JUSTICE DENIED: YOU CAN HELP

There are those who say our justice system does not work more often than it does. Exhibit A: Raquel Nelson, of Marietta,GA, whose 3-year-old son was killed as she and her three children tried to cross a four-lane thoroughfare after disembarking from a city bus. The hit and run driver, blind in one eye, who admitted he had been drinking, and who has two prior convictions for hit and run, served six months and is now on probation. Nelson faces a possible three-year prison sentence for jaywalking. Please watch this video for details, and sign a petition here in support of Nelson:

MUSINGS ON OUR 'ANYTHING GOES' SOCIETY

When I saw that guy try to throw a cream pie in Rupert Murdoch’s face at the Parliament hearings, I was disgusted. I’m not a Murdoch fan, but if we’re going to get to the bottom of the hacking scandal and any other corporate/journalistic transgressions on the part of his company, pies in faces do not advance the cause. The guy who threw the pie, Jonathan May-Bowles, or “Johnnie Marbles” as he calls himself on Twitter, took an already unseemly situation and simply threw it into the gutter. Why is it that the gutter is so popular?

On the same day that Johnnie Marbles reached out for his 15 minutes, an ABC news reporter, Brian Ross, was allegedly shoved by Michele Bachman’s security detail, when he tried to simply do his job. Ross was reportedly attempting to ask candidate Bachman about her recently revealed migraine headaches. The man tries to do his job, pursue a story that could be relevant to Bachman’s candidacy, and her staff responds by pushing him out of the way. Civility, gentlemen – please.

Am I the only one who misses civility? Public figures are routinely uncivil to one another in politics, entertainment, sports, business and even religion. Their overly-publicized bad behavior seems to set the tone for the common man. Just a couple of weeks ago in Waveland, MS, a Hammond, a LA priest was shot to death with his own pistol, by a guy named Jeremy Wayne Manieri. The killer stole the priest’s money and his Chevy, then picked up his ex-wife and kids and headed to Disney World. He didn’t make it – he got caught, but it is the nature of the crime and the sociopathic personality that would perpetrate it that is so stunning. It is the ultimate act of uncivility. What is it in our culture that breeds people who kill priests so they can go to Disney World? And while we’re at it, why did the priest have a handgun at a retreat facility?

Some might say that some uncivil behavior is harmless. Take the report from this week’s Smoking Gun,” titled “We’re going to need a cleanup in lane three.” It seems a young couple decided to have sex in a public swimming pool, in broad daylight, with many children and their parents present. Even when told by the pool manager to stop, they continued. I love this line in the story: “While it is unclear what drove the couple to allegedly engage in public fornication, the heat wave gripping the country’s mid-section has forced many sweltering Americans to seek a cool, watery respite.” Oh please. You can only imagine the cracks people will make in the Smoking Gun comments section about this one.

But then there are the uncivilized acts that do not invite humor. Consider Walter Bagdasarian (below, right), a California resident who posted an apparent death threat to President Obama in 2008. Here is exactly what he posted: "Shoot the nigger. Country fucked for another 4+ years, what nigger has done ANYTHING right???? Long Term???? Never in history, except sambos." As well as, "Fuck the nigger; he will have a 50 cal in the head soon." Days after Bagdasarian indulged in this online rant, the Secret Service raided his home and found six firearms and a total of 500 rounds of ammunition in each caliber. He was arrested, and freed on $100,000 bail. (That means if he put up 10%, or $10,000, he could just go home). Bagdasarian was convicted in U.S. District Court of making death threats against a presidential candidate. That’s pretty uncivil, wouldn’t you say? He faced up to a decade in prison.

End of story, right? Wrong. This week, the 9th District U.S. Court of Appeals overturned the conviction, stating that while his statements were “repugnant,” they were not criminal. The court also stated that no reasonable person would have taken the threats seriously. Gosh, really? All I can think of right now, is WWGGS? (What would Gabrielle Giffords say?)

The current cultural lack of civility is endemic. For example, as hard as those of us from the 1960s and70s tried to evolve the word “`nigger” out of the language, young black men and the entire hip hop industry refuses to cooperate and perpetuate the use of the word and its negative connotation.
Where once the word “fuck” was actually considered profane, it is now routinely used in all of its many forms – fuck you, fuck me, fucking idiot, motherfucker – well, you know the rest, and I’m as guilty as anybody else. Young men in our society, even after decades of the feminist movement’s efforts, still reduce young women to little more than their genitalia, routinely referring to women as “bitches” and terms I choose not to repeat here. Straight people still denigrate gay people by characterizing them as somehow ‘less than’ and by discriminating against them in law, in employment, in marriage and in so many other ways. Corporate America still somehow sees fit to maintain the good old boys club of white men in power, at the expense of women and minorities.

I have found that after one lives long enough to really observe the culture in the long term, it can be pretty discouraging. It’s not something you can think about all the time, because it would tend to sully your overall view of humanity – or the lack thereof. But it is worth considering that culturally, we are often closer to the gutter than perhaps we should allow ourselves to be. What is the danger in this? Simply that as our societal standards become lower, so do our expectations. If we expect less out of life, out of our fellow citizens, out of our government and educational system and out of our cultural heroes, that is what we will likely get.


Listen, not that it’s the main event here, but does anybody besides me worry that this summer’s most popular tour for the young teen audience is Ke$sha’s “Get Sleazy” tour? Your know, the one where Ke$ha sings these sweet, lilting lyrics to her barely pubescent fans: “Just grab a bottle, some boys & let's take it back to my basement and get sleazy.” And this: “The beat so phat, gonna make me cum, um, um, um.”

Oy. We’ve sunk. So. Low. Gotta run. “The Real Housewives of New Jersey” is on in five.

