SHORT TAKES ON THE DRIFTING WRECKAGE – AT 11:44 P.M. ET: 

THE GROWING BACKLASH – FROM RT:  Celebrities criticizing the #MeToo movement have been joined by another big personality from the movie industry. Oscar-winning Austrian film director Michael Haneke called it a “witch hunt” that “poisons” the social climate.  “I regard this hysteria of rash judgments that is spreading at the moment as absolutely disgusting,” director and screenwriter Haneke said in an interview with the Austrian daily Kurier.  “People are just being finished off in the media, [their] lives and careers are being ruined,” he said. “Any kind of rape or [sexual] coercion should be punished,” he stressed, but what bothers him about the ongoing debate around allegations of sexual abuse targeting celebrities is its “totally unperceived malignance, the blind rage that is not based on facts.”  There is a serious backlash against "me too."  Even former Secretary of State Condi Rice has warned that this hysteria can infantilize women.  There are no doubt many serious cases of sexual violence against women or serious sexual harassment, and each one must be prosecuted.  But what we have now is a frenzy that will take investigators' time away from serious cases, and that will also diminish the credibility of women who courageously bring truthful charges.

BYE BYE – FROM CBS LOCAL:  SAN JOSE (KPIX 5) – The number of people packing up and moving out of the Bay Area just hit its highest level in more than a decade...Of course people come and go from the Bay Area all the time, but for the first time in a long time, more people are leaving the Bay Area than are coming in. And the number one place in the country for out-migration is now, right here.  Russell Hancock with Joint Venture Silicon Valley said, “Silicon Valley has been this place that is growing. And it was mostly due to people relocating here and relocating from other parts of the world. That’s changing.”  Joint Venture Silicon Valley’s own study of the out-migration says workers are moving to Sacramento, Austin, and Portland due to a number of factors. But topping the list is the high cost of housing.  Add to that list crime, vagrancy, and the chaos and danger of illegal immigration, and many people think they can do better somewhere else.  The San Francisco mentality has its limits.

NEW HARVARD PRESIDENT – FROM CNN:  In hiring its 29th president, Harvard University is turning to one of its own.  Lawrence Bacow, a former president of Tufts University who has three degrees from Harvard, will succeed Drew Faust, the university's first female president, the school announced Sunday.
"Larry Bacow is one of the most accomplished, admired, insightful, and effective leaders in American higher education," said William Lee, chairman of the university's Presidential Search Committee and a senior fellow for the Harvard Corp., the school's governing body.  Faust has served as Harvard's president since 2007 and announced last June she would step down this summer.  Harvard does not seem to be sending any particular message with this choice.  They did not do any virtue signaling.  Bacow is the kind of highly regarded candidate whom a college would normally turn to for leadership.  We'll see in the next few days if there's public anguish from the identity politics crowd.

February 11, 2018