What else could the Academy have done? Issue a statement saying “Harvey’s a bad guy but let’s let byones be bygones”? Of course he got kicked out.
If I were Harvey (the thought!) I would do everything I could to cleanse my soul and body and try to start anew. Maybe I could never succeed, but at least I could try — at least that. I would remove my clothing and lash myself with birch branches. I would grow a white beard and become a devout Buddhist. I would pray and meditate. I would enter a mountain monastery and take a vow of abstinence and silence for 365 days. I would wear robes and sandals and eat nothing but fruit and wheat grass and steamed vegetables, and drink nothing but purified water and green tea.
Then I would move to Vietnam, buy a first-rate Harley Davidson and become Lord Jim. I would live in modest abodes and do volunteer work at hospitals, or better yet at hospices. I would work for free for rice farmers, seeking only rice bowls and a place to sleep. I would get on the bike and rumble across Asia and into India and Pakistan, and then join the fight against ISIS. I would become a Zen poet warrior, dressed in black Viet-Cong pajamas with an AK-47 strapped across my back. I would continue to pray and meditate. And if I get killed by ISIS, I would at least die clean.
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