DANGER – DANGER! MICHELE BACHMANN IS TALKING CRAZY TALK

Have you noticed that nobody seems to argue that a woman can’t be President of the U.S. anymore? As recently as the 2008 presidential election, many people debated Hillary Clinton’s viability as a candidate, simply because “the country is not ready for a woman President.” I have not heard one person say that this year about the two women who have made noises about becoming Chief Exec, Michele Bachmann and Sarah Palin. From my vantage point, the reason we aren’t hearing the sexist argument we heard in ’08 is simply that there are so many bigger and more substantive arguments against either of these women holding a high office in the U.S. government. Palin, through her behavior and misguided statements has made it clear to the public that she is not really prepared to be a national legislator or leader. Bachmann, however, while similarly ill prepared to lead the country, is soldiering on, and right now, polls show her gaining ground.

Polls this far out from the election don’t mean a whole lot. Everybody knows that. Still, there are a lot of reasons to reject her as a candidate. Radical liberals will talk about her neo-conservative views. But a lot of us out here are really more centrists than liberals, and we’re doing our best to be open to all possible candidates – as long as they cut the crazy talk. Come on: Can somebody tell me why a significant part of the electorate is taking someone serious who thinks the founding fathers in 1776 were “working tirelessly to abolish slavery?”; someone who thinks homosexuality is a disease and whose own husband counsels homosexuals to simply read the Bible and become celibate as the antidote to their apparent affliction?; someone who said out loud that the Obama administration is “afraid” of her?; who stretches the truth and exaggerates, time after time, like the time she said President Obama’s trip to India last year cost the taxpayers $200 million a day?; or the time she … well, you get the picture, right?

Panels of talking heads on Fox News will argue that media is overstating Michele Bachmann’s crazy talk. They will tell use the sexism card, arguing that were Bachmann a man, she would be given a free pass on some of her frequent public gaffes. You know, gaffes, like the time she said John Quincy Adams was one of the founding fathers of our country, when in truth, in 1776 Adams was nine years old. Or like the time she got American hero actor John Wayne confused with serial killer John Wayne Gacy. Woops, there I go overstating Michele’s “misstatements.”

Listen, she is out there every single day facing cameras and microphones and throngs of voters. I get it. It’s hard to not say the wrong thing now and then. Keywords: NOW AND THEN. But Bachmann routinely makes mistaken historical references, and exaggerated statements about social issues that she clearly has not truly studied. Way back in 2004 she said this about gay people: “Any of you who have members of your family that are in the lifestyle-we have a member of our family that is. This is not funny. It's a very sad life. It's part of Satan, I think, to say this is gay. It's anything but gay." Her tune has remained constant on this particular ditty.
That reminds me of the story about Bachmann, when she was state senator. She went to the ladies room during a gay rights rally and a lesbian ex-nun approached her to ask her her views on one of the issues being discussed. Bachmann bolted from the restroom, reportedly screaming, “Help, I’m being held against my will,” and ran to a waiting SUV in tears. It begs the question: What will would-be “President” Bachmann do when a gay American tries to talk to her, say, at a press conference, or at a State dinner? Will she scream bloody murder and report it to the police as she did after the incident with the former nun?

There are more weighty issues to consider regarding Bachmann’s attitude toward gay people. First, the issue of gay marriage is not going away anytime soon. Whether she likes it or not (and she clearly does not), gay Americans are gaining ground in their quest for equal civil rights. She would not be able to simply avoid the issue. Further, the U.S. provides hundreds of millions of dollars in international funding to prevent and fight the spread of AIDS in underdeveloped countries. People of Bachman’s mindset often still see HIV/AIDS as a “gay” disease. Will she fight to cut off this funding?

And then there’s that pesky little issue of Marcus Bachmann, her husband. It is widely reported now that Marcus Bachmann (right, with Michele) has a clinic that dedicates itself to “reparative” therapy designed to turn gay people straight. He denies this, but former clients have come forward to reveal what happened when Bachmann got ahold of them and tried to “cure” them. If you really want to know who Michele Bachmann has been married to for the past umpteen years, you need to hear what John M. Becker, a happily married (to a man) gay man who went undercover recently to investigate Bachmann’s clinic. You can read about his experience here, but just know that he was assured his “lifestyle” was not legitimate and that he had to do everything possible to change his sexuality. Did I mention the Bachmann clinic is state and federally funded? Watch this CNN report about the Marcus Bachmann clinic controversy:

Then, just days ago, it was revealed that in 2006 Michele Bachmann said, ““The Lord says be submissive. Wives, you are to be submissive to your husbands.” So, let’s do the math. Michele Bachmann wants to be President, while she submits to her husband, who believes gay people are sick and need to be cured. An undefined percentage of the American population is gay. Since the Bachmanns are in concert in their belief that Satan is dancing around inside gay people’s heads, will she simply choose to fully marginalize the entire homosexual population of this country, including her own lesbian sister? And if she can see herself doing that to gay people, who else will she exclude from the American dream? What other population segments do not fit neatly into the narrow Bachmann acceptance category? Let’s see: We know Democrats are not allowed in. We know that many Republicans are not running parallel with the Bachmann philosophies. We know people who have not accepted Jesus Christ as their savior, which Bachmann did at 16, are not in favor. We know that strong, assertive women who do not adhere to wifely submission are on the outs. Let’s add it all up now. Who remains? Just the Tea Party.

There is not, and never has been a presidential candidate who would spread the legislative and socio/economic love to all segments of the American population. But there has rarely been one whose political and societal scope has been as limited as that of Michele Bachmann. The danger in remotely considering her as a serious candidate is the precedent that it sets. Few people truly believe she will be the leader of the free world. It is inconceivable. But the more steam her quest gains on the campaign trail, the more our electoral system is trivialized. And the more personal power her narrow band of supporters begins to feel, the more the rest of Americans have to fear about their politics, their personal choices and their human independence. You know what? Right now in America, Michele Bachmann is dangerous.

