Monthly Archives: September 2009

Hollywood, Polanski, Phillips, and rape – updated

Updated below.

Hollywood has come out in defense of Roman Polanski and Mackenzie Phillips has come out about her past.

Whoopi Goldberg said that what Roman Polanski did wasn’t “rape-rape“.

Debra Winger said that the arrest was “based on a three-decades-old case that is dead but for minor technicalities. We stand by him and await his release and his next masterpiece.

The Anchoress whose latest post contrasts two Polish men, one a filmmaker, the other a Pope, Althouse, and Patterico (scroll down) have much more on the Polanski issue and the fallout.

Of course it was a rape. Mr. Polanski gave a 13-year-old child part of a Quaalude and some champagne and sodomized her. The case isn’t “dead but for minor technicalities.” He pleaded guilty and fled the country before being sentenced. He’s led a good life for the past 30 years. He’s been able to make films and receive awards. That he wasn’t able to come to the United States is on him. He could have come here at any time, and been sentenced and served his sentence and gone on with his life. Now he’s just delayed the sentencing and added more time for fleeing.

The other story was that of Mackenzie Phillips. She wasn’t a minor, but the quote says a lot. In her new biography she says that 30 years ago, when she was 19 and about to get married, she took drugs with her father and passed out.

My father was not a man with boundaries. He was full of love, and he was sick with drugs. I woke up that night from a blackout to find myself having sex with my own father.

No Mackenzie. You didn’t wake up having sex with your father. You woke up being raped by your father.

What has happened that one person wakes up being raped and says it was just “having sex” and another, 13-year-old child’s rape is considered by some to not be a “rape-rape” because the child was not beaten and “forced”? The woman was raped as was the child. Drugs were involved in both. That doesn’t make either one any less of a rape.

Update:

Dafydd at Big Lizards (cross-posted at Hot Air’s Rogue’s Gallery) says that the sentence may have been 48 days to bring the total sentence including time served to 90 days. For raping a 13-year-old child! 90 days. He fled the country for a month and half in jail.

Five Years

It’s my fifth blogiversary! Wow.

Thanks for all your support over the years!

1623 posts, 1316 comments, and 200,553! visitors over the years.

Some definitions:

Blog: n. a weblog. v. to write on a weblog

Post: n. an article. v. to publish an article or a comment on a blog.

Comment: a comment on a post. The blogger may comment on a post, but most commenters are not the blogger. Some commenters are bloggers in their own right, at the same blog (as in a group blog) or at their own blog. Some bloggers write at more than one blog.

I hope you continue to enjoy my posts on my blog and I hope you’ll continue to post comments here as well.

Many thanks to Chris at A Large Regular who was one of the first, if not the first to add me to his blogroll.

Compare and Contrast Protests

As I watched some of the G20 protests I noticed something.

G20: Riot police were out in force in Pittsburgh.

G20: Violence was anticipated and expected.

Tea parties – 9/12: People may have shouted now and then, but otherwise everything was peaceful.

Tea parties – 9/12: Police presence was normal for crowd control (and the crowd didn’t really need any controlling).

G20: Lots of masked people.

Tea parties – 9/12: I didn’t see any masks.

Tea parties – 9/12: Lots of children as parents knew they were safe.

G20: No children. That’s a good thing. If there were any children there, the parents should be charged with child endangerment.

G20: Arrests.

Tea parties – 9/12: No arrests that I know of.

First Day of Fall

It’s the first day of Fall.

The autumnal equinox is at 5:18 Eastern time.

I’ve heard that one can stand an egg on its end right at the equinox (both Vernal and Autumnal). But Snopes says no…

Happy Autumn!

There is a way to do it anytime. Put about half a teaspoon to a teaspoon of sugar or salt on the counter, table, or a plate. Make sure it’s in a little mound. Cover with a napkin. Put the egg on the napkin covered mound. Adjust as necessary. The egg should stay up and you can Amaze Your Friends!

