -other- individuals who worked alongside Keillor. As I understand it, episodes of PHC featuring Keillor are to be unavailable henceforth. This is a shockingly unfair approach.
Keillor’s case might be a way to more carefully explore how to deal with situations involving a single personage whose transgressions cast a shadow of the good work of many others. As well, as we explore this issue we’re going to be faced with hard decisions. Pablo Picasso’s treatment of women was dismal, awful. But should we go as far as to remove works such as “Guernica” from public view, to punish a dead man? It’s an open question at the moment.
2 Likes
like x 100
1 Like
Christ, this is getting to be ridiculous - touching a back to console then apologizing is grounds for dismissal.
Pure speculation like yours demands proof. How do you know MPR powers that be aren’t just getting rid of a popular show they don’t like or maybe a paycheck they don’t want to pay. In the case of a public figure who will suffer far beyond the loss of his job the burden should be MPR to prove their charge. By the way being a jerk is not a capital offense.
“… PROPORTIONALITY…”
Should be common sense, but it ain’t. If one tries to argue this, one is labeled an enabler or someone excusing or condoning a behavior. Even homicide has degrees: 1st, 2nd, 3rd or manslaughter.
Ditto for assault: With weapon, without weapon, a push or shove, a punch etc.
Every woman I know has a story and I believe every one of them.
Those I’ve heard commenting on this current discussion seem to be of this same mind as you articulate.
I’m glad I’m out of the work world. Before I left about 10 years ago, my interactions with female co workers were downright sterile. And if they thought I was an unfriendly stiff, too bad.They deserve their dignity. So do I.
1 Like
I don’t know, although I’ve seldom seen corporate managers axe profitable properties simply because they don’t like them. I’m going by what I’ve heard over the decades from people much more plugged in than I to the media scenes in Minneapolis and New York, and may well be misinterpreting those comments.
But. if the only actionable thing Keillor had ever done was to touch someone’s bare back while consoling them, and then apologized, it seems likely to me that Keillor and his counsel would be pushing back much harder than they apparently are.
And who owns PHC? Is it MPR or is it Keillor’s production company?
I think they are pushing back pretty hard. They are demanding facts supporting the termination. If they knew the facts do you think they would be demanding information? The next step might be a lawsuit for wrongful termination.
I don’t see that happening. In the first place, Keillor was not employed by APM or MPR. They had a contractual arrangement. Nonetheless, the manner in which his career was assassinated by them requires more information. I will not support either of these entities in the future, and will do what I can to encourage others to not support them.
I agree with all you say
I am no fan of Keillor as a performer—the Lake Wobegone shtick may have been funny the first time, but in general I found him condescending, self-satisfied, and only occasionally amusing.
But I repeat: I agree with all you say. It appears, given what we’ve been told, that he has not been given a fair shake here, and we need to guard against the successful politicization of this process. (Attempted politicization is a given.) This is the perfect case to raise the points you make, because we shouldn’t have the temptation to let opinions of political behavior color our judgment.
I once heard a grown woman say that a male co worker “molested” her when he tried to steer her into a doorway and a meeting by gently touching her elbow as is a common courtesy with women.
. I thought she was kidding. She was not. I heard no more of it, but the man was stunned.
Not an open question for me. Art, literature, music - we pretty much have to separate the art from the artist, or we’d have very little, because some of the greatest and most thought-provoking works have been made by people who were transgressive in one way or another. Sometimes those ways are despicable on their own terms (e.g. the Picasso example you cite) and sometimes it is just being more progressive than their current culture allows (Jane Austen publishing under an androgynous pseudonym). Censorship - and make no mistake, that is exactly what MPR is doing - is rarely a sound decision.
I think about early twentieth-century Russia, where samizdat was passed around secretly because certain individuals were banned on account of their less-than-ideal politics. Or Nazi Germany disposing of “degenerate” art. For a recent example, the Taliban blew up Afghanistan’s iconic monumental Buddhas in Bamiyan.There must be any number of great works which have been lost to history, or never created in the first place, because the makers were seen as either incapable or as a threat.
If they take his work off the air, fine. But removing it entirely from public consumption is troubling.