NANCY GRACE: JUDGE, JURY & EXECUTIONER

While reciting my daily “all hail the digital communication revolution,” I can’t help wondering how we might work out some of the quirks. Early on, one of them was named Martin Downey, Jr., a bombastic, chain smoking talk show host who liked to call women pigs, who once beat up a gay guest on his show and who thought nothing of getting in to verbally abusive screaming matches with audience members who disagreed with him. He opened doors for people like Jerry Springer. We media consumers knew all along that personalities of this ilk were really just entertainers. The problem these days has more to do with broadcasters who take themselves very seriously and who somehow engender the respect and loyalty of big audience segments. Think Nancy Grace.

Grace, a former prosecuting attorney whose focus is victims’ rights, came into the public consciousness as a commentator for Court TV, but really emerged in TV as a frequent guest on CNN’s Larry King show. These days, she hosts her own show on HLN. A onetime English major, Grace changed her major to law after her fiancée was murdered when she was just 19 years old. Sounds impressive, huh? Well, some things look so much better on paper than they do in real life.

Nancy Grace, it appears, has a problem with boundaries – in law, on television and in conversation. Grace’s bully pulpit is her nightly HLN show, where she makes no attempt to hide her feelings about the court cases she covers. In 2006, Grace interviewed Melinda Duckett (left), the mother of a two-year-old child who was reported missing. The interview was brutal. Grace stopped just short of accusing Duckett of murder, but her questioning was relentless and highly accusatory in tone. The next morning Duckett shot herself in the head. Her family filed a wrongful death suit against Grace and CNN (parent company of HLN). The case was later settled out of court. For her part, Grace was unapologetic about her treatment of Duckett, telling ABC news, “"If anything, I would suggest that guilt made Melinda Duckett commit suicide." At the time of her suicide, there was no real evidence to suggest Duckett had harmed or killed her child.

That same year a young woman accused three Duke University lacrosse players of raping her at a party. Grace took the case on as her case of the moment and at one point stated, “I’m so glad they didn’t miss a lacrosse game over a little thing like a gang rape.” After some intense courtroom drama and a protracted trial, all charges were dropped against the three male students and it was revealed the young woman had lied. Somehow, Nancy Grace had rushed to the judgment that the young woman was a victim. She was not.

These instances are more the rule than the exception in Grace’s television career. It makes for compelling TV, and it certainly amasses HLN some unprecedented ratings. During the recent Casey Anthony child murder trial, Grace’s ratings increased steadily throughout. By July 5, when the not guilty verdict was read, Grace delivered the highest ratings in HLN’s 29-year history. Anthony, who Grace inexplicably nicknamed “Tot Mom” throughout her coverage of the trial, was found guilty by Grace way before she was found not guilty by the judicial system. Here is a typical segment of Grace’s show during the Anthony trial:

Grace’s over-the-top, judgmental coverage of this trial has firmly secured her position in broadcasting as a rogue anti-journalist whose apparent motive is indeed viewership, rather than victims’ rights. Broadcasters from all corners of the television industry have roundly criticized her approach to this case. On a recent Bill O’Reilly show, she defended herself this way:

So, why is any of this relevant? Simply because the average media consumer does not necessarily distinguish between, say, Brian Williams and Nancy Grace, or Christine Amanpour and Nancy Grace. Those whose faces are nicely framed on camera and whose words are delivered to millions of viewers/listeners are all looked upon as in the know about whatever it is they talk about. That Grace is trained as a lawyer and Diane Sawyer is trained as a journalist has little or no impact on the media consumer. In the eyes of many viewers there is little difference in the credibility of entertainer Glen Beck and reporter Wolf Blitzer. They are both on television, they’re both delivering information and each is widely known. Therein lies the danger. We consumers would not trust our legal troubles to a reporter, but somehow many people trust a lawyer to function as a reporter.

What the digital communication revolution has wrought is Nancy Grace, an angry, judgmental, sometimes ill-informed attorney who often speaks out of turn and before she thinks through what she has to say. She presents herself as a person who has answers, rather than a person who asks intelligent, appropriate questions of those who might truly have answers. She uses the guests on her show to either validate her pre-conceived opinions, or as whipping posts for her disdain of those she judges. Through it all, Grace, who purports to revere the American judicial system, trivializes it by making exaggerated claims that enrage the public, and by pre-judging defendants on television, rather than allowing the court to do its job. It is similar to what she did as a prosecuting attorney. The record shows twice in the 1990s she was called out by the Georgia Supreme Court for prosecutorial misconduct. The first time the Court called her behavior "inexcusable." The next time the Court said she showed "a disregard for due process and fairness."

As a journalist, I can’t say I’ve seen a more dangerous time in the industry. Individuals like Grace, who do not know how to present information and allow interview subjects to move a story along, are altering the system in a way that makes them the focus, rather than the story itself. And as all good journalists know, once the reporter becomes the story, the value of his or her reporting is nullified. Once the conveyer of information (on television, in print or online) shapes the national conversation, rather than simply facilitating it, the public dialogue is irreversibly sullied. And that is exactly what Nancy Grace does, every night, in prime time, on HLN. Grace clearly does not understand the negative impact she now has on broadcasting, and on those victims she so vehemently wants to support and defend. Sadly, those victims will be the biggest losers of all, inextricably lost in the shuffle of bad information, biased reporting and a TV show that values big numbers over true justice.

THE MAN WHO ALMOST GOT AWAY WITH KILLING JOURNALISM

On the News of the World website, announcing its final edition on Sunday, July 10, the UK paper patted itself on the back with these words: “After 168 years, we finally say a sad but very proud farewell.”

Proud. Proud of what? Proud of the phone hacking scandal that killed your newspaper, the one that went so far as to hack the cell phone of missing 13-year-old Milly Dowler, even taking the liberty of erasing some of the voicemail messages on her phone when the mailbox became full? One might call that destroying evidence. Is NoTW proud of hacking phone conversations of the royal family? How proud are they of bribing police officers for information? Is it a source of real pride that their amoral billionaire owner Rupert Murdoch bought the century-plus old paper in 1969 and reduced it to a tabloid rag that blatantly mixed photos of topless women with salacious gossip about B-list entertainers and low life criminals?

