Oh NO! Not Lake Woebegon

How to destroy a legend: from Mn NPR:

ST. PAUL, Minn. - Minnesota Public Radio (MPR) is terminating its contracts with Garrison Keillor and his private media companies after recently learning of allegations of his inappropriate behavior with an individual who worked with him... Based on what we currently know, there are no similar allegations involving other staff.

italics mine.

The only thing he admits to is touching a woman's back 19 years ago.   We don't have her story yet, but I hope they have the hospital report with the DNA samples, and affidavits from corroborating witnesses, because if not, this seems to be a bit over the top.

But what is worse is that they have removed the archive of Prairie home Companion from the internet. Ditto for his Writer's Almanac podcast.

Some of these can still be found individually here and there, but otherwise they seem to have entered into a huge black hole.

Hopefully some nice person will get their copies and post them on The Pirate Bay, or better yea, Internet Archives, so they are not gone forever.

Ironically, Mr. K defended Al Franken last week in the Washington Post..

This is, of course, the latest "two minute hate"... 

The horrible thing about the Two Minutes Hate was not that one was obliged to act a part, but that it was impossible to avoid joining in. Within thirty seconds any pretence was always unnecessary. A hideous ecstasy of fear and vindictiveness, a desire to kill, to torture, to smash faces in with a sledge hammer, seemed to flow through the whole group of people like an electric current, turning one even against one's will into a grimacing, screaming lunatic...^[1]

Facebook is full of it, which is one reason I avoid facebook as much as possible.


What I dislike about the hysteria is that you are guilty and need to be punished: No trial, no cross examination, no "CSI" evidence.

So Andrew Klaven writes:

I'm pretty much done with the sex scandals. They were fun, but they're just going to have to carry on without me. If someone broke the law and you can prove it, prosecute him. If someone violated the rules of his organization, eject him. Other than that, if women have forgotten the fine art of slapping a man in the face, there's not a whole hell of a lot society can do for them. You keep silent for forty years and then ruin a man's career with an unprovable allegation — and that makes you a hero? Not to me.