Today at the gym there were 4 older guys and 3 middle-aged women.  Several were on the elliptical machines, two were on the stationary bikes, and one was on the rowing machine.  There were also 8 girls from a university sport team doing sit-ups and calisthenics.

Not one of them was watching, or had earphones plugged into CBC News Network’s “Live” coverage of the US Senate hearing, and the grilling of Dr Christine Blasey Ford.

Blasey Ford is the woman who in July, first wrote a letter to Senator Dianne Feinstein and asked for anonymity.  By early September she had been “outed” and decided to come forward as a truth-teller or, as she prefers to say, to do her “civic duty”.  It was only a couple of weeks ago that she agreed to be interviewed and identified as the woman who was sexually assaulted by Judge Brett Kavanaugh in 1982.

The only thing Ford asked for was “caffeine” after her first introductory remarks.  After that she asked for nothing – she didn’t ask for Kavanaugh to be charged, to be whipped or to be dropped as a nominee for the US Supreme Court.  She simply wanted to tell how he tried to rape her.

Perhaps the most upsetting part of the spectacle was the Republican Senator Chuck Grassley (the Chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee). He laid  it on rather thick that Blasey Ford and the Democrats had had all summer to come forward, weeks to bring up all this about Kavanaugh and now somehow time has run out.

What’s the rush is the real question here. The rush is that Grassley’s minders including Pres. Trump have decided to appoint Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court tomorrow—basically whatever happens in testimony today.

The most startling event of the day was when Blasey Ford explained that though the sexual assault happened in 1982, when she was 15 years old, she never told anyone until 2012.  This is consistent with rape victims – the self-blame often makes it impossible to report the assault due to shame, fear and guilt.  She never told her parents, a teacher or even friends.

Dr Blasey Ford, a respected psychology professor, stated that in 2012 she and her husband went to see a marriage counselor.  They were arguing about home renovations;  she had demanded a second front door.  Her husband’s view was that it would make the house look bad and it was totally unnecessary.  Finally she let out that she needed to feel safe, and the story of being sexually assaulted by Kavanaugh surfaced.

If you listen to only one thing, I urge you to listen to Dr Blasey Ford’s evidence: how Kavanaugh tried to rape her but couldn’t easily pull down her once piece bathing suit; how terrified she was that Kavanaugh would kill her—even inadvertently by suffocation –because he clamped his hand over her mouth; how she finally escaped the house.

That is why a second front door became necessary even 30 years later.  And that is why they have two front doors to this day.Not Blasey Ford’s house, but one with two front doors.