OPINION
4A
THE DAILY ASTORIAN • FRIDAY, OCTOBER 13, 2017
Founded in 1873
DAVID F. PERO, Publisher & Editor
JIM VAN NOSTRAND, Managing Editor
JEREMY FELDMAN, Circulation Manager
DEBRA BLOOM, Business Manager
JOHN D. BRUIJN, Production Manager
CARL EARL, Systems Manager
OUR VIEW
E
ach week we recognize those people and organizations
in the community deserving of public praise for the good
things they do to make the North Coast a better place to
live, and also those who should be called out for their actions.
SHOUTOUTS
Weinstein and our
culture of enablers
By BRET STEPHENS
New York Times News Service
Colin Murphey/The Daily Astorian
John Goodenberger, right, talks about some of the special collec-
tion in the Astoria Library’s basement.
• The Astoria Library and its nonprofit foundation, which
kicked off a renovation campaign during the library’s 50th anni-
versary celebration last Sunday. The foundation hopes to raise
$3.5 million, which will be paired with $1.6 million the city has
set aside for the library’s makeover. Mayor Arlene LaMear told
the crowd at the anniversary celebration that a lot has changed
for libraries in the past 50 years, and the renovation will make
it more relevant in today’s world. Work is expected to begin in
2019 and be completed in 2020. During the celebration, library
Director Jimmy Pearson also announced the library is expanding
its Monday operating hours.
• Astoria Sunday Market Executive Director Cyndi Mudge
and organizers and volunteers of the weekly marketplace, which
closed out its 17th season last weekend with another good crowd
on hand. The marketplace, which runs weekly from mid-spring
to early fall, brings crowds downtown to browse the booths of
vendors who offer locally made products that have been hand-
crafted, grown, created or gathered by the farmers, craftspeo-
ple and artisans of the region. It also features live music and an
appetizing food court. Astoria Sunday Market is run by a non-
profit organization by the same name with a goal of revitalizing
downtown. Funds are reinvested in downtown projects, enter-
prises and efforts that support the nonprofit’s mission.
• Vintage Hardware and Astoria Station, which houses
Reach Break Brewing, Reville Ciderworks and Astoria Barber,
which were each honored with revitalization awards at the
recent Oregon Main Street conference in Oregon City. Vintage
Hardware, at 1162 Marine Drive, won the award for Best
Facade Under $7,500. Astoria Station, a former service station
and indoor garden supply store at 1343 Duane St., was honored
for Outstanding Adaptive Use. It was transformed by the late
Warren Williams into a mixed-use storefront with food carts in
front.
• Organizers of the first Jordan’s Hope Rally and Fun Run/
Walk, which was conducted recently at Astoria High School
and brought more attention and awareness to the fight against
the opioid epidemic. The event included a run/walk at the
school’s track, speakers who told of their fight and recovery
from addiction, panel discussions and entertainment from the
high school’s marching band and Brownsmead Flats. About 150
people participated in the nonprofit organization’s event, includ-
ing members of the Lion’s Club who served lunch for those
attending.
• Clatsop County commissioners, whose commitment to
renewable energy sources has led to the county being the first
in Oregon and only the second in the nation to join the U.S.
Environmental Protection Agency’s Green Power Partnership.
As part of its membership, the county has committed to purchas-
ing at least 10 percent of its annual electric supply for operations
from renewable sources such as solar, wind and water.
O
f all of the dismaying and
disgusting details of the
Harvey Weinstein saga, none
is more depressing
than this: It has so
few heroes.
There is a
storybook villain,
Weinstein, whose
repulsive face
turns out to be
the spitting image of his putrescent
soul. There are victims, so many of
them, typically up-and-comers in an
industry where he had the power to
make or wreck their careers, or bully
or buy their silence, or, if some alle-
gations are to be believed, rape them.
But mostly there are enablers,
both those who facilitated his
predations and those who found it
expedient to look the other way.
The enablers were of all sorts.
Corporate board members who
declined to investigate allegations
of his sexual behavior and now
claim the news comes as “an utter
surprise.” Assistants who acted
as “honeypots,” joining meetings
between Weinstein and his intended
victims to give them a sense of secu-
rity — and then leaving the predator
to his prey. Reporters who paid him
tribute with awards, did his bidding
with fawning coverage, or went
after his enemies with hit pieces. A
lavishly paid Italian studio executive
whose real job, according to former
Times reporter Sharon Waxman, was
“to take care of Weinstein’s women
needs.” (A lawyer for the executive
reportedly denies the allegation.)
And then there was the rest of
Hollywood.
Weinstein’s depredations were
an open film industry secret,
the subject of an onstage joke
by Seth MacFarlane at the 2013
Oscar nomination announcement.
Everyone laughed because everyone
got it. Some of his victims, such
as Gwyneth Paltrow, became
Hollywood powers in their own right
but never publicly rang an alarm until
this week. The actor Ben Affleck,
who owes his start to Weinstein, is
an overnight laughingstock because
he acts surprised by the producer’s
behavior. He won’t be the only
celebrity doing his best Claude Rains
“shocked, shocked” impression.
Even some of the ostensibly good
guys in this saga cannot be let off
lightly. In The New Yorker, Ronan
Andy Kropa/Invision
Harvey Weinstein, shown here in 2014, faces multiple allegations of sexu-
al abuse and harassment from some of the biggest names in Hollywood.
