New Albany too? How will #MeToo play out here at the grassroots?

“Sexual assault is the most under-reported crime in the United States. It’s a crime that people usually tell nobody about.”

Just the other day I was at the downtown Coffee Crossing reading my book and making work notes. At an adjoining table, a man and woman I didn't know were talking about the #MeToo movement.

It wasn't my choice to eavesdrop, but it's hard not to hear people when they're speaking in normal conversational tones.

Their chat centered on Harvey Weinstein and Kevin Spacey, although they also were referencing a sexual harassment scandal involving Baptists in Texas, with which I'm completely unfamiliar.

This started me thinking. How has the #MeToo movement played out here in New Albany? We might extend this to the entire Southern Indiana sector of metro Louisville. There have been few high profile #MeToo stories in the city of Louisville, including the LMPD rape case in 2018 and a handful of others in the food, drink and hospitality business, although the latter seem not to have been manifested in formal legal proceedings as with Weinstein.

We've been here before, blogwise.

We're not exempt, so NAC's New Albany "Person of the Year" for 2017 is #MeToo -- the NA silence breakers.

There'll be some who will question this decision, given the absence of an attention-grabbing headline in New Albany thus far. Maybe so, but we all know it's here, too -- don't we? In a place like this, we tend to be a bit behind all conceivable curves, and so even if our civic discussion about sexual harassment and assault is belated, it's still the right one to have.

Yep.

Given that New Albany fully corresponds with the old saw about this being the best place to be when the world ends because it takes a decade for anything important to reach us, well ... what about us?

Surely we're not immune.

I used the enduringly flimsy search engine at the News & Tribune to see what sort of information on the topic the purported newspaper of local record has published, and there have been a couple dozen articles going back to 2017, all of them involving #MeToo nationally, not locally.

The following story is from Kalamazoo, Michigan (population around 75,000 -- roughly double New Albany's), dating from November, 2018. One thing that jumped out at me was the Victim Advocates Unit in Kalamazoo; a quick search reveals that yes, we have something similar: Victim & Witness Services at the Office of the Floyd County Prosecutor.

Readers, your thoughts are appreciated. I'm sure there is lots I've missed pertaining to this topic, so educate me, please.

Does #MeToo take on a different dimension in a smaller town where so may people know each other? Think of the differences in local opinion prompted by the judicial melee in the White Castle parking lot in Indianapolis.

Would big fish in small ponds have even more self-interest in covering up such shenanigans were when they to occur here?

Is #MeToo on local law enforcement's radar?

Here's the link to Kalamazoo.

#MeToo: How a movement changed a community, by Franque Thompson (WWMT 3)

The Me Too movement continues to spark change addressing sexual assault worldwide. The campaign exploded on social media and television, as victims stood up to their abusers. The movement ist still making waves in west Michigan and across the state.

Launched in 2006 by civil rights activist Tarana Burke, the Me Too campaign was designed to empower girls and young women of color who experienced sexual abuse, particularly in underprivileged communities. A year later, in 2017, the idea ignited an international movement for survivors of sexual assault, shared across social media with the hashtag #metoo.

According to the latest Michigan Incident Crime Report, reports of sexual assault increased 4.6 percent in 2017, the year Me Too gained global attention. The crime report also states that girls ages 18 and 19 have the highest numbers of cases reported.

Sherry Brockway, the director of emergency response services at YWCA Kalamazoo, said almost 80 percent of victims know the person who assaulted them.

We're not exempt, so NAC's New Albany "Person of the Year" for 2017 is #MeToo -- the NA silence breakers.

It’s time again for NA Confidential to select New Albany’s "Person of the Year."

In 2017, we’ll be approaching this task a bit differently than during previous years, although our basic definition remains intact, as gleaned from Time.

Person of the Year (formerly Man of the Year) is an annual issue of the United States news magazine Time that features and profiles a person, couple, group, idea, place, or machine that "for better or for worse ... has done the most to influence the events of the year."

