Broward county deputy

Okay, since I posted this other stuff about the Broward County deputies who didn't go into the school during the shooting, we finally heard an explanation from the deputy who resigned. He thought the gunman was outside the school. The layout of the place was such that the sound was bouncing off buildings and you couldn't tell which direction it was coming from, and there was a report that someone was shot outside in a field. So the deputy was doing what they told him to do, stay out there, take cover and report what's happening.

I knew this guy in high school who had a gun. He would carry it around with him outside of school. But he would carry it in the bottom of his bookbag or he had it so carefully concealed on his person that it would be very difficult to get to it. I asked him what he would do if anything actually happened and he said, "That's a good question." He didn't need it.

But one morning he had to go to his locker to get something. He opened his book bag, looked inside and said, "Oh, shit." He brought his gun to school. He didn't mean to. So when the class ended, he grabbed his bag and ran home.

He had a .45 automatic. I went shooting with him once and learned that he couldn't hit a target more than ten feet away. 

So gun owners' heroic fantasies never impressed me very much.

After high school, my friend was convicted of a felony, put in a mental hospital and kicked out of the military. He was on probation, fresh out of the psycho ward and was convinced there was a gravitational anomaly in his rented room. And he somehow got a job as a security guard at a local high school.

Is there an advantage to having Trump?

The #MeToo thing, at least in Hollywood, has been attributed to revulsion at having a sex offender as president. It didn't happen during the Clinton regime because Feminists defended him.

Gun nuts actually believe their own nonsense and thought Obama would take away their guns. While he was in office, they bought all the guns they could manage. Now that Trump is in power, they've relaxed. Gun sales have dropped, Remington is declaring bankruptcy.

The reaction to the school shootings under Obama was more subdued that to this latest one. Now companies are having to scrap their support for the NRA. NRA members were getting cheap death and dismemberment insurance and car rental discounts, but those are ending.

With Trump, there may actually be protests if he starts a war. Obama was murdering people by the tens of thousands and no one thought anything of it. Trump would have a little more trouble leading other countries into war.

I never went along with the idea that right-wing victory ultimately helped the left, but I'm not so sure now. At least Trump put an end to the terrible "trade agreements" which would prevent governments from enacting regulations that would, for example, slow global warming. The U.S. has always been intent on watering down any international agreements to stop climate change and taking the U.S. out of the process may ultimately be a positive development.

I read about a Taoist thing where they view everything as neutral information, neither good or bad. It seemed like a novel idea until I realized it wasn't much different from Christians responding to disaster by saying it's all part of God's plan, or that the Lord works in mysterious ways.

But, hell, maybe they're right.

More Broward County deputies cowered outside school

Turns out more Broward County deputies hung around outside during the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School. City police arrived and went in with a couple of other deputies, but others were outside hiding behind their cars pointing guns at the school.

I felt a little sorry for the one guy who was cowering outside, but there were more of them.

I don't know what it was like, but realistically, I'm not sure I'd be that afraid to go in.  Picturing my old high school, unarmed and untrained as I am, if there was shooting I would probably want to go in and peek around the corner ready to make a run for it if I had to. If the guy was shooting, you'd have a pretty good idea if he was close by or not. It's not like he could jump out and surprise you.

Paramedics arrived and wanted to go in but were stopped by the deputies.

With Columbine High School, the death toll would have been lower if no one had called the police. One wounded kid only survived because he was trying to climb out a window and they had to choice but to help him. If he had lay on the floor waiting for help, none would have come until hours later. At least one teacher was left to die because they wouldn't bring him out and wouldn't even allow students to carry him out.

Brendan Frasier sexually assaulted by Philip Berk

Berk thinking about groping men.

Brendan Frasier told GQ that he was sexually assaulted by Philip Berk, the South African-born president of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, the group behind the Golden Globes.

Berk has lived in the US for years and, disturbingly, used to be a public school teacher in Los Angeles.

From the article in GQ:

Certain pieces of what he tells me have already been told, it turns out—but this is the first time he's ever spoken publicly about any of it. The story he wants to relay took place, he says, in the summer of 2003, in the Beverly Hills Hotel, at a luncheon held by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, the organization that hosts the Golden Globes. On Fraser's way out of the hotel, he was hailed by Philip Berk, a former president of the HFPA. In the midst of a crowded room, Berk reached out to shake Fraser's hand. Much of what happened next Berk recounted in his memoir and was also reported by Sharon Waxman in The New York Times: He pinched Fraser's ass—in jest, according to Berk. But Fraser says what Berk did was more than a pinch: “His left hand reaches around, grabs my ass cheek, and one of his fingers touches me in the taint. And he starts moving it around.” Fraser says that in this moment he was overcome with panic and fear.
 

