The single thing I despise most in our culture is the ease with which we destroy good people's reputations with little sly looks and the implication that everything is about sex. How many truly nasty things are said and spread without need or justification, and how quick we all are to believe these things. I don't imagine the human desire to gossip and gloat in fallen nature is any worse now than it has ever been. But at least at one time respected professors would not dare to make their reputations by printing spurious rumors.
After Steven Vincent was murdered, the rumor went around that his death had nothing to do with Iraqi freedom, but happened because he was having an affair with his interpreter. The rumor originated in a column by Professor Juan Coles. Well, it isn't true, Vincent's wife had a thing or two to say on the matter, and although she is justifiably angry, it's one of the most refreshing things I've read recently. Curtsy to ninme for finding this.
