Celebrities

Well this isn't directly involved with shooting or firearms or whatever, but for some reason it's stuck in my head so maybe if I write some of it down, it will get out of my brain.

For obvious reasons, celebrities often use their media exposure and status to promote causes. I understand this, but some of them push not just a single issue but their entire politcal belief system. The really annoying thing is that a great many of them seem to think because of their wealth and fame, they know what is best and we should just blindly follow them. WTF!!!!! Dudes and dudettes, we are basically paying you to look pretty and pretend to be people you aren't. Just because you pretended to be a doctor, economist, spy, ect. doesn't mean you are qualified to be one.

Let's take a rather recent example, and a semi-nonpolitical one. Natalie Portman is an attractive lady who not only can pretend to be other people while looking good, but who also managed to graduate from Harvard, so apparently so has a working brain. I am not sure where she keeps it, because she came off sounding a lot more like a Megan Fox than a Harvard graduate recently.

Apparently while being televised, Ms. Portman, who is at least a vegetarian if not an outright vegan, managed to equate someone inviting non-meat eaters to a party where meat is being served with condoning rape. Now this is a really poor comparison and you can take it apart logically in so many ways, but I could still forgive that, but Ms. Portman is one of those Hollywood elite who signed a petition for the release and ceasing of prosecution of one Roman Polanski.

For anyone who might not know, Mr. Planski is famous for 4 things.

1. He is a director who has made a lot of movies that are though of as great. The one that comes to mind first is Chinatown.
2. His first wife and child were murdered by Charles Manson's crew.
3. He befriended the daughter of an acqaintance under the pretext of photographing her in preperation for a modeling career and while at the home of another famous person during a party, feed the 13 year-old girl qualuudes and champagne and then raped and sodomized her.
4. He pled guilty to reduced charges then fled the country before sentencing .

Now let me get this set this straight. The fact I have are mostly from recent research since the Swiss government incarcerated him for extradition recently there are all kinds of things floating around. So I will attempt to give the bare facts as reported.

This happed about 28 years ago.

The girl was 13 and Mr. Polanski was taking photographs of her, including nudes. I believe her mother went on most if not all of the informal shoots.

Now, and probably then, taking naked pictures of 13 year olds is, and probably was, a crime in and of itself, even in California.

At the party, the mother was not present at the photography section. Mr. Polanski gave the girl qualudes and champagne, which is a crime.

He then photographed her nude, another crime.

He then raped her. Then sodomized her. He knew her age.

He admitted this and pled guilty to an offense lesser than rape of a child. He was supposed to get probation. In my state what he did would have been aggravated rape of a child by an authority figure, a violent sex offense. However this was a long time ago, the sex offense laws were much different and he was a famous person with lots of powerful friends so he was offered a sweet deal. The victims family agreed so as to spare the girl some of the publicity and noteriety that was beating down on her.

This was the second high profile case the judge had heard in a short time. Apparently he liked the media spotlight and was playing for it and drawing things out. As a result, he had some highly inappropriate and unprofessional if not actually illegal communications with the prosectution outside of the court room. This in and of itself would probably give grounds for appealing, probably enough to not only get the verdict overturn, but probably to get a whole new trial.

Apparently the rumor surfaced that the judge was not going to accept the plea agreement. They don't have to accept it, however if the judge doesn't accept the agreement, the defendant has the right to withdraw his guilty plea and the trial continues. So afraid he was going to prison he skipped the country.

Now, he has finally been caught and Hollywood and France are up-in-arms wanting him turned loose. But here's the deal, HE HAD SEX WITH A 13 YEAR-OLD GIRL, WHO EVEN THOUGH SHE HAD ALCOHOL AND BARBITUATES (WHICH HE GAVE HER) IN HER SYSTEM WAS ASKING HIM TO STOP. HE KNEW THAT WAS WRONG. That would have been rape even if she were 33 or 43, that she was 13 and he used his position made it much worse. He knew better. Now France and Hollywood say it wasn't that bad, the girl wants it dropped so that is okay. It isn't okay. Basically all those people that signed that petition are saying "We are better than you because we are famous, we should be held to different rules and laws than you." That is so very classist and anti-American.

And Natalie Portman says if she comes to a dinner party and the host serves meat it is the same as condoning rape, yet she signed a petition saying it is okay for a grown man to rape a 13 year old girl as long as the man is a famous director.

Bomb Threats

We got a bomb threat at work last week. It came in the mail, signed. Kind of freaky, who signs a bomb threat, an insane person likely to use a bomb is who. The threat came to one of our newer officers. She showed it to her supervisor and law enforcement was sent for. The thing is, the sender wasn't a client, she had never been a client and wasn't in our system.

The note stated that 50 pounds of tnt had been hidden in the building and would go off 24 hours after the note was received. The note contained many misspelling and improper verb tenses, so we were fairly sure that either the note wasn't written by and English instructor or was clevely disguised by a criminal mastermind.

The police wandered around, but failed to spot any concealed explosives. They then examined the note. The chance the note was sent by a client, or by a client family member, or by someone meaning to get a client in trouble seemed less likely as none of us recognised the name of the sender. One of the policemen did though. Apparently she was the ex-wife of a gentleman sent to prison. Apparently while in prison this man jumped the fence sexually and left the wife on the other side. Obviously she wasn't happy with the situation.

The police went to look for her and found she had left 5 days ago. The really weird thing though, is the man who went to prison was not on probation or parole. He was sent to prison directly for a crime. He was never under this office's supervision. The only connection the officer who had received the not had with the man was that she did a classification report on him after he was sentenced. This is an internal report prepared for the prison. It is not assigned by the court, but rather by the supervisor for the county of the sentencing court. No one outside of the department of correction would ever see this report. And other that the prison officials who intake and set the supervison level of the inmate, only a parole office who later supervises the inmate would see it. The only non-doc or bopp person who might see the report, might be the inmate who would have a right to question any info in it. So unless he told his wife who wrote it, I can't think how they got the officer's name.

Anyway, a week later the building is still here. Good thing too, because they never gave us permission to evacuate or send for bomb sniffing dogs. I guess if she put the bomb outside, the 400 inches of rain we have had fall might ruin the tnt, short the timer, ect. Otherwise I guess there wasn't a bomb.