This year, Time chose #MeToo, or the silence breakers -- "the thousands of (women and some men) across the world who have come forward with their experiences of sexual harassment and assault."

Accordingly, in 2017 there'll be no run-ups and teasers, and in fact, no contest.

It might fall a few votes short of acclamation, but nonetheless I'm opening and closing the nominations today, and declaring our choice for Person of the Year in New Albany: #MeToo: the NA silence breakers.

There'll be some who will question this decision, given the absence of an attention-grabbing headline in New Albany thus far. Maybe so, but we all know it's here, too -- don't we?

In a place like this, we tend to be a bit behind all conceivable curves, and so even if our civic discussion about sexual harassment and assault is belated, it's still the right one to have.

And I believe it's coming, very soon.

2017 runners-up:

New Albany Housing Authority residents ... Welcome to Jeff Gahan's self-inflicted foot-shot Waterloo, in which hundreds of the city's most vulnerable citizens have been used by a narcissist as puppets on a Dugginsian g-string to assuage a C-minus student's insatiable hubris.

The downtown street grid ... Two-way street reversion took decades too long, and the unceasing cowardice of Team Gahan stripped the project of most ancillary benefits, but there it is, and now we can begin the process of repairing the shortsightedness borne of mayoral incomprehension.

NA's independently-owned food and drink community ... There are as many opinions as there are palates, but it can't be denied that meals have been at the forefront of revitalization, and not just downtown. Here at the blog, posts about local restaurants and bars invariably double or triple the page views of most other topics.

Mike Hall ... With his boss in hiding, he's the Sarah Huckabee Sanders of this juke joint.

Jeff Gahan ... As we enter 2018, his political power has peaked. It's all downhill from here, veneer -- and Team Gahan's getting testy.

Previous winners:

• 2011 ... The Sherman Minton Bridge
• 2012 ... Bill "Slumlord" Allen
• 2013 ... (tie) Houndmouth and "Quality of Life"
• 2014 ... Heroic Non-Incentivized Downtown Developers
• 2015 ... New Albany property tax payers
• 2016 ... Chloe Allen

"Male bumblers are an epidemic," and gaslighting's only a small piece of it.

Until Friday evening, I'd never seen the 1944 film Gaslight. Consequently, my grasp of "gaslighting" has been rather feeble, but no more.

At Vox, Alissa Wilkinson explains: "What is gaslighting? The 1944 film Gaslight is the best explainer."

 ... The term “gaslighting” comes from the movie, and so its definition is rather specific: when a person lies for their own gain to another person so repeatedly and with so much confidence that the victim begins to doubt her own sanity. And, as the film puts it, a bit of Stockholm Syndrome develops as well: The victim, now uncertain that she can perceive reality correctly, becomes dependent on the gaslighter, more attached to him than ever.

The trope has been repeated throughout film history (The Girl on the Train is a great example), but Gaslight still holds up — especially in a week where people are throwing around terms like “gaslighter-in-chief” to describe the newly inaugurated president. And if you can stomach watching Gaslight, it’s a useful reminder that just because you feel like you’re going crazy doesn’t mean you are.

As with the baseball player who retires the other side with a circus catch, then homers on the first pitch in the bottom of the inning, the first article to cross my eyes this morning contains a Gaslight reference (thanks to JS for sharing the piece on Facebook).

For decades now, the very idea of a duplicitous, calculating man has been so exceptional as to be almost monstrous; this is the domain of cult leaders, of con artists, of evil men like the husband in Gaslight. And while folks provisionally accept that there are men who "groom" children and "gaslight" women, the reluctance to attach that behavior to any real, flesh-and-blood man we know is extreme. Many people don't actually believe that normal men are capable of it.

Here's the introduction. It is highly recommended reading.

The myth of the male bumbler, by Lili Loofbourow (The Week)

Male bumblers are an epidemic.

