The New York Times checks in on Jeffrey Toobin, the New Yorker reporter who covered the Supreme Court until he made a career-fatal mistake on Zoom. Not knowing which tabs were open, he was caught — in the memorable phrase of Kevin Williamson — badgering the witness, and his colleagues witnessed the badger.
His former colleague Malcolm Gladwell expresses himself on the matter this way:
I read the Condé Nast news release, and I was puzzled because I couldn’t find any intellectual justification for what they were doing. They just assumed he had done something terrible, but never told us what the terrible thing was. And my only feeling — the only way I could explain it — was that Condé Nast had taken an unexpected turn toward traditional Catholic teaching.” (Mr. Gladwell then took out his Bible and read to a reporter an allegory from Genesis 38 in which God strikes down a man for succumbing to the sin of self-gratification.)
I find this odd, and endearing. Is Gladwell implying that the only companies which would protect their employees from a colleague exposing himself and abusing himself in front of them are those that have turned toward traditional Catholic teaching? If so, I imagine that we’re going to see a great demand for Catholic retail stores, repair shops, and salons.