Fraser eventually was able, he says, to remove Berk's hand. “I felt ill. I felt like a little kid. I felt like there was a ball in my throat. I thought I was going to cry.” He rushed out of the room, outside, past a police officer he couldn't quite bring himself to confess to, and then home, where he told his then wife, Afton, what had happened. “I felt like someone had thrown invisible paint on me,” he says now. (In an e-mail, Berk, who is still an HFPA member, disputed Fraser's account: “Mr. Fraser's version is a total fabrication.”)

In the aftermath of the encounter, Fraser thought about making it public. But ultimately, “I didn't want to contend with how that made me feel, or it becoming part of my narrative.” But the memory of what had happened, and the way it made him feel, stuck with him. His reps asked the HFPA for a written apology. Berk acknowledges that he wrote a letter to Fraser about the incident but says, “My apology admitted no wrongdoing, the usual ‘If I've done anything that upset Mr. Fraser, it was not intended and I apologize.’ ”

According to Fraser, the HFPA also said it would never allow Berk in a room with Fraser again. (Berk denies this, and the HFPA declined to comment for this story.) But still, Fraser says, “I became depressed.” He started telling himself he deserved what had happened to him. “I was blaming myself and I was miserable—because I was saying, ‘This is nothing; this guy reached around and he copped a feel.’ That summer wore on—and I can't remember what I went on to work on next.”

He knows now that people wonder what happened to Brendan Fraser, how he went from a highly visible public figure to practically disappearing in the public mind, and he'd already told me most of it. But this, he says, is the final piece. The experience, he says, “made me retreat. It made me feel reclusive.” He wondered if the HFPA had blacklisted him. “I don't know if this curried disfavor with the group, with the HFPA. But the silence was deafening.” Fraser says he was rarely invited back to the Globes after 2003. Berk denies that the HFPA retaliated against Fraser: “His career declined through no fault of ours.”

Deputy at Stoneman Douglas High School resigns

A deputy who worked at Stoneman Douglas High School has resigned in disgrace for not charging into the school during the mass shooting in which 17 students and teachers were killed. The shooting lasted six minutes and the deputy was outside taking cover for four minutes.

A teacher defended the deputy and said he wouldn't have stood a chance in a crowded hallway, a handgun vs an assault rifle.

It's the problem with the idea of arming teachers. Unless they're walking around with a submachine gun like a French gendarme, they're not going to be much of a match for a lunatic with an assault rifle.

The NYPD statistic for cops hitting their targets in a gun fight is 18%. It's more likely the deputy would have killed a few more kids than stopped the guy with the assault rifle.

Instead of arming teachers, they should arm high school seniors. If they're 18, it wouldn't be illegal for them to openly carry guns. They haven't developed a pitiful fear of death like that poor deputy. If anyone started shooting the boys would all come running. There's a pretty good reason they send teenagers to war and not school teachers.

I knew a woman here who applied for a job as a deputy. She was asked if she would be willing to give her life to save someone else. She said, "No. Why should I?" The sheriff didn't want to hire her but some of the others on the panel though she deserved credit for honesty.

And, really, if you're only going to save one person, why SHOULD you? There would be no net gain, and the person you save might turn out to be way worse than you.

The Rifleman, Sam Peckinpah

Mark becomes emotional in a non-Peckinpah episode.

Sorry. I've been watching old episodes of The Rifleman. I'm not entirely proud of it. It is kind of nice to see a half hour TV drama. Today, dramas are an hour and only sit-coms are half an hour. In the '50s, everything was half an hour and that was long enough. You didn't feel you were missing anything. Another thirty minutes of character development wasn't going to do anything for you.

I saw an episode that was written and directed by Sam Peckinpah. It was no more violent than others, but the Rifleman basically loses. He goes into town to take care of three ruffians who killed the sheriff. It turns out that they were trying to lure the Rifleman into town to murder him. When he shows up, he kills one of them but one of the others shoots him and he collapses writhing in the street. The drunken partially disabled ex-sheriff saves him by killing the other two men with a shotgun.

The Rifleman had been in over his head and didn't have a clue.

The Rifleman shot and killed the one guy, and there's moment when his friend walks into the barn, sees him lying dead with his eyes open. He speaks sadly to his dead friend and goes back out only be killed by the ex-Sheriff.

Mark (Johnny Crawford) was only 12, a little skinny kid, but he was a much stronger character than usual. When the ex-sheriff warns the Rifleman not to go to town, Mark yells at him. In the end, the Rifleman is lying in bed with a bandage around his chest. They tell him he should stay in town for a few days but Mark says, no, he's taking him home. It seems like a terrible idea, but no one argues with him and even his father meekly obeys.

Peckinpah wrote the pilot episode. The Rifleman goes to a shooting competition. They money he wins will save the ranch. But Dennis Hopper's manager kidnaps Mark and threatens to kill him unless the Rifleman loses. In the end, when Mark is freed, his father hugs him in a gush of emotion unseen on '50's TV. Chuck Conners (who had the title role) said that Peckinpah told him to do that. Conners thought it was surprising considering that Peckinpah was later known mainly for slow motion violence. 

I was watching another episode of the show one time. There was a shot filmed through the spokes of a wagon wheel.