These men are, should you not recognize the type, wide-eyed and perennially confused. What's the difference, the male bumbler wonders, between a friendly conversation with a coworker and rubbing one's penis in front of one? Between grooming a 14-year-old at her custody hearing and asking her out?

The world baffles the bumbler. He's astonished to discover that he had power over anyone at all, let alone that he was perceived as using it. What power? he says. Who, me?

The bumbler is the first to confess that he's bad at his job. Take Attorney General Jeff Sessions, who testified Tuesday of the Trump campaign's foreign policy team, which he ran and which is now understood to have been in contact with Russian agents: "We were not a very effective group." Or consider Dave Becky, the manager of disgraced comedian Louis C.K. (who confessed last week to sexual misconduct). Becky avers that "never once, in all of these years, did anyone mention any of the other incidents that were reported recently." One might argue that no one should have needed to mention them; surely, as Louis C.K.'s manager, it was Becky's job to keep tabs on open secrets about his client? Becky's defense? He's a bumbler! ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

The bumbler doesn't know things, even things about which he was directly informed. Jon Stewart was "stunned" by the Louis C.K. revelations, even though we watched someone ask him about them last year. Vice President Mike Pence maintains he had no idea former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn was lobbying for a foreign power — despite the fact that Flynn himself informed the transition team back in January, and even though Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.) had written Pence — who was head of the transition team — to that effect as far back as Nov. 18, 2016. Wait, what? said Pence in March. Surely not! Really?

There's a reason for this plague of know-nothings: The bumbler's perpetual amazement exonerates him. Incompetence is less damaging than malice. And men — particularly powerful men — use that loophole like corporations use off-shore accounts. The bumbler takes one of our culture's most muscular myths — that men are clueless — and weaponizes it into an alibi.

Allow me to make a controversial proposition: Men are every bit as sneaky and calculating and venomous as women are widely suspected to be. And the bumbler — the very figure that shelters them from this ugly truth — is the best and hardest proof.

Breaking that alibi means dissecting that myth ...

Matt Bevin vs. Greg Fischer on sexual harassment: "If perception is, in fact, reality, Fischer is weak."

Floyd County Democrats venerate Fischer.

I'm trying desperately to remember a time when ROFLMAO might have been more appropriate.

Matt Bevin seizes moral high ground over Greg Fischer on sexual harassment, by Joseph Gerth (Louisville Courier Journal)

I’m not even sure how this happened, but the Democratic Party in Louisville has ceded the moral high ground on sexual harassment to the party that nominated Donald Trump as president of the United States.

Somehow, some way, in this whole mess of sexual harassment claims separately involving Democratic Louisville Metro Council member Dan Johnson and former Republican House Speaker Jeff Hoover, the GOP has been able to seize the upper hand.

A day before Gov. Matt Bevin stood up and demanded the resignation of Hoover and anyone else in state government who has secretly settled sexual harassment claims, Louisville Mayor Greg Fischer was giving some mealy-mouthed statement that failed to address Johnson, who among other things, dropped his pants in the City Hall parking lot ...

Fischer is Jeff Gahan's role model.

... On Friday, five minutes before 5 p.m. and nearly a full day after he was asked to comment, the oh-so-cautious Fischer sent a written statement said what he says best. Nothing.

“In my administration I have a record of supporting and promoting women, including placing them in positions of leadership and making clear that harassment of any type is not acceptable and will not be tolerated. While this is a council matter and they make decisions about their own institution, our citizens must be equally confident this standard will be upheld by them,” he said.

“Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.”

Sides. Are. Splitting.

Bevin has created the perception that this stuff matters to him — even if his past shows that he is weak on the subject — and he came out looking strong and decisive.

Fischer, on the other hand, looked like someone who was desperately trying not to say what needed to be said: that Johnson’s actions, which included grabbing another council member’s tuchus and telling a chamber of commerce employee about his sex life, were wrong and anyone who did those things should not continue to serve.