Anyone else notice attacks on their website decrease significantly during the Chinese New Year? The Chinese and Russian governments pay the most attention to this site. I don’t flatter myself that they’re reading it; I think it’s a policy of overall nuisance and mischief, not directed at me personally.
I’ve been listening to Ronan Farrow’s Catch and Kill on audio, about Harvey Weinstein’s predatory sexual criminality. I hesitated ordering it, figuring it would make me mad, and it has, but it’s been interesting too. It struck me how hard it can be to understand the potential of a project to change things while it’s underway.
The other thing that struck me was how much better and more explosive the story became as a result of efforts of NBC executives to kill the story. They kept telling Farrow he didn’t have enough evidence, and he kept digging, I guess because he didn’t realize he was being played as a sap. It reminds me of the fairy tales, where the heroine is given some impossible task, like “bring me bones from the witch Baba Yaga’s hut,” as a way of getting rid of the naive heroine, and then she actually performs the mission. The evil stepmother rages, sends her out on another task designed to fail, and the heroine returns successful.
What’s really felt weird has been reading about the trial that’s happening this week in New York City while listening to this book. Weinstein is pleading “not guilty” to rape charges and the witnesses are different than the ones mentioned in the book. The guy certainly was busy.