I knew that Joseph Lewis directed some episodes. He had been a B movie director best known for Gun Crazy. In the '30's, when he directed B westerns, he was known as "Wagon Wheel Joe". He had a bunch of wagon wheels he would take with him to have sitting in the foreground. He said that the movies were terrible, the scripts were bad, the "actors" were actual cowboys hired because they could ride horses and filming through a wagon wheel was the only thing he could do to make it look the least bit interesting.

The closing credits listed him as director.

It's too bad I was watching the show alone or I could have impressed people that I spotted this.

#MeToo winding down in Hollywood

Marilyn Manson and his
then-girlfriend Rose McGowan.
Photos from this event are posted on McGowan's
own website. I hope she put a towel down on
her chair before she sat down.

The #MeToo thing is really winding down, at least in Hollywood. They're reporting a new accusation against Marilyn Manson (Rose McGowan's ex-boyfriend), but there aren't new accusations daily like there had been.

According to The Guardian:

Actor Charlyne Yi has accused Marilyn Manson of making inappropriate sexual and racial remarks on the set of House, the medical drama starring Hugh Laurie that ended in 2012. On her now deleted Twitter account, Yi wrote: “He came on set to visit because he was a huge fan of the show, and he harassed just about every woman, asking us if we were going to scissor, rhino & called me a China man.”

Nothing new against Max Landis. There had been claims he had done horrible, unspecified things. By his own account, he's a rotten person. I hope he's washed up just for the things he'd bragged about.

No more about Scott Baio. No new witnesses have come forward. He claims this is evidence that he's innocent, but no one is coming to his defense, either. Not even Willie Ames. Why would they get involved? It's only Scott Baio.

I Shot Jesse James bathing scene

In the last entry I mention a scene from the 1950's TV western Trackdown in which Robert Culp bathes a 13-year-old boy.

It reminded me of a scene in the 1949 western I Shot Jesse James, directed by Samuel Fuller. Bob Ford has decided to kill Jesse James, but he has to work up the courage to do it. He walks in on James. Jesse James is taking a bath. He talks with Ford. James' back is to him, and Bob Ford stands there knowing this would be the perfect time to kill him, but he hesitates.

Jesse James says, Go on! You know what to do! Do it! What are you waiting for!

Bob Ford is stunned. It's like Jesse James is reading his mind.

Then James says: Go on! Wash my back!

It was a very different time.

TV of the '60's and '50's

I hope this is a cold and not the flu. I was drifting in and out of sleep last night. I woke up very early and turned on the TV. Petticoat Junction was on. Bobbie Joe was parading around in a daring one-piece swimsuit. I quickly fell back asleep. A couple hours later, I woke up in the middle of a 1950's western. Sheriff Robert Culp was bathing a 13-year-old boy, washing his back, under his arms, while the kid talked and talked, insisting that his Pa was innocent and never robbed no bank and never shot nobody.

You won't see that on TV today.

High school shooting

I came home from work and the TV was on. They were reporting fourteen wounded. I thought, thank God no one was killed. When I checked the news again it was fourteen killed and finally seventeen.

Then the morons started in. They started posting comments on the articles online claiming that the killer, Nikolas Cruz, was an illegal alien or a "Dreamer". One claimed he was a Bernie Sanders supporter. Imagine the kind of mind that would respond that way to a mass murder in a school.

We had a school shooting here about twenty years ago. One of the fathers, when he heard his son had been shot and had been rushed to the hospital, ran home to get his NRA hat. He said he knew reporters would be there and he wanted everyone to know he still loved guns.

Well, they value guns over human life. At least he was consistent.

Alexander Polinsky details abuse by Scott Baio

 
Scott Baio denies it all, but there's more:

“I was sexually harassed by Scott Baio and ultimately assaulted by him between the ages of 12 and 15 years old,” Polinsky told reporters. Bloom added what happened to Polinsky on the show amounted to "child abuse" of a little boy. 

Polinksy alleged “a pattern of abuse that was unrelenting” against him. He said Baio once pulled down his pants in front of more than 100 people, and another time he allegedly exposed himself to Polinsky.

He also said Baio assaulted him by throwing a cup of hot tea in his face after Polinsky startled him by faking passing a basketball to him. But he said he was not himself sexually abused by Baio. 

He said the harassment began during the first season of the show, when he walked in on Eggert sitting on Baio’s lap. Eggertsaid he “misjudged” the situation, and when Polinsky also tried to jump in Baio’s lap, Baio shoved him off and called him a gay slur. 

After that, they said, he was routinely bullied and harassed by Baio in "retaliation" for what he had seen. Eggert, who said she felt guilty about what she says happened to Polinsky, added that he was tripped, pushed around and regularly verbally abused by Baio because "he was in the wrong place at the wrong time."

Eggert and Polinksy said Baio was a "tyrant" on the show and that others on the show were aware of what was happening but were too afraid of losing their jobs to do anything about it. 