(If you’re not up on the whole News of the World debacle, click here for a quick timeline update of events from CNN and here for the Daily Beast’s photographic who’s who of the major players).

Any journalist with a modicum of a moral compass would agree NoTW was the definition of sloppy reporting and opportunistic, intrusive journalism. Owner Rupert Murdoch also owns the New York Post and Fox News, neither of which will ever be held as bastions of ethical reportage. So this month when the phone hacking scandal broke wide open and spelled death for the newspaper, it was not a shock. Neither is it surprising to hear that the closing of this newspaper was actually in the works for months, in an effort to trim expenses and absorb only the most valuable staffers into other Murdoch properties. Murdoch, with his usual flare for fantasy, would have us believe he closed the paper to retain the dignity of parent company News Corp after NoTW brought shame to the company.

Tabloid trash journalism is legendary in the UK, but it is certainly NoTW that invented it in its contemporary genre. And if it’s way over on the other side of the pond, you may wonder what this all has to do with you and why it is dominating headlines in this country. It has everything to do with you. The modern media world may be international in scope, but industrially speaking, it is strictly a local enterprise. More simply put, what happens in the halls of the biggest media companies in the world trickles down to your own six o’clock news. As NoTW goes, so goes journalism? God, let’s hope not. Still, it is stunning to know that even in our high tech, gotcha world, an organization as large and powerful as NoTW would have the unmitigated arrogance to tap the phones of British royalty, politicians, celebrities and crime victims. Evidently, the higher ups did not fear being caught. To hear some of the former staffers talk since the scandal erupted, it seems phone hacking was de rigueur.

One can safely conclude the free enterprise system in the media world has gone awry. NoTW may serve as the window that allows media consumers like you and me to see what is happening behind newsroom doors. The competition among media organizations to be first and fastest with information has sullied the final product. No one is guiltier than Murdoch for lowering the bar when it comes to standards and ethics in the news business. That he has fallen prey to his own hubris is a little something we call karma. And the company’s over-anxious reporting shows no signs of slowing. It was Murdoch’s New York Post that earlier this month ran a story about the hotel maid who accused IMF chief Dominick Strauss-Kahn of rape, with this headline: “Maid Cleaning Up As Hooker.” The article uses only one unnamed source to allege that the accuser has a history of charging hotel guests for sex. The maid has now sued the Post for libel
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This is not to say that your local paper or your favorite local news station is hacking into your phones. But it is representative of an unfortunate downturn in the ethical construct of journalism. You see it in subtle ways. For example, if in your town there is a bloody murder with video footage of family members screaming in shock at the sight of their loved one laying in the street, and on the same day a story breaks about an economic windfall from state government that will significantly improve your children’s local schools, which story do you believe will lead the 10 p.m. newscast? My guess is the bloody victim in the street wins. By placing the shooting story first, the news station accomplishes two things: First, it keeps you from changing the channel, which is their ultimate goal. Second, their own editorial judgment and ordering of news stories serves to persuade you that a story about school funding is not “sexy” enough to be considered a lead story. Blood and guts wins over your children’s future.

Did you know that on June 6, the same day former NY Congressman Anthony Weiner revealed that indeed he did send inappropriate photos of himself to women, five U.S. soldiers were killed in a rocket attack in Baghdad? The New York Post, among others, gave little or no ink to the deaths. It was the largest single day loss of American lives in Iraq in two years. Were Weiner’s sexual exploits really of more national importance than the deaths of five young men in a war in which we are supposedly no longer participating? The youngest was 20, the oldest 27. One of them, PFC Michael Olivieri, 26, was one week away from returning home to Homer Glen, IL to celebrate his one year wedding anniversary and to attend the wedding of his sister. Seems newsworthy, but current journalistic mores dictate that sex trumps dead soldiers.

The true job of a journalist is to convey information in its purest and most unbiased fashion to you. If you truly want to know what happened to the profession, look no further than Rupert Murdoch. He, and several others in the industry who have forgotten the critical importance of ethics are shaping the discipline of reporting to meet their economic objectives, rather than to keep you properly informed. To paraphrase a popular idiom, Money talks, truth walks. So, what can you do to keep yourself current on world, national and local events?
Get your news from a variety of sources, rather than simply those that validate your own socio/political bias. Listen with a skeptical ear and use your own wisdom to cut through obvious b.s. When instances of journalistic dishonesty or or shoddy reporting happen in your town, speak up. Let the powers that be know that you are watching them with a keen eye and that your support of their product relies on the validity of the information they provide.

If you firmly plant yourself in the consumer driver’s seat, and if you hold media accountable for its misstatements, untruths and misleading material, chances are you can help weed out the bad guys and lift up the more reputable media companies. Truth is a powerful thing. Just ask those nine News of the World journalists and three cops who are now facing prison because of their participation in the NoTW phone hacking debacle. Everybody lost here because of a lack of truth – you and I, the perpetrators, the media industries, and even the all powerful wizard of anti-journalistic Oz, the man Forbes Magazine named as 13th most powerful person in the world in 2010, Rupert Murdoch.

MURDERER OR MEDIA STAR? YOU BE THE JUDGE

There have been two trials that fully captured my attention: The first, of course was O.J., who I personally found guilty on the first day of court. The other was Scott Peterson back in 2004, who I found guilty before the trial started. I guess it would be wise to not select me for jury duty, huh? I am, however, baffled by the intense attention that the Casey Anthony case garnered nationwide. Why did so many people invest so much of their emotional life into a case about a mother allegedly murdering her child?

What Anthony was accused of doing is not as unusual as you might think. According to the American Anthropological Association, about 200 mothers kill their children every year in this country. Two hundred. For children under the age of five who are murdered in the U.S., a parent is almost always the killer. Further, right now there are 53 women on death row in the U.S., and 11 of them are there because they killed their own children.

