Hurricane Harvey

This guy.

Harvey Weinstein is rivaling Donald Trump for the role of the most hated man in America, thanks to charges that he sexually harassed and "had non-consensual sex with" (read raped) numerous women, many of them among today's greatest living actresses in English-language cinema.  Forced out of his own production company and seeing his wife leaving him, Weinstein has gotten people talking about sexual harassment seriously for the first time in over a quarter of a century.

I just have one question - Why is everyone so shocked?  Everyone has known for decades that Hollywood is full of libidinous producers who prey on the aspirations of young actresses and try to get these women to sleep with them.  How many people still believe that Hollywood is primarily interested in making great movies by nurturing a creative process in which top-rate writers and directors - or, better yet, top-rate writers/directors - come up with ideas, get backing from producers who don't get involved with artistic or creative concerns and let the filmmakers cast their films on the basis of talent and ability alone?  Producers are notorious for using their power to bed the leading (and supporting) ladies of Hollywood.  They inject themselves in the casting decisions, make decisions while lounging in their hot tubs looking over head shots, and confuse casting couches with love seats. 

This is ironic, because Weinstein, his sleazy operational style so prevalent in a town that gives us lowbrow "popcorn movies" and brain-dead direct-to-video-style fare, is associated with some of the most acclaimed movies of the past twenty-odd years - The English Patient, Shakespeare In Love, Good Will Hunting, The Aviator, Finding Neverland, and Silver Linings Playbook, among others.  (And highbrow artists of other media have demonstrated the same disgusting behavior as Weinstein has.  I'm sorry to point this out, but Picasso did not simply spend all of his time painting in a studio.)  Also, Weinstein has contributed to several charities, such as AIDS research, multiple sclerosis, and anti-poverty programs.  Not to mention the Democratic Party, a charity case if there ever was one.  But none of this can excuse or justify Weinstein's disgusting behavior - his contributions to the Democrats have become chum in the water for Republicans running against coastal elites -  and he deserves to be forced to pay for his sins in the most severe manner.  Hopefully, this will put an end to sexual harassment in Hollywood and everywhere else.What was it Shakespeare, either when he was in love or when he wasn't, said about the evil men do outliving them and the good they do being buried with them?  

At a time when everyone is deserting Hurricane Harvey, though, he still has one guy standing by him.

Awk-ward! :-O

And by a strange twist of fate, the scathing investigative report of Weinstein that appeared in the New Yorker was written by . . . Ronan Farrow.

Life really is a comedy written by a sadistic comedy writer.