Commentary and analysis on American politics, culture, and national identity, U.S. foreign policy and international relations, and the state of education
- from a neoconservative perspective! - Keeping an eye on the communist-left so you don't have to!
President Obama's defense of Henry Louis Gates, Jr., the Harvard black studies professor now at the center of a national debate on race and criminal justice, has enraged police departments across the country.
Mounting pressure to get to the bottom of the controversial arrest of black scholar Henry Louis Gates Jr. is centering on recorded police tapes that may offer a dose of reality amid all the media and political noise.
Cambridge police brass and lawyers are weighing making the tapes public, which could include the 911 call reporting a break-in at Gates’ home and radio transmissions by the cop who busted him July 16 for disorderly conduct.
“It’s powerful evidence because the (people involved) have not had a chance to reflect and you are getting their state of mind captured on tape,” said former prosecutor and New York City police officer Eugene O’Donnell, who is now a lecturer at John Jay College of Criminal Justice in Manhattan.
“No matter how much education you have as a person of color, you still can’t escape institutional racism,” said Keith E. Horton, a sports and entertainment lawyer in Chicago who is black. “That’s what the issue is to me.”
A simple request to step outside is viewed by Professor Gates as an affront to his dignity and the fulfillment of academic theories. The same request likely was viewed by Sgt. Crowley as a cautious step so as not to be caught alone inside a house possibly occupied not only by Professor Gates but also by a second unaccounted-for person (what did happen to the taxi driver?).
While there may be aspects of the case which reflect a "national Rohrsach test on race," this may be more of a national Rohrsach test on class. A member of Cambridge's intellectual elite viewing the scene from the perch of academic smarts, and a police sergeant viewing the same events from the perch of street smarts. A real class divide hidden behind the rhetoric of race.
In Gates' case, his academic standing gave him an entitlement mentality. The cops were beneath his station, and he refused to show the appropriate respect to law enforcement. Some "white sensitivity" might have helped as well (that is, knowing how tone and demeanor can make or break as situation like this).
The most famous black professor at Harvard lives in a very safe neighborhood because, in part, residents look out for and report suspicious activities, and because cops respond quickly to reports of possible break-ins. Yet that's not how Henry Louis Gates Jr., director of the W.E.B. Du Bois Institute for African and African American Research at Harvard University, took it when cops showed up at his door after a neighbor reported two black men (Gates and his driver) seemingly pushing into a vacant residence, which turned out to be Gates' home.
He was arrested for disorderly conduct, and the rest is now histrionic history. (The charges have since been dropped, but the incident is not going away.)
Gates was returning from a trip to China, and he couldn't get in through a jammed front door, so he apparently went around the back, shut off an alarm and worked with his driver to get the door open.
In any neighborhood - especially one of the safest in America - that kind of behavior would be cause for suspicion and a call to the cops, no matter the color of the guys "breaking" in.
But when police showed up, the "he said, he said" has Gates indignant and, according to the cop, refusing to present himself and his ID, then complying and at some point getting loud - with Gates saying, according to the police report, "Why, because I'm a black man in America?"
Had I been the cop, I would have probably gotten suspended for saying to Gates: "No, stupid, because I need you to step outside so that I may do my job. I need to know that you are who you say you are."
The cop's job is not the most famous black professor at Harvard's concern. Yet Gates' automatic reflex was racial - that of a victim rather than a property lessee. The man with all the brains did not have the common sense of the average citizen who appreciates good and effective police work.
The secretly taped video of ESPN reporter Erin Andrews in her hotel room is an example of media at its most viral — although online for months, it didn't catch fire until last week when it became Google's most-searched subject and put the Bristol-based sports network at the center of the story.
...the Erin Andrews peephole video controversy is a huge, huge, story. It speaks to many issues, including the role the Internet plays in perpetuating prurient new stories, the emergence of female sports reporters, sexism in pro sports, voyeurism, betrayal, publicity, the public's fascination with celebrities, etc.
