Everybody Knows
Today's news headlines are about Manafort, Gates, and Popodopolous, and I think the media aggregators are missing the story of the day (as far as I'm concerned): Anthony Rapp's report of Kevin Spacey attempting to seduce him in 1986, when Spacey was 26 years old and Rapp was 14 years old. This is the lead story: of adults injuring minors, of crimes beyond statutes of limitations, on the inability to make the victim whole, of the inability to punish the rapists, on the stories everybody knows about and nobody investigates. The fact that it is a very old story, a widely distributed story that everybody knows , a universal story across cultures, a story that treats vulnerability as consent, makes it no less the story of the day. Manafort is a pischer; Spacey is a monster. Manafort, Gates, and Popodpolous are thieves and political hacks (by which I mean, con-men) and there is nothing new or even audascious in their crimes. Their apprehension is a bit of Kabuki theater; ev