Bloom confirmed that both Eggert and Polinsky have met with Los Angeles Police Department detectives about their claims against Baio. The LAPD has confirmed to USA TODAY that they are looking into the allegations.

Given that all of the alleged events took place more than three decades ago, it is not clear what kind of criminal charges could result. The statutes of limitation then in effect have long since expired.

Both Eggert and Polinksy said they are not interested in money and do not plan to file a civil suit. Eggert said an apology might be in order. 

Glicklich said that's not going to happen. "You can't apologize for something that's not true."

McGrath said Baio expects to be cleared by LAPD. Glicklich suggested Baio's accusers and their lawyer are seeking to damage him by near-daily media attacks.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/life/2018/02/14/former-child-actor-says-scott-baio-harassed-assaulted-him-charles-charge-set/337752002/

Rose McGowan: You can see her acting

She needs to relax and act natural. I'm fine with the salute--I've seen it countless times at rallies and speeches. But you can see her acting. She looks like she's playing herself in a really crummy movie.

Look how natural Angela Davis is doing the same thing, not trying to look like a revolutionary.

Obsession, Edward Dmytryk, 1949

Dmytryk directing actors in Obsession.

I sat through a movie, a "Brit Noir" called Obsession, directed by Edward Dmytryk, 1949. Dmytryk was a Canadian of Ukrainian descent. He was one of the Hollywood Ten and fled to England, came back, went to prison then got out and testified before the HUAC and said the Communists tricked him!

Obsession was about an English doctor who chains his wife's American boyfriend in an underground lair.

I realized I had seen this thing on a Roku channel for public domain movies, most of them terrible B movies. I didn't notice it was directed by Dmytryk and I thought it was terrible. Just dreary. English guy carrying on civilized conversations with his victim. It made me wonder why I watched these old movies.

I just watched it again as part of the Criterion Collection on Flimstruck. The beginning was a little interesting, the middle was terribly dull and the end picked up slightly when a Scotland Yard detective starts giving the doctor the Columbo treatment. Even then, I wish they had just thrown him to the floor and handcuffed him as they arrested him instead of chatting and having a drink.

Do the Londoners really refer to calling the cops as 'calling Scotland Yard'? Do cops really introduce themselves as being from Scotland Yard? If not they really should. The characters in this refer to two weeks as a "fortnight" as in, "Not to worry! My husband shan't be home for a fortnight!"

Kind of interesting that the guy fooling around with the other guy's wife was the sympathetic one.

Le Corbeau

Small town big hell

1943 French movie made under Nazi occupation. In a small town, someone's been sending anonymous "poison pen" letters accusing people of terrible things.

Reportedly, the French Resistance didn't like the movie because it portrayed the French people as jerks who sent each other poison pen letters. But French movies always make the place look like a hell hole. Police torture is routine, the juvenile courts are a nightmare and the grown-ups' courts are no picnic either. They didn't close Devil's Island until 1953 and that was only because people were noticing it wasn't that much different from a concentration camp. They openly tortured Algerians. They were chopping people's heads off until the late '70s and conducted experiments to see how long the severed heads remained alive. What exactly did these people have against Communism?

The French doctor in this movie drove a beautiful car but we don't see it again after the first scene.

The movie is pretty good. Well-made. It's a little surprising how many doctors--including a psychiatrist--the small French town has, how many children attend the school and how well-dressed everyone is. There's no mention of Nazis or the fact that the country is under occupation.

Dylan Farrow

You know what someone should try? Someone should try leaping out of the bushes with a large picture of Woody Allen and see if Dylan Farrow collapses sobbing into a fetal position.

Of course, if she does, you're going to look like a terrible jerk. 

People should stop being so respectful of her. She smeared her brother, Moses. Moses never attacked her. He was a witness. He was there when Dylan claims Allen attacked her. He was with them the entire time and he says that it didn't happen.

Moses has said that Mia Farrow convinced Dylan that she was abused by Woody Allen and that he saw Mia Farrow drilling that into her. Dylan responded by saying that Moses was "dead to me" and calling "the lowest form of evil I can imagine". 

If you sympathize with someone and they publicly denounce you as "evil", it may be time to stop sympathizing. That reaction from Dylan Farrow makes me think that she's consciously lying. 

NYT Op-Ed: The Smearing of Woody Allen

Brett Stephens has written NYT Op-Ed entitled "The Smearing of Woody Allen".

You can read the whole thing here: http://comment-news.com/source/www.nytimes.com/2018/02/09/opinion/smearing-of-woody-allen.html/

From the article:

The case is news again thanks to Farrow, who in December penned an op-ed for The Los Angeles Times titled, “Why Has the #MeToo Revolution Spared Woody Allen?” She repeated her charges against Allen in a tearful interview last month on CBS, and her efforts seem to have had their intended effect: From Mira Sorvino to Natalie Portman, A-list actors are expressing bitter regrets for having worked with Allen. The director is officially radioactive. 

