How About A Compromise on Roman Polanski?

UPDATED: More reaction: nuance, schmuance! But how come no one ever prosecuted Ted Nugent, then?
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Hey, I just had an idea: how about Polanski agreeing to come to the United States and face this charge, on one condition. And that condition is...

That the members of the press (if you can call them that) any anyone else who publicly blamed Sharon Tate for her own murder in 1969, calling her a "drug fiend," a "Satanist," a cannibal, a wild party girl, and a promiscuous whore while she was carrying her child (according to all witnesses, she wouldn't even drink wine while pregnant), apologize publicly to her memory and to her surviving family, something that these vulgar ambulance chasers never did before they went panting after exclusive interviews with that loser Charles Manson.

Since we're talking about a crime that happened thirty-two years ago, why not face the injustice that happened after another famous crime, forty years ago?

Arguably, those so-called journalists who spat out headlines attacking Sharon without any evidence whatsoever profited more from her death than anyone in the Manson family, despite all their born-again blather in books.

How about it? Let's hear an apology from those smug, self-righteous hacks who coined the blame-the-victim phrase, "Live freaky, die freaky." You know who you are.

Let's hear them express sorrow for heaping pain upon pain at the expense of the Tate family.

Let's hear them apologize for dissing not only poor, generous, beautiful Sharon, but Abigail Folger, who spent her fortune working as an amateur social worker; Steven Parent, a teen-aged hi fi enthusiast who was merely visiting the caretaker at the Tate residence; Jay Sebring, an internationally-known hair stylist and Sharon's ex-boyfriend who kept an eye on her while Roman was gone (oh, there was plenty of yellow journalism surrounding that--"what was he doing there, they must have had an affair, was it even Polanski's kid," etc., when Jay was a friend of Polanski's, too); and Woyciech Frykowski, who yes, did have a drug problem.

None of these people were cannibals or Satanists, but I'm not so sure about the press. Their sad charges -- screaming "It's her fault! All her fault!" as if they were rejects from an audition for The Handmaid's Tale--forced Roman Polanski to deny them (!) at a press conference.

Here is the link. Unfortunately, embedding has been disabled. A clip from the press conference begins at 1:08; however, the beginning gives background.

It just blows my mind. They called her a bimbo and said that she had no acting talent. (Sharon had wonderful comic timing.) They accused her of carrying someone else's child, or of taking drugs while pregnant. They called her a Satanist (and ironically, it was the thankfully deceased Susan Atkins, Sharon's killer, who briefly flirted with that), and they backed it up with "a photograph showing Sharon in a devil cult" that was in fact taken from one of her films. Come on, that was deliberate.

And then, to add insult to injury, the phony "psychic" Peter Hurkos visited the crime scene, "borrowed" some polaroids taken by a Life photographer to spew more slander about "three men who killed Sharon" and LSD and black magic at the house, and then pocketed the polaroids so that he could sell them later to the press. What a slime bucket!

Well, since we're already talking about something that happened thirty-two years ago, why not talk about something else that happened forty years ago?

(Unlike O.J. Simpson, Roman Polanski did search for the real killers--to the point of confronting someone he was sure had committed the crime.)

How about it, surviving paparazzi? How about it, Hollywood? How about it, newspaper and new agencies that were involved? If we're so concerned about one victim, how about your actions toward another?

Since we're so concerned about crime and morality in this country, why don't you do the right thing?

Shimmies to Swallowing the Camel

Sour Grapes, Again

Josh Rosenau has an excellent dissection (if you'll pardon me) of teh Ben Stein affair. But I can't let this go:

Everyone used to love my column until Expelled, and then people were mean on the internet and got me fired from a job I didn't want anyway [emphasis mine].

Point 1: Stein, not "everyone" loved your column. Felix Salmon didn't. And I certainly did not, though half the time I didn't know what the hell you were talking about! (Hence my reference to "glossolalia.")

Point 2: You "didn't want it anyway"? Isn't that what you said about your upcoming (but not anymore) commencement speech at Vermont? Man, I totally call phony-baloney on this. Have you ever been disinvited/fired from something that you did want?

Ben Stein, actor - in a one-man stand-up routine of Aesop's Fables. Too bad that, alone there on the world's stage, he's the straight man in a larger cosmic joke, mostly on him. But hey, if there's a buffoon, there must be a buffoonator. Right?

UPDATED: The Wall Street Journal blog sums up FreeScore.com, and gives information on how to receive your truly free credit report.

FreeBore.com

UPDATED: Advertisers are fleeing Glenn Beck's clown routine. I guess when they say "Kill Grandma"* they didn't realize it was being used like "kill the people," i.e. make them laugh.

Did you know that even a great scientist like Stephen Hawking would not stand a chance in the British health care system?

Stephen Hawking: a Briton. And not dead. But probably dying of laughter - if this crap were funny.
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The most boring person in the world (sounding more slurred than usual here) just lost his gig at the New York Times. And all because he advertised a scam which offered a free credit report that wasn't.