Farrow reports that Irwin Reiter, a
top Weinstein Co. executive, sought
to console one of the office assistants
harassed by Weinstein by saying
the “mistreatment of women” was
a long-standing company issue and
that “if you were my daughter he
would not have made out so well.”
But Reiter never went public.
Perhaps it should come as no
surprise that an industry built around
pretended characters and scenarios
could have pretended for so long that
nothing was amiss. Perhaps it should
be no surprise, either, that its concept
of ethics is every bit as ersatz and
inconstant as most everything else in
Tinseltown.
The outrage over Weinstein also
has a whiff of opportunism. In recent
years, notes New York magazine’s
Rebecca Traister, Weinstein has “lost
power in the movie industry” and
is no longer “the indie mogul who
could make or break an actor’s Oscar
chances.” Lame horses get shot.
It’s in this context that one
can mount a defense of sorts for
Weinstein, who inhabited a moral
universe that did nothing but cheer
his golden touch and wink at (or look
away from) his transgressions —
right until the moment that it became
politically inconvenient to do so.
Conservatives are trying to make hay
of the fact that Weinstein donated
lavishly to Democratic politicians,
backed progressive causes and dis-
tributed films such as “The Hunting
Ground,” a documentary about
campus sexual assault.
But the important truth about
Weinstein isn’t his moral hypocrisy:
In movies as in politics, hypocrisy
isn’t just an accepted fact of life but
also an essential part of the job.
The important truth is that he
was just another libidinous cad in a
libertine culture that long ago dis-
pensed with most notions of personal
restraint and gentlemanly behavior.
“I came of age in the ’60s and ’70s,
when all the rules about behavior
and workplaces were different,”
Weinstein wrote in his mea culpa to
The Times last week. “That was the
culture then.”
That line was roundly mocked,
but it contains its truth. Like those
other libidinous cads — Bill Clinton
and Donald Trump — Weinstein
benefited from a culture that often
celebrated, constantly depicted,
sometimes enabled, seldom
confronted, and all-too frequently
forgave the behavior they so often
indulged in.
Hyenas cannot help their own
nature. But the work of a morally
sentient society is to prevent them
from taking over the savanna. Our
society, by contrast, festooned
Weinstein with honors, endowed him
with riches, and enabled him to feast
on his victims without serious conse-
quence for the better part of 30 years.
The old saw that all that is needed for
evil to triumph is for good men to do
nothing was never truer than it was
in Weinstein’s case.
It may be that Weinstein’s epic
downfall will scare straight other
sexual miscreants, or at least those
who tolerate their behavior and are
liable for its consequences. Don’t
count on it. Our belated indictment
of him now does too much to acquit
his many accomplices, and too little
to transform a culture that never gave
him a reason to change.
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
CALLOUTS
• Vandals who stole political “Vote No” signs from home-
owners’ yards along Cottage and Marion avenues in Gearhart
last weekend. The signs advocated a “no” vote on Measure
4-188, which asks for a repeal and replacement of Gearhart’s
short-term rental ordinance. Sign stealing is a familiar accusation
in political campaigns, from presidential elections to local races,
and the culprits are seldom caught. Gearhart and other Clatsop
County cities don’t take crime reports on political sign vandal-
ism and theft, so the residents don’t have much recourse. But as
Mayor Matt Brown said, “These signs cost money and theft is a
serious charge.”
Suggestions?
Do you have a Shoutout or Callout you think we should know about? Let
us know at news@dailyastorian.com and we’ll make sure to take a look.
Keep Gearhart a gem
have a high-energy dog who likes
to walk around Gearhart for one to
two hours a day. I accompany him on
these forays. We very much enjoy the
usually quiet side streets, the mag-
nificent trees along the Ridge Path,
waving to friends driving by, stop-
ping to chat with an acquaintance we
encounter, viewing the houses and
their gardens, eating blackberries.
We know a lot of people by name,
and even more dogs. I have wonder-
ful, friendly neighbors with whom I
can visit, usually standing in the mid-
dle of the road, because we don’t
have much traffic. To me, this is the
essence of a small residential town,
and I cherish it.
I also want to protect it. Living
in a town with unlimited short-term
I
rentals without regulations will be
the demise of this way of life. We
have a gem. Let’s be mindful, and
not sell our soul. Please vote “no” on
ballot Measure 4-188.
SHARON KLOEPFER
Gearhart
Ask for prayers
he inability of authorities to gain
purchase on the motive behind
the Las Vegas slaughter should give
us a moment to stop and consider:
Does having a political, religious or
emotional motive make it any less
evil? The truth might be no more
than the idea of a mass slaughter of
humans went through the mind of
someone rich and sickeningly vul-
nerable enough to act on it.
T
Those of us who believe in
angels and demons, right and wrong,
heaven and hell have a fair idea
where the inspiration for such an act
came from. Prudence might suggest
the similar spiritual condition of Kim
Jung-un, dictator of North Korea:
Wealthy, powerful beyond under-
standing, and fascinated with weap-
ons that can kill millions in minutes.
A word to the troubled and vul-
nerable: There are priests, pastors,
and laymen across this country who
know how to “bind up the spirits” in
the unseen world. Seek them out and
ask them to pray for you.
“The fervent prayer of the
believer availeth much.” (James
5:16)
WAYNE MAYO
Scappoose