But if Farrow wants an answer to her question, it’s because we know that the charges #MeToo has leveled against men such as Harvey Weinstein or Kevin Spacey are almost certainly true. The reason they have not been spared is because they are guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. The facts, not the allegations, prove it. 

Not so with Allen and Farrow. An in-depth, contemporaneous and independent investigation into the allegations, conducted over several months by the Yale-New Haven Hospital in 1992 and 1993, noted that there were “important inconsistencies in Dylan’s statements,” and that “her descriptions of the details surrounding the alleged events were unusual and were inconsistent.” It concluded categorically: “It is our expert opinion that Dylan was not sexually abused by Mr. Allen.” 

That investigation (most of which remains under seal) may or may not be dispositive. It has been criticized over the years, including by a judge who ruled against Allen in his custody battle for Dylan and her siblings. 

But since the State of Connecticut declined to press charges against Allen, it is what we have to go on. Shouldn’t the weight of available evidence, to say nothing of the presumption of innocence, extend to the court of public opinion, too? 

That is a thought lost in some of the commentary about the case. Dylan Farrow is a persuasive interviewee who seems absolutely sincere in her belief that she was molested by Allen as a child. Allen, by contrast, comes across as a grouchy neurotic who, in his late 50s, had a distasteful affair with Mia Farrow’s adopted, barely adult daughter, Soon-Yi Previn. In the contest of sympathies, it’s not hard to guess who wins. 

But it’s precisely because Dylan’s account plays to our existing biases that we need to treat it with added skepticism. Most parents know that young children are imaginative and suggestible and innocently prone to making things up. The misuse of children’s memories by ambitious prosecutors against day-care center operators in the 1980s led to some of the worst miscarriages of justice in recent U.S. history. You don’t have to doubt Farrow’s honesty to doubt her version of events. 

Nor have we learned anything else about Allen in the intervening years that might add to suspicions of guilt. He married Soon-Yi and has been with her ever since. Nobody else has come forward in 25 years with a fresh accusation of assault against him. 

If Allen is in fact a pedophile, he appears to have acted on his evil fantasies exactly once. Compare that to Larry Nassar’s 265 identified victims. 

It goes without saying that child molestation is a uniquely evil crime that merits the stiffest penalties. But accusing someone of being a molester without abundant evidence is also odious, particularly in an era in which social-media whispers can become the ruin of careers and even of lives. 

Tired of Rose McGowan?

Rose McGowan only went public attacking Harvey Weinstein only after she retired from acting. Until then, she concealed the fact that he raped her. But now she's attacking everyone for having even been silent. It seems that everyone knew about Weinstein but her. She attacked Meryl Streep, actors who wore black to the Golden Globes. Matt Damon and Ben Affleck discovered that you can't even condemn Weinstein without incurring Rose McGowan's wrath. She worked with Victor Salva, the convicted child molester and claimed that she couldn't understand what that was about.

Now her former manager, Jill Messick, has committed suicide after being smeared by both McGowan and Weinstein.

Here's the statement from Messick's family:

‘The Movement’ just lost one of its own.

Jill Messick was a mother of two children, a loving wife and partner, a dear friend to many and a smart entertainment executive. She was also a survivor, privately battling depression which had been her nemesis for years.

Today she did not survive. Jill took her own life.

Jill was victimized by our new culture of unlimited information sharing and a willingness to accept statement as fact. The speed of disseminating information has carried mistruths about Jill as a person, which she was unable and unwilling to challenge. She became collateral damage in an already horrific story.

Jill believed in the Movement. She supported every woman finally coming forward to share their dark truths and expose those who had committed previously unspeakable deeds. She was loyal. She was strong. Jill was many things, but she was not a liar.

Over the past few months, many women have come out with allegations against Harvey Weinstein, including Rose McGowan, who has repeatedly spoken with the press, striking out against not only her alleged attacker, but a great many others. One of them was Jill, who chose to remain silent in the face of Rose’s slanderous statements against her for fear of undermining the many individuals who came forward in truth. She opted not to add to the feeding frenzy, allowing her name and her reputation to be sullied despite having done nothing wrong. She never chose to be a public figure, that choice was taken away from her.

Now that Jill can no longer speak for herself, it’s time to set the record straight.

In January 1997, Jill was an entry level manager at Addis Wechsler. One of her first clients was Rose McGowan, and one of Jill’s first duties was to set up a breakfast meeting with Harvey Weinstein during the Sundance Film Festival. Following the meeting, Rose told Jill what had happened – that she made the decision to remove her clothes and get in the hot tub with him — a mistake which Rose immediately regretted. Rose never once used the word rape in that conversation. Despite this, Jill recognized that Harvey had done something untoward to Rose, if not illegal. She immediately went to her bosses, the partners of Addis Wechsler, to recount Rose’s story and to insist that they address the situation. They told Jill that they would take care of it. The ensuing arrangements between Rose and Harvey were then negotiated, completely without Jill’s knowledge. At that time, all Jill knew was that the matter was settled and that Rose continued making films with the Weinsteins. She never knew any details until recently, when Rose elected to make them public.