He claims that it was because... because... because atheists wrote hate mail to the Times!

The sad thing is, no we didn't. At least, I didn't. I had forgotten all about Ben Stein. And his train-wreck of a column.

(It's not hard to do, frankly.)

I'm in Texas attending a conference and eating food that I haven't been able to get my grubby hands on since 2006, when I visited Georgia. (Blackened catfish! Country fried steak! No, I won't touch it in the north!) I have too much to do these days to write any more than the one letter I fired off to the Times asking when they were going to tire of the snake-handling. Felix Salmon dropped his "Ben Stein Watch" and I did not pick it up. Ho-hum. But if Stein wants to claim that "the atheists" somehow created this pre-existing policy at the Times about conflict of interest, that's fine. I'm flattered. We all should be. (It take more evidence to believe that the Times already had this policy, than to believe that we went back and changed the past to put it there! Uh-huh. Maybe we planted all those fossils, too? Of course!)

Then he said it was because he starred in Expelled. Yeah, right. That was only over a year ago. (I guess you lose track of time when you, uh, have the ability to transcend it. Gee, if only we could go back in our time machine and change the past again so that Ben Stein was never bor - I am a genius!)

I guess all the financial blogs have been take over by teh atheists, because they're pretty much nodding
their
heads
in approval
at his firing.

(Also here. And here. Boy, I need a drink after going back in time and writing all these posts! *Twinkle*)

Compared to the liability for intelligent design that Stein has proved himself to be (I'm beginning to feel sorry for the Disco Boys), he's making atheists sound like they have supernatural powers. That's not the way to convince the American public to buy into supernaturalism. They might start thinking that naturalism is, well, super. It sure beats being a crybaby.

One more thing: "Americans in Financial Hole." Why did that just give me the creeps?
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*Note how the "Kill Grandma" right wing clown routine is begetting an unholy "survival of the fittest" phenomenon. Ironic, huh? (Not really.) You see, it's okay when creationists do it.

Oh, by the way, Stephen Hawking is still alive. And still British.

Something For the Dark

If you believe in the devil, you belong to him.
- Thomas Mann

It's Friday night, and school is out! Time enough at last for my favorite creepy crawlies. I recommend revisiting anthologies you enjoyed as a kid to read the stories you skipped before - and to reread the ones that scared the crap out of you. Like this dastardly little collection:

I especially recommend the stories "Something for the Dark" and "The Other Celia." Fun stuff.

"Ritual abuse" stories, a staple of the daytime schlock TV circuit in the 1990s, have certainly fallen off the map. Here is an interesting article: "Interpreting the Satanic Legend."

But really for enthralling reading I offer this gem, an excellent example of investigative reporting by Mark Opsasnick as he traces the supposed "true story" behind the so-called exorcism that inspired both the best-selling novel and the movie. In the process, he exposes the sloppy and downright irresponsible "what-he-said" hearsay and rumor-mongering that masquerades as "journalism."

Part 1: Feeling Devilish?

Emphasis on Blatty’s inspiration for The Exorcist intensified after the novel was released in May 1971, went to the top of the best-seller lists, and began receiving movie offers from Hollywood. The first of many major publications to consider Blatty’s literary sources was The New York Times, which weighed in with an article by Chris Chase on August 27, 1972 titled “Everyone’s Reading It, Billy’s Filming It.” The article chronicles how director William Friedkin became involved in the project and touches upon the fact that Blatty based his novel on a local story of demonic possession that he learned of while attending college.

Part 2: After the Movie

Media interest peaked after the movie’s release and subsequent success. The most fascinating and in-depth article ever to appear on the subject appeared in the January 1975 edition of Fate magazine. In a feature titled “The Truth Behind The Exorcist,” author Steve Erdmann reveals never-before-known information regarding the facts behind the story.

Part 3: Debunking the Myth of 3210 Bunker Hill Road, Mount Rainier

Rumors that the haunted boy had actually lived at 3210 Bunker Hill Road in Mount Rainier have been around since the early ’80s and have mostly been spread by neighborhood teens and newcomers to the area, who have raised the aura surrounding this location to urban legend proportions... I realized, however, that there was no evidence demonstrating that the family ever lived in Mount Rainier in the first place. Something was amiss.

Part 4: Friends and Neighbors Speak Out

Since J. C. was one of the very few who actually knew that Rob was going through this phase at the time and was able to observe the situation firsthand, I asked him if he thought the boy was actually possessed by the devil, and he responded...

Part 5: Truth and Consequences

After talking with so many people who had personally known Rob Doe it was disheartening to review the published material on the case from a new perspective and observe the various discrepancies between what has been written by others and what was told to me by individuals close to the family in question.

Reporters aren't supposed to be perpetuating urban myths and rumors - they should leave that to the experts - the fiction writers.

Yes, the fiction writers. Wah ha ha!