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On the first of this holiday week’s COMMENTARY podcasts, we delve into the question of what the sexual harassment scandals of the past seven weeks have in common with previous moments in American history. And we talk tax reform and where you can get a cheap cooked turkey. Give a listen.
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I am reminded of Regency romances where young women of a certain class, had to be strictly chaperoned lest their reputations become besmirched. But it was also done so that eligible men couldn’t be trapped into marriage by scheming mamas ;) I have a 27 year old son who has (finally!) made a great start at a career with a good company. What advice do I give him about interacting with women in the office? He’s shy already and I want more grandkids … but I don’t want him to have his career ended before it really starts!
I recommend taking skating lessons. Don’t laugh! When we watched the 1994 winter Olympics, our six-year-old daughter said she wanted to take skating lessons. After some checking my wife took her to a local roller rink for a lesson. The teacher told my wife that children are more willing to follow instructions if a parent is a student in the same class. Would I be willing to take over that portfolio? To make a long story short it was a lot more fun than I had expected. Both of us advanced from public classes to club classes and, thence, to competition at the local, regional, and even national level. I learned that the female-to-male ratio in skating clubs is a lot closer to 5 to 1 than 1 to 1. If I had been an eligible batchelor instead of a nuclear family dad and had let it be known that I was an intact heterosexual with underdeveloped social skills—not uncommon among people who major in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) subjects—I have little doubt that I would have made much more progress finding Ms. Right than was the case when I was in my twenties (I married at thirty-two and am thirty-four years into my first marriage). As a group female skaters are hard working, sober, and extremely good looking in their competition outfits.
Since you’re listing moral panics, here are two current ones:
1) Russian political ads: Apparently the Russians had a relatively small number of online advertisements in 2016, possibly to support a candidate, or possibly just to build social dissension. It’s now claimed that a presidential campaign coordinated this and it changed the results of a presidential election, and there is lots of talk about impeachment,
2) Global Warming/Climate Change/Climate Disruption: There is a case to be made that human action does have an effect on the Earth’s climate. This is being treated by many as apocalyptic and justifies massive government intervention, while ignoring the massive negative economic effects of the intervention.