Ten months later, in November of 1997, Jill received a call from the Miramax exec VP of production, recruiting her for a job as an executive at Miramax Films working in production in Los Angeles. Jill was hired based on merit and her excellent work of over two years as a young development executive working with Woods Entertainment, (prior to her time at Addis Wechsler).

Rose’s most recent round of press to promote her book have included new stories involving Jill. The constant press attention Rose has garnered in print and on National TV led to Harvey Weinstein releasing two documents. One of these was an email which Jill wrote to him months prior to the first NY Times piece coming out, and at his request. In this e-mail, Jill offered the truth based on what she remembers Rose telling her about the Sundance account. In the face of Rose’s continued and embellished accusations last week, Harvey took it upon himself to release the e-mail without her consent.

Five years ago, Jill suffered a manic episode. Anyone familiar with bipolar disorder knows that it is a cruel and vicious disease. With the help of doctors, her family and friends, Jill rebounded. Jill had fought to put her life back together. After a long job search, she was in negotiations to run the production division for a new entertainment company.

Seeing her name in headlines again and again, as part of one person’s attempt to gain more attention for her personal cause, along with Harvey’s desperate attempt to vindicate himself, was devastating for her. It broke Jill, who was just starting to get her life back on track.

What makes Rose’s inaccurate accusations and insinuations against Jill ironic was that she was the first person who stood up on Rose’s behalf, and alerted her bosses to the horrific experience which Rose suffered. Twenty years ago, as a very junior person in a management company hierarchy, Jill exhibited her integrity in doing the right thing – she raised the red flag with the heads of her firm. In the face of inappropriate behavior, Jill handled the situation appropriately.

Hers is one of the only stories that has stayed consistent over time as we watch other media reported tales morph to beget further attention.

While journalists serve an important role in exposing predatory behavior, we are seeing irresponsible choices and an addiction to sensationalism which leads to inconsistent storytelling. The media is a powerful tool not to be taken lightly. Most individuals would be horrified to have their name spotlighted in a major international news story – let alone their photograph. We cannot forget that the media is a fearsome tool which cannot be used indiscriminately or even inadvertently to create further victims. There is a responsibility when using a platform to accurately expose criminals, predators, mistruths and misdeeds while protecting the actual truth of third parties.

As we collectively seek to take action in an effort to right the wrongs so brazenly and inhumanely repeated for a generation, we must not forget one simple truth: words have power. While we illuminate the dark corners for hidden truths, we must remember that what we say, particularly in the media, can have just as much impact if not more than our actions. We must ask more of ourselves, and of each other. We must take a moment to consider the ramifications and consequences of what we say and what we do.

Words matter.

Someone’s life may depend on it.

The Rifleman: "Mark's Rifle", 1962

I've seen this happen in more than one movie, the best known one being The Ref (1994). A family is held hostage by an armed intruder. One of the kids gets his hands on the criminal's gun and holds it on him and his idiot parents yell at him to PUT THE GUN DOWN. I don't know why they do that.

Under most circumstances, I wouldn't want a child killing or shooting anyone, but it's not always a bad thing.

So I was watching this episode of The Rifleman. It was produced in 1962. Mark, the Rifleman's son was 15 or 16. A man arrives in town promoting a circus and offers to let Mark fire a musket he claims belonged to Daniel Boone.

Mark hesitates. "I've never really fired a rifle before."

Things like this happened to the kid all the time.

The boy has been kidnapped, held hostage or threatened with death over and over and over on that show. His father is the Rifleman but Mark's never even fired a gun?

The Rifleman buys Mark a .22 caliber rifle. When he and his father disagree about whether the guy from the circus was a fraud, the Rifleman tells him, "You're old enough to own your own rifle, you're old enough to make your own decisions."

Is that it? He wanted to keep his son in an infantile state unable to make decisions?

Contrast that with the episode of Bonanza where Jamie Cartwright (Mitch Vogel) had to be told not to bring his .45's to school.

Maybe it makes sense. One of my high school teachers told us he had a foreign student from Bangladesh in the early '70's. He asked the kid to do a presentation and tell the class about his country. So the kid brought in some slides he had taken. It turned out he had taken part in the War of Independence and had pictures he had taken during the conflict. The class was horrified by the pictures. I don't think this was an issue, but how does a teacher discipline a student who's killed men in combat?

So maybe Scott Baio IS guilty

I'm at a bit of a disadvantage having never sat through an episode of Charles in Charge. Perhaps unwisely, Scott Baio responded to Nicole Eggert's sexual abuse allegation in part by saying that if she was abused, she should go to the cops, not the media.

Eggert and another Charles in Charge co-star, Alexander Polinsky, have now gone to the police.