Stolen Bike

The Little Guy’s bike was stolen sometime overnight.

But the perp might have thought they weren’t exactly stealing since they left something in return.

Almost the same bike. But not quite.

The Little Guy’s bike was over a year old and had a few dings as is usual for a bike a seven- and eight-year-old boy has been riding for around 15 months.

The bike looked like this with normal wear and tear:

Tony Hawk Sypher bike

Tony Hawk Sypher bike

What was left in its place had no tires (but the rims had been ridden on), no reflectors, no pegs (there are four, two on each axle), and the bolt to hold the seat on was missing. The frame was also really banged up.

This was just so bizarre. They left a doppelganger in its place. It wasn’t our bike, stripped. It was a completely different bike of the same model. Like they thought we wouldn’t notice.

I had called Toys”R”Us to see if they had kept any serial number data on the bikes they sold, but they don’t. I didn’t really expect they did. The manager I spoke with said that once, when he was a kid, someone came into their back yard, stole their Weber Grill, and left a pair of Brewer’s tickets in its place.

Never Forget

The complete list of 2996.

Paul Pansini:

From a profile published in the New York Times on 8/11/2002

Paul Pansini

World Trade Center

His Presence Is Everywhere

Paul Pansini

Paul Pansini

Paul Pansini loved the excitement of being a firefighter in downtown Manhattan, but his days off meant a great deal, too. Firefighter Pansini, 36, took his son, Paul Jack, now 7, and his twin daughters, Anna and Claire, now 3, everywhere when he was not working. “He was brave enough to even take them to the store,” his wife, Janice, recalled.

Since Sept. 11, the family has, in turn, felt his presence everywhere. “I feel him definitely in my house,” Mrs. Pansini said. The family lives in his childhood home in Tottenville in Staten Island. When they moved there in November 1994, the couple almost tore the century-old house down.

Now she is glad they did not. In Tottenville, they are surrounded by family members who keep his presence strong, including his sister, Loretta Halpert.

Lake George was Firefighter Pansini’s favorite spot in the world. This summer, as Mrs. Pansini packed for their annual vacation to the lake, Claire asked if they were going to meet Daddy there. “I’m blown away by how much they remember him,” Mrs. Pansini said. “I don’t think he knew how much he meant to so many people. He was a very comical person. The love of my life. People keep coming up to me and saying, `I miss him so much.’ ”

*************************

10-housememorial_23aOur thoughts and prayers go out every day to Paul’s friends, family, and coworkers at Ten House. Six men were lost that day from that Firehouse.

Click either picture to embiggen.

Profits

Last night President Obama said:

But by avoiding some of the overhead that gets eaten up at private companies by profits, excessive administrative costs and executive salaries, it could provide a good deal for consumers.

Excuse me, but profits come after overhead.

This is what happens when one’s only experience with budgeting is non-profit.

With a non-profit budget, if one doesn’t spend all of the money in the budget, one may face a decrease in the amount of next year’s budget. Non-profit and governmental budgeting seems to actually discourage cutting waste and saving money. People feel that they’ll lose in the future if they save today.

For-profit businesses only gain from cutting waste and saving money. There’s more profit to reinvest in the business, more profit to share out with stakeholders.

President Obama put profit at the head of the “overhead” list.

We must have a crisis

with which to control the masses.

And we have had crises coming at us fast and furious. Some have been around for a while, global warming climate change for example, some are newer, but all are urgent, urgent, urgent.

So we have a list of crises that have to be solved last week, if not sooner:

  • Global WarmingClimate Change
  • Auto Industry
  • Housing Crisis
  • Mortgage Crisis
  • Banking Crisis
  • Insurance Crisis
  • Health Care Crisis
  • and probably more that I can’t think of off the top of my head…

So many crises. In fact, there have been so many things called “crisis” that the word has lost its meaning.

mm-5