Consider Rachel Summers. At 19, the Tennessee mother had an argument with the father of her child, and subsequently beat the child with a table leg, forced rat poison down his throat and smothered him. A couple of years ago, Michelle Kehoe,(left) an Iowa woman, slashed the throats of her two sons, aged 2 and 7. Then there is Migdalia Vera, a Queens, NY mother accused of stabbing her cerebral-palsy afflicted son to death just a few months ago. The list goes on, but have you ever heard of Summers, Kehoe or Vera? Neither had I. That’s my point. Were their crimes less heinous than Anthony’s, or just less interesting? Or was it simply that media failed to give them the inappropriate hype that was granted to the Anthony debacle?

I vote for the latter. We media consumers respond heavily to extreme situations. Let’s face it – without extremes like Casey Anthony, unlikely pundits like Nancy Grace (below, right) would not have careers. Grace, in her usual overtly biased speak-before-you-think broadcast style, said this after the Anthony verdict was revealed: “The devil is dancing tonight.” Grace, who has made no bones about her disdain for Anthony and her confidence in the defendant’s guilt, has dedicated most of her nightly HLN program to the Anthony trial for weeks. She even gave Anthony a nickname – “Tot Mom.” In fact, the entire HLN network has dedicated itself so fully to the Anthony trial, that one wonders how it will sustain its viewership now that its flagship topic has reached its stunning conclusion.

So convinced was HLN that the Anthony trial was ratings gold, that it evidently assigned each of its TV hosts to cover almost nothing other than the case. Dr. Drew Pinsky, addiction specialist, turned his whole program over to the case. Even Joy Behar, the likeable, affable stand-up comic and “The View” co-host, was apparently directed to forgo her engaging panels of humorists in favor of non-stop blabber about Casey Anthony. It is almost surreal: Suddenly we have an internist playing psychologist, a former prosecutor (Grace) playing judge – and jury, and a stand-up comedienne playing legal analyst. If it’s that easy to alter your persona, I think I’ve decided to become Brad Pitt.

If you’re wondering why media is so trial-obsessed, you can chalk it up to two things: cable television’s incessant and unrelenting competition to shock you, and the mega-coverage precedent set in the 1990s by people like Larry King and Geraldo Rivera during the O.J. trial. At least that trial attracted our attention because it decided the fate of a former national football hero and TV pitchman who may have slashed his wife to death. Pretty juicy. Like the Anthony trial, the endless O.J. trial made new careers for media people like Greta Van Susteren. Van Susteren was a criminal defense attorney who got lucky enough to be hired by CNN as a legal analyst during the trial coverage, and has been on TV every night since.

We are trial-obsessed because the media has struck gold with its coverage. Do you truly believe that all of those people standing outside waiting for the Anthony verdict to be read seriously cared about Caylee Anthony’s death? Media is so powerful that it can sometimes cause us to believe things about ourselves that may or may not be real. Would those same people who stood outside the courthouse do the same for the seven-year-old boy in New Orleans who took the witness stand last week to detail alleged rapes he endured at the hands of his teenage neighbor, Daryl Scott? And gosh, how disappointed they all would have been when the jury finally revealed it could not reach agreement, even though the child said “It hurt and it burned” when asked what it felt like to be raped. Media ignored the case. The same can be said for the Daniel Kelly (above, right) case in Philadelphia. Kelly is on trial for the 2006 starvation death of his 14-year-old daughter who weighed 42 pounds when she died. Ever heard of it? Apparently neither has Nancy Grace – or Dr. Drew. Or Joy Behar. Or People Magazine.

Is media deciding what should matter to you? Is a seven-year-old rape victim less ratings-worthy than a three-year-old murder victim? Is there a racial component here? It is not very often that we become trial-obsessed with black people, or Hispanic people, or Asian people. The frenzy more often surrounds pretty white girls. Why is that? And finally, where do the cameras really belong and not belong? Now that we have watched people become media figures by fully humiliating themselves on witness stands coast to coast, what’s next? Cameras in the death chamber? How much is too much and who will decide? Lots of questions…very few answers. Stay tuned, and remember – Just because Dr. Drew says of the Anthony jury, "It almost becomes a Stockholm syndrome where you develop a relationship at a distance with the person who is accused of committing the crime," doesn’t necessarily mean he knows anything more than you or I know. He just has the microphone and we don’t.

THE DIRTY SECRETS OF THE DANZIGER BRIDGE

Headlines coast to coast screamed “Blagojevich Guilty” after a Chicago jury deliberated for nine days and found former Governor Rod Blagojevich guilty on 17 corruption counts. In Florida, the seemingly endless Casey Anthony child murder trial also made headlines after the defendant’s mother tried to explain away her computer searches for “chloroform,” with a straight face. But in New Orleans, all eyes were on the Federal courthouse as a jury was seated for the Danziger Bridge trial. What, no Nancy Grace, Joy Behar, Wolf Blitzer or even Dr. Drew Pinsky reports? Nothing. A quick search of the NY Times turns up nada. The Washington Post? Well, if by chance you clicked on “National” news at the top of the home page, and the once you got there, scrolled way down and clicked on “More National News,” and then once you got to that page, scrolled down to the 27th headline, you’d find an AP wire story about the Danziger Bridge story.

You get the idea. Danziger is not a term in the national consciousness. But here in New Orleans, the courthouse was packed on day one of the trial that has become so iconic to the Hurricane Katrina event, that people actually drive to the bridge just to see where it all happened. So, if you’re reading this from Salt Lake City, or Poughkeepsie, or Greensboro, maybe I should briefly recount for you what happened. At least as much as we know. What is known is that on Sept. 4, 2005, just days after the storm, two men were killed by gunfire on the bridge and four others were wounded. One of the dead was a 40-year-old disabled man who was shot in the back. To hear the accused cops (above, left) tell it, there was a distress call from the bridge area suggesting cops were fired upon. Nine other cops piled in a rented truck and rushed to the scene. What happened after that is unclear, except we know the two men were killed and four others wounded.