From People:

“Working on the set of Charles in Charge from age 11 to 15 was no picnic, it was a toxic environment,” Polinsky said in the statement. “I witnessed Scott Baio acting inappropriately towards Nicole Eggert during my first year of working on the show. I walked in on them together behind the set. Nicole was on Scott’s lap and he did not appreciate my intrusion. He yelled at me and called me various homophobic slurs."

“Growing up on the show I received regular verbal attacks, mental abuse and I also suffered a physical assault at the hands of Scott Baio. There is no excuse for his behavior. It is abhorrent.”

It's hard to imagine much coming of it at this point. I wouldn't have written this except I posted this other thing several days ago saying that maybe Baio didn't do it. He never appealed to me as an actor and he seems rather dumb, but those aren't mortal sins. 

He doesn't look like a statutory rapist.

Woody Allen has funding even if Amazon dumps him

Reportedly, Woody Allen already has funding lined up for his next movie even if Amazon doesn't bankroll it. Amazon was putting way too much money into them, $25 million for Wonder Wheel, $30 million for Cafe Society. How much does it cost to film people standing around talking? It's possible he'll have trouble casting major stars, but actors are, as his sister said, a renewable resource. The worst case scenario is that, instead of paying the union minimum to a big star, he could pay it to a lesser known actor who could use the money. Making a movie a year, he would soon have a veritable army of grateful actors who owed their careers to him. He would be like a semi-art house Roger Corman.

Shia LaBeouf barely back in the press

It seems that any violent racist wino can crawl out of the gutter and freely enter the United Kingdom. The British will reportedly let recidivist criminal Shia LaBeouf into the country for the 2018 Manchester film festival. He and some other "performance artists" made a video. Britain is known for having surveillance cameras everywhere. I hope British cops have body cams.

For some reason, there have been a couple of stories in the press about LaBeouf. They're suggesting that he starting a daring new fashion trend by wearing Crocs, a brand of shoe. Who do you think put out that press release?

Rose McGowan, Victor Salva, Justin Timberlake

Rose McGowan in an August, 2011 interview in The Advocate:

You're starring in the upcoming thriller Rosewood Lane, which was written and directed by Powder's Victor Salva, whose films often reflect his gay sensibility and outsider mentality. Is that the case with Rosewood Lane?

I don't think so. And I do not have good clothes in that film either; I had to wear office-lady clothes and it killed me. That was an interesting dynamic, because Victor had never done a movie with female lead, and he was uncomfortable. He really doesn't relate to women well. He was open about that, which was slightly jarring, because I don't really know what to do with that information.

Well, Salva is a convicted and registered sex offender, which might account for some social awkwardness.

Yeah, I still don't really understand the whole story or history there, and I'd rather not because it's not really my business. But he's an incredibly sweet and gentle man, lovely to his crew, and a very hard worker.

Salva got a couple of years in prison for molesting a 12-year-old boy who appeared in one of his earlier films. He videotaped himself committing the crime. I don't know why McGowan was defending him or what she couldn't understand about it.

It's a little strange to read The Advocate referring to a pedophile as having a "gay sensibility" after the attacks on Kevin Spacey for coming out as gay while responding to an accusation that he climbed on top of a 14-year-old boy.

Now McGowan is smearing actors who appeared in Woody Allen movies. She attacked Justin Timberlake for appearing in The Wonderwheel. The accusations against Allen have been proven false---in Salva's case the crime was on videotape. There's something wrong with McGowan.

Natalie Wood: New evidence probably false

About the re-opened Natalie Wood death investigation. It's based on statements by Dennis Davern, the "skipper" of the yacht they were on when Wood drowned.

From the Seattle Times review of Davern's book:

"Davern said he later heard Wagner and Wood screaming at each other on the yacht. Davern said he underwent hypnosis to recall what he witnessed."

And from The Independent, an article on hypnosis used in criminal investigations:

However, laboratory studies have shown three main problems with hypnosis. First, increases in correct recall are often associated with very great increases in incorrect recall (ie accuracy declines). Second, confidence often increases regardless of accuracy (eg subject-eyewitnesses are often very confident of the accuracy of incorrect information). Third, subject- eyewitnesses often show increases in suggestibility to leading questions and misleading post-event information (eg subject-witnesses are more likely to incorporate suggested details in their accounts). Clearly, these problems could have an adverse effect on a police investigation.

Ironically, the problems associated with hypnosis contribute to the impression that it is a useful technique. Forensic hypnosis is likely to produce more information, but much of this is likely to be incorrect. Hypnosis is usually used when the police have no other leads, and so checking the information an eyewitness gives is difficult. Therefore, without verification, it creates the appearance of memory enhancement when in fact it is creating memory distortion. In addition, when facts cannot be checked we tend to use witness confidence to determine accuracy. Because confidence typically increases with hypnosis, it appears to produce more accurate testimony.

So if the guy's testimony is allowed in court, but it shouldn't be.

Hart to Hart, Charlies Angels

Those were grim years for TV.

