Roman follies

I haven't commented on the Roman Polanski story because the rest of the seems to be doing a good enough job of heaping opprobrium on the Hollywood Community for its standing four square behind a child rapist with such intellectual gems as it's not being "rape rape" (I'd love to see that defence put before a judge) and acting as though arresting Polanski while attending a film festival in Switzerland is the equivalent of frog marching Solzhenitsyn to the cells after he's granted church sanctuary.

As regular readers know, I am very much of a believer in hierarchies–in fact, if you asked my political affiliation I'd have to say Feudalist, but I have nothing but contempt for artificial, self-declared elites who imagine that because of status, wealth, beauty, or celebrity they have the right to demand restrictions on the general population that do not apply to them and that they are, in the end, above the law. It's particularly bad in the entertainment field where people can act in the foulest way possible with the smallest, if any penalty. I know of no other business where you can commit gross public indecency, assault, pedophilia, theft, drug abuse, sexual perversion, drunkenness, defamation, blackmail, treason, and, yes, rape, and then stage your "comeback" in six months rather than doing a Profumo and slinking out of the public eye to do good works in the East End for the rest of your life.

The attitude of Hollywood reminds me of nothing so much as a load of Ancien Régime aristocrats sputtering as the low-born police put the braclets on Polanski, "But... But... How dare you! Don't you know who he is?"

Six words that show that the speaker is unworthy of being part of any elite of any sort.

None of this, however, was enough to get me to write anything. That was left to Harvey Weinstein (producer of such classics as Superhero Movie and Spy Kids 3D) who said this in the LA Times:

Hollywood has the best moral compass, because it has compassion.

Mr. Weinstein now owes me a new keyboard and monitor. Mine are hoplessly compromised by porridge.