Now five police officers are on trial for civil rights violations, unjustified shootings and for covering up their activities. Five former cops have already entered guilty pleas to the cover up and will testify against their one-time colleagues. A detective goes on trial later in the summer. Anybody who lives in New Orleans knows something very bad happened on the bridge that day, and just about everybody believes the cops are guilty – except other cops, who never believe their brethren are guilty. Federal prosecutors allege the attacks on the bridge were unprovoked. In fact, this case may have simply faded away had the U.S. Department of Justice and the FBI not become involved in the investigation. But they did. It’s a complex series of events that led to this trial. Listen to two Times-Picayune crime reporters explain the order of what happened:

New Orleans is often aptly referred to as “The city that care forgot.” So true. The story just isn’t as “sexy” as say a Rodney King police abuse case out of L.A. back in 1991. It doesn’t have the staying power of the 1997 NYC case of citizen Abner Louima, who was sexually brutalized with a plunger handle by two cops. This is New Orleans. We made it on the media map in 2005 because of the largest natural disaster in the history of the United States. But attention spans are short and news has very little longevity in our new tech world culture. So Katrina is over. Way over. And stories like the Danziger Bridge case don’t really get much CNN/MSNBC/Huffington Post/CBS/NBC/ABC/FOX attention. Almost none, you might say.

It’s tough to compete with Blagojevich, who’s still rocking those 1970’s junior high school bangs. And Casey Anthony, the innocent-looking white girl who may have killed her baby and then gone out partying? Well, that’s ratings gold for networks like HLN. They’ve even got Dr. Drew Pinsky covering it – he’s an addiction specialist and nobody in this case is claiming addiction problems. Go figure. In his new book about Katrina, former Mayor Ray Nagin (above, right) is all hot and bothered about police corruption during and after the storm. But oddly enough, while he was mayor, the words “Danziger Bridge” scarcely crossed his lips. Although the cops in question are both black and white, the victims were all black. Where is Jesse Jackson? Where is Al Sharpton? Where’s the NAACP? Where is the Southern Christian Leadership Conference? The ACLU?

Where is the public outrage? I believe it is stuck back in 2005. “Katrina fatigue” is not just an expression. In New Orleans we can barely look back. Around the rest of the country, Katrina is a historical term now. In some ways we in New Orleans still see the storm in present tense, although certainly it fades as time moves on. But really, if you are in New Mexico, or Connecticut, or Maine or Montana, do you care about Katrina now? No. To you, the Danziger Bridge could just as easily be a place in a fiction novel as it could a real blood-soaked crossing in Louisiana. I do not anticipate a high profile for the trial outside of Louisiana, but at the same time, I know that if the accused cops walk free, the racial implications for the whole country could be dire. Stay tuned.

THE VERY SINGLE - AND SINGULAR - HUGH HEFNER

It is always astounding to me how a cultural icon’s most important works are overshadowed by fluff. Exhibit A: Hugh Hefner. Hefner, 85, has been a part of the American consciousness since the mid-20th century, when he quit his job at Esquire Magazine, scraped up a few hundred bucks from anybody who would help him, and quietly plotted the debut of “Stag Party,” a new world men’s magazine. Stag Party ran into licensing problems since there was already a magazine called “Stag,” and ended up being renamed “Playboy.” The very first issue featured a totally nude Marilyn Monroe (see cover below, left). The rest, as they say...

If you don’t dig too deep, all you find in Hefner is the above-mentioned fluff. Top heavy young girls, extravagant living, seemingly non-stop parties and lots of debauchery. That is why last week’s sudden exit of his would be 25-year-old bride made headlines worldwide. The China Economic Net proclaimed Hefner “dumped at the altar.” In the UK, the Independent declared, “Bad Luck, Hef – the Bunny’s Hopped it.” The New Zealand Herald ran a picture of the couple with the simple headline, “Cancelled.” Whatever Hefner does or does not do is big news in all corners of the earth, even a doomed marriage.

Who cares, right? Right. There is, however, so much more to care about when it comes to Hugh Hefner. What many people may not know is that Hefner has been what I would call a human rights and civil rights activist as long as he has been a publisher. His good works and good words have often been lost to his socially questionable lifestyle. That’s too bad, because those good works and words have changed the world.

Did you know (or remember) he used to have a TV show called “Playboy's Penthouse?” It ran for three years from 1959 – 1961. The camera would get a tight shot of elevator buttons lighting up one by one until it reached the penthouse apartment. Then the doors would open and viewers would see a party going on, people dancing, laughing, drinking, smoking. But here’s the rub: Some of the people were black, at a time when it was virtually unheard of for a TV show to feature anybody black, unless they were Amos and Andy. Bigger still was the fact that the show featured black performers, doing their thing with white performers. Unheard of. Sounds pretty tame now, but be aware that some of those black performers and party guests would probably not have even been allowed into buildings like the one portrayed in “Playboy Penthouse” in 1959. A white female folk singer performing with two black guys? Outrageous for its time.

Hefner’s “girlie” magazine and cool TV show (that could be considered the world’s first reality show) were really his vehicle to advance his agenda. The agenda had everything to do with freedom of speech and basic American liberty. Listen as he welcomes controversial comedian Lenny Bruce to “Playboy’s Penthouse.” Looks like fun, smooth and easy, but the conversation takes decidedly issues-oriented turns to censorship, racial integration and more:

This is one of only six network TV appearances Bruce ever made. American media was afraid of the Bruce’s often acerbic and envelope-pushing humor. So afraid was America of Bruce’s stretching the limits of the First Amendment that he was arrested multiple times, banned from many performance venues and even barred from certain U.S. cities. But Hefner, recognizing the underlying theme of freedom of expression, never wavered in his support of Bruce’s career. You don’t necessarily have to approve of Bruce’s material, nor of Hefner’s, for that matter, but the indisputable fact is that Hefner advanced the cause of freedom in America.