Hart to Hart was an amateur detective series about a wealthy couple, Robert Wagner and Stephanie Powers, who go around solving murders they keep stumbling onto. I didn't like rich people so I never watched it, but I did watch the beginning of one episode.

The Harts are going to a fancy French restaurant that just opened. They're friends with the chef, so they want to support him. They go to the restaurant which seems to be a storefront. They go in and sit down in a booth. The place has booths and cheap wood paneling on the walls. I don't remember if they had napkin dispensers on the tables. Apparently the chef is the only one who works there. There's cheap hollow door with a door knob that leads from the dining room to the kitchen.

The Harts hear something. They rush back to the kitchen and find the chef has been murdered.

For the restaurant kitchen, they used the set for some cooking show. It was made up to look something like a home kitchen with brightly colored appliances, a four unit electric stove and a double oven. There were frilly curtains on the fake window. This was what was supposed to pass for a restaurant kitchen.

Charlies Angels

I didn't watch the old Charlie's Angels when it was on in the '70's. I watched a little of one episode, realized it was a scene-for-scene copy of an old Mod Squad episode which I hated in the first place---it was the one where Julie is shot in the head by an autistic kid she nicknamed "Cricket". This so offended me I never watched it again until years later when it was on in syndication.

One of the "angels" was going undercover in a women's prison. The scene where she enters the prison was apparently filmed in a dentist's office waiting room. It was decorated with commercial "wall art", there was the window to the receptionist desk and chairs and tables around the room. They may have removed the magazines.

The scenes in the prison yard were filmed at a public swimming pool. Pools have high fences topped with barbed wire to keep drunks and teenagers from climbing in at night and drowning, so it looked a little like a prison, I guess. But they made no attempt to conceal or explain the presence of the swimming pool. The "angel" gets in a fight with another inmate and knocks her into the pool.

I would admire their thrift if the show hadn't been so bad.

But zero-budget filmmakers should look at '70s TV for inspiration in much the same way that The French New Wave looked to American B movies from the 1930's.

Natalie Wood case re-opened

Weren't they talking about re-opening the investigation of Natalie Wood's death a few years ago? My memory is that one of the witnesses "remembered" new details while under hypnosis. If this is correct, their testimony is now inadmissible. Memories that come up through hypnosis tend to be unreliable, but the hypnotized witness is more convinced they're true.

Now they're reporting that Wood's husband, 87-year-old Robert Wagner, is a "person of interest" in her death because someone said they were arguing the night she died. They were both drinking heavily that night as was Christopher Walken who was there with them. A drunk falling off a boat and drowning doesn't seem like much of a mystery and I can't imagine anything coming of this now.

Wagner has always been very well-liked in Hollywood if that makes a difference.

When she died in 1981, I had only a vague idea who Natalie Wood was. I wouldn't have recognized her. I knew a guy who worked as a busboy in Lake Tahoe and spilled coffee on her.

I wonder if there was any truth to the rumor that Kirk Douglas raped her when she was sixteen. He's 101-years-old. If he did it, you could beat the crap out of him pretty easily, but if he didn't do it you'd be a monster for even thinking about it.

Finn Wolfhard, music video from some time last year

 I came across a crowdfunding thing for Finn Wolfhard. It was from last year. I don't keep up with things. He wanted to raise $5,000 to make a music video for one of his friends and ended up raising over $13,000. It shows the advantage of being a teen idol with mostly adult fans. I can't imagine very many kids sending him their allowance.

Did the boy really not have $5,000? Are they not paying him? I know there's the Jackie Coogan Law, but are these shows he's in filmed in California, and does the law apply to him since he's Canadian?

Well, he wanted to direct and maybe raising money was part of the educational experience although he didn't put much effort into it. He made a video of himself holding the camera at arms length as he walked around explaining what he wanted the money for.

Anyway, I watched the video. He gave himself a lot of close-ups. He's a beautiful kid, but I'm not kidding, those cheekbones look painful.

A boy rescues his girlfriend from her abusive father. He wears a cowboy hat and rides around on a bicycle. It was well-made, but I would have told him to make thirteen videos for a thousand dollars each.

Judd Apatow attacks Woody Allen

So Judd Apatow has attacked Woody Allen, not accusing him of molesting Dylan Farrow but for ignoring Mia Farrow's other children during the time he was with her. And then for sleeping with Soon-yi.

Soon-yi is now a 47-year-old millionaire with a masters degree from Columbia. If she was a victim, she can say so herself. She and Allen have been together over 20 years, longer than all of Mia Farrow's marriages combined, so it turned out well in any case.

Allen ignoring Farrow's children during the years they were together always bothered me, but it's nothing to boycott him over, especially since it was 25 years ago. I don't think Woody Allen ever struck me as an especially nice guy. But it raises more doubts about Mia Farrow. If she was such devoted mother, what was she doing with a guy who had no interest in her children?

Apatow himself is a devout Zionist, one of the writers for the explicitly racist Don't Mess with the Zohan. I'd boycott him just for that.