In 1973, when the movie Carnal Knowledge was deemed obscene by several state Supreme Courts, Hefner was interviewed in his own magazine on the 20th anniversary of Playboy. His fervent dedication to free speech was never more clearly evident: “What it amounts to is that the Nixon Court, which is supposed to be loaded with what he calls “strict constructionists” of the Constitution, has ruled that the First Amendment’s absolute protection of free speech and press doesn’t really mean what it says, that certain kinds of speech and writing aren’t necessarily free at all—speech and writing that has to do with sex. The Court has decreed that the ruling elite of every local community has the power to determine what everyone else in town may read or see.”

Anyone who doubts Hefner’s dedication to the absolute nature of freedom of expression should read “The Playboy Philosophy,” a 25-part Hefner-penned series that appeared in the magazine from 1962 – 1966. In it, Hefner clearly explained his beliefs about social and moral issues, right on the cusp of the American sexual revolution that took off in the late 1960s. Having just returned from London where he opened a Playboy Club, Hefner had witnessed the European sexual revolution firsthand, and saw it as much as an issue of human freedom as he did a sexual/cultural shift. The philosophy extended itself to issues like freedom of (and from) religion, as well as the critical importance of the separation of church and state.

In the 1960s Hefner befriended Jesse Jackson (below, left) and Dr. Martin Luther King. In fact, MLK was interviewed for the magazine by none other than Alex Haley (who later wrote “Roots”), who happened to be the writer who did the first interview the magazine ever featured. Hefner was passionate about civil rights and racial equality and integration. It has been a theme of his life, throughout his life. That’s where the fluff can really get in the way of the substance. The substance of Hugh Hefner is all about fairness, freedom and individual rights. It may be couched in lush photos of bare breasts and salacious cartoons, but if you really take time to study the history of his publication, it’s about you and me and what we deserve in a country that was built on a foundation of personal liberty. One could say that Hefner also advanced a culture that was steeped in puritanical repression to the next level of honest sexual expression. What’s not to like about that?

And so that brings us full circle back to one Crystal Harris, the 25-year-old would-be bride whose cold feet sparked headlines from sea to shining sea. Here’s the truth: Crystal Harris doesn’t matter. She may matter to her mom and dad or somebody, but she does not matter in the larger scheme of things. What matters about Hefner is his undying, lifelong commitment to your human and civil rights. He has long been someone I admired, if only for his unwavering efforts to open minds and hearts. I mean you have to love a guy whose left brain says, “Playboy was founded on the notion that nice girls like sex too,” while the other side says, “I urge one and all to live this life as if there is no reward in the afterlife, and do it in a moral way that makes it better for you and for those around you and leaves this world a little better place than when you found it."

WHY TRACY MORGAN NEEDS A ONE WAY TICKET TO CAMBODIA

How interesting that suddenly, Tracy Morgan, a sort of second-string comedian, is all over the headlines. Oh no, it’s not because of his middling performance as alter-ego Tracy Jordan on the NBC sitcom “30 Rock.” It’s all about his throwback standup comedy act, which hit a wall in Nashville recently after he reportedly “joked” that he would “pull out a knife and stab that little nigger” if he found out his son was gay. It turns out an audience member was so taken aback by Morgan’s inane rant that he posted a piece about the Morgan show on Facebook. As is our cultural way here in 2011, the piece went viral, got picked up by national media and a firestorm ensued, causing Morgan to come forward to say how much he loves everybody. Right. Then comes news that Morgan is going to do some kind of something with GLAAD to show how much he really, really loves everybody. Right.

The upshot of all of this is a national discussion that is flooding the blogosphere, the airwaves and even good old print journalism about the extent of comedic license available to standup comedians. How much is too much? Is too much an oxymoron when you talk of standup routines? Is this a first amendment issue or rather a common decency issue? If you talk about your own son as a “little nigger,” is it hate speech or is it your divine right as a parent? When Morgan rants about stabbing his own son, is it funny or is it a desperate reach for a laugh when his audience has paid $86 a seat to laughs? And in a culture that decides to delete an Anthony Weiner from the public stage, why is it that a man who insults the gay population and the black population in one fell swoop is still front and center on one of the most highly-praised television shows on the air?

Whew! That’s a lot of questions, right? But doesn’t something like this merit a lot of questions? Didn’t we learn anything from the Michael Richards debacle back in 2006 at the Laugh Factory in Hollywood? That was the night Richards (below) got mad at some black hecklers in the audience and threw a temper tantrum in which he used the word “nigger” six times. Here’s how stuff like this works in our culture today: Richards, despite his very public apologies and mea culpa appearances on shows like Letterman, has had exactly four professional entertainment jobs since 2006, according to the Internet Movie Database (IMDB). Nobody is denying Richards his first amendment rights. But the American public has made it clear they can’t find much to laugh about when he speaks anymore. Once you do what Richards did, maybe you have to turn in your funny card and do exactly what he did next – retire from show business and take an extended trip to Cambodia. Really.

The issue here is not comedy. It is not Tracy Morgan. It is not how many people are offended. The issue here is respect. Comedians are divided on how to react to Morgan’s behavior. Some, like Louis C.K., came forward to say that Morgan was just “fucking around” and didn’t mean what he said. Said Louis, "Tracey Morgan said something wrong, evil, cruel, ignorant and hilarious. He was on a comedy stage, not at a pulpit.” Implicit in his remarks is the thought that since Morgan was on a comedy stage, respect for his fellow human beings is not required. Others, like Chris Rock (above, right), who initially defended Morgan’s right to say whatever he wants to say on stage, later came back with, “Wow, I get that shit wasn’t called for and I don’t support it at all.” And then there was Joan Rivers: “He’s lost his gay fan.” And, “I’ll tell you, the biggest crime of all is that Tracy Morgan isn’t funny. You know what he should be apologizing for? For charging $86 to see him.”

Indeed. But what no one seems to be addressing is the assumption among comedians that no matter what they say, who they hurt, how grotesque the images they put forth, they get a pass because it’s “comedy.” Here’s the thing: Comedy is cultural commentary. That’s really all it is. Comedians basically do the same thing that Rush Limbaugh, Chris Matthews, Rachel Maddow, Keith Olberman, Glen Beck and all the other talking cableheads do. They offer their take on the current state of our culture. As I see it, Morgan’s take on the current state of our culture is that gay people are somehow “less than,” and that probably they should be eliminated. And as I see it, Morgan somehow still believes there is a place in our national conversation for the word “nigger,” a stupid, throwback, throwaway word that we have been trying for decades to evolve out of the English language.

You know, besides the fact that Morgan appears to be somehow surviving this ridiculous tirade, with even his “30 Rock” boss, Tina Fey still somewhat reluctantly embracing him, (below, left) here’s what bugs me: The historic Ryman Auditorium in Nashville (which used to be the home of the Grand Ole Opry), where Morgan had his comedic tantrum, seats 2400 people. Let’s do the math: 2400 x $86.00 = $206,400. After paying the venue, the promoters, the tour expenses and his agent, manager, etc., let’s say Morgan gets 40% of the gross. That means that for denigrating millions of Americans in the name of comedy, Morgan earned upwards of $80 grand that night. And it gets worse: For those Americans who vaguely knew who Morgan was prior to the Nashville performance, now every American who has been conscious the last week or so knows who he is. You know the old, “I don’t care what they say about me, as long as they spell my name right” routine? My biggest concern here is that now Morgan is a household word whose ignorant cultural trespasses may imprint him on the American psyche as a “bad boy comic” who just said some stupid stuff once in Nashville. All that, and here I was hoping he'd go be Michael Richards' roommate in Cambodia.

So, in the end, does it all simply mean that in America, saying you will cut up your “little nigger” kid with a knife if he says he’s gay is worth $80,000 and an ongoing national television career. How did we get here?

THE CONGRESSMAN'S FATAL FLAW

Some people ask me why I haven’t said or written much about the Anthony Weiner story. After all, in the past couple of years I have been all over the John Edwards debacle (which many liken to Weiner’s current situation), Spitzer, Clinton, et al. As anyone who reads my words knows, I’m not a fan of John Edwards. He’s the definition of political sleaze. The fact is, I don’t see Weiner’s downfall – and it is a downfall – in the same category as the other boys. The others, as well as John Ensign, Chris Lee (the NY Congresssman who resigned after shirtless Craigslist ads surfaced), Larry Craig, David Vitter, are somehow easily grouped together under the heading of “Washington sex scandals.” Weiner’s political and personal demise are somehow different – I won’t go so far as to use the word “pathetic,” but certainly pitiful.

So, why do I pity Anthony Weiner? To really get a grasp on what drove the guy to take pictures of himself nude and semi-nude, I think you need a mental picture of who he is – or was. Raised in Brooklyn as part of a Jewish family, Weiner’s early life reads conventional. Middle class, hockey player, good student, B.A. in poli-sci and a first job working for Congressman Chuck Schumer. It was probably during the stint with Schumer that Weiner, who reportedly had earlier aspirations to be a TV weatherman, found his activist voice. Based on his geography and environment, it is not surprising that voice became almost radically liberal. Over the years, Weiner ascended the political ranks steadily and some might say quickly. Now a Congressman, Weiner says mayor of New York is the only job that looks better to him than the one he currently holds. Up until this month, many believed he was a shoe-in for the job. He is often described in terms like brash, abrasive, aggressive, loud and demanding. And his constituents like the fact that he gets things done. Things that matter to them. By all outward appearances, Anthony Weiner was an up and comer, who at 46 probably had decades of political life left in him, and likely would have channeled some of his boundless energy and respectable work ethic into real progress for New York.

So many people do not understand the internal pressure that men in their 40s often feel. My take on the Weiner drama is that the pressure to produce and succeed got the best of him. And I do not in any way apologize for his Twitter idiocies, but I do get it. There is a window of opportunity in America for men to “make it.” In parallel, there is a window of opportunity for men to feel hot and attractive. The windows on both often begin slowly to close after the late 40s. Weiner is 46 years old. And then there is that old favorite, testosterone. So let’s do the math. Career aspirations/expectations + age + sexual drive = what? I would say in the case of a rather arrogant, ambitious public figure the equation can equal disaster. Personal disaster that rapidly becomes public.

I have watched many men fall to their own fatal flaw of self absorption. If the whole world continually tells you how exceptional you are and what a wunderkind you are, maybe you might start believing it. I had a smart grad school professor who once said, “People are often what you invite them to be.” Did New York invite Anthony Weiner to be full of Anthony Weiner? Was he powerless to fight the allure of self-absorption? I think so.

Here’s the sidebar to all of this: What Weiner did is the same thing that millions of men – and women – do every day. Did you think somehow that all of the visual technology we now have at our fingertips was not going to become part of the sexual landscape? We’re an increasingly visual culture that was already an off-the-map sexual culture. Smart phones and Twitter just gave us the necessary tools. If you are one of those people who read this and think, “I would never do that,” more power to you. But if you think a lot of people you know aren’t doing it, you may be deluding yourself. And if you think Anthony Weiner is the only legislator doing it, I beg to differ.

So, why then are we passing such puritanical judgment on the guy for being sexual and visual? It is because our traditional American moral code tells us what he did was bad. But for my part, I don’t think suggestive pictures sent to young women are going to kill his career. Lying will do that all by itself. Here is Weiner speaking to CNN’s Wolf Blitzer on June 1:

And here he is on ABC’s Good Morning America:

Step one in Weiner’s political demise was arrogance and his belief that manipulating words would be all that was needed to cover his ass (think Bill Clinton - “I did not have sexual relations with that woman”). But his ultimate fall from the mountaintop had everything to do with his lies. America may have forgiven him his sexual trespasses, his self-absorption, his need to be seen by young women, his well-known brash behavior. America will not forgive the lies.
I believe we will see Anthony Weiner resign by the end of this week. Call it a hunch. Stay tuned.