Over the years, the biggest criticism of ESPN, the self-proclaimed "Worldwide Leader in Sports," has been that it engages in shameless self-promotion that often makes it seem as if the network is bigger than the stories it covers. But in a strange twist, two stories have developed in recent days that have thrust ESPN into the national spotlight and made the network the story. Here's a look at those two stories one that made the network the focus through no fault of ESPN's and one that did through ESPN's doing and how they have been viewed.
1. Shaquille O'Neal has a new show on ABC called Shaq Vs.
2. The premise is that Shaq (pictured here with a panda bear) challenges professional athletes from different sports and tries to beat them at their own game.
3. The show's first episode airs August 8 and filming began today in Pittsburgh with Shaq competing against none other than BEN ROETHLISBERGER.
4. ESPN is owned by ABC.
5. In an attempt to not ruin the premier episode of Shaq Vs., ESPN has downplayed the Roethlisberger story because, hey, who wants to watch Shaq play football against a rapist?*
Also raging Thursday was sports journalism's battle with Jason Whitlock and his scathing piece, "Erin Andrews Nude Video Scandal: Whose Fault?" I cited the essay in my previous report. I didn't, however, notice the the Fox Sports homepage had pumped up the Whitlock piece with the Photoshop above. The picture, splashed across the front of Fox Sports Online, served as a banner headline for Whitlock's essay. Readers can make inferences. The racial implications alone are revolting (of a black man stalking a beautiful white woman through a peephole). But the reactions go both ways, from outrage at the insanity to back-slapping humor.
Adverb-addicted Kansas City Star columnist Jason Whitlock has weighed in (har, har) on the secret videotaping of ESPN sideline reporter Erin Andrews. The piece is less about the wrong done Andrews than the grievances Whitlock has accumulated in the course of becoming a high-profile commentator.
Editors at FoxSports.com outdid themselves with the presentation of J-Dub's column. For users too obtuse to catch the pun in the Web headline ("The 'Hole Story"), Whitlock's head shot is pasted behind an oversized keyhole; in the foreground, Andrews models evening wear, a peeping victim once more!
Yes, that is Erin Andrews, superimposed over a keyhole graphic, through which stares … Jason Whitlock! Ahhh! And that is not a kind, knowing, forgiving Jason Whitlock. That is a creepy peephole Jason Whitlock. That is the last photo of Jason Whitlock you see before you die.
As for his column itself, it’s just insane. In sum: Racism, Deadspin, Daulerio Leitch Leitch Daulerio, White Woman, Racism, Real Talk. I just saved you three minutes. You’re welcome.
The Whitlock/keyhole pic deserves its own post. First, it's Whitlock, the crown prince of judging women by their asses. Second, "black man peering through a keyhole at a white woman" apparently doesn't register on anyone's race panic radar. Third, is he drunk in that photo?
And that leads us to the future of women in sports broadcasting? Are we in a new place in the sociology of gender in the wake of the peephole controversy? Here's Marc at Feministing laying down the ideology, "Professional Sports, Masculinity and Erin Andrews":
Where do these identities of masculinity come from, though? If we're going to blame sports for misogyny and sexism, then we might as well start at its lowest level - on the baseball diamonds of Little League and school playgrounds, where little boys are told to be tough, in control of their emotions, and not to cry. Guilt is found in every coach who's ever told little boys that they throw "like a girl," and every parent who's told their child that boys do not cry, lest they want to look like little girls.
But the biggest blame here lies in the millions of men who have, since the assault of Erin Andrews, chosen to support her exploitation by searching for the video. That they might or might not have masturbated to orgasm watching this video is immaterial. What matters is that they knowingly supported the violation of Erin Andrews - and even worst, sought to derive satisfaction, whether emotionally, sexually or otherwise, through her assault.
Just admitting guilt, however, isn't enough. Guilt, after all, never helped free women of other oppressions, and it certainly didn't help them attain the freedoms they've gotten to this point. What we need, then, is action. We need to speak up. We need to call others out for their sexist actions and statement - but to do that, we must call ourselves out. The journey to ending sexism toward Erin Andrews and all women, those in our lives and those we do not know, starts with an admission of guilt. We are all guilty.
The Erin Andrews affair tells lots of us that we should do better. We should not joke in ways that degrade innocence. We can call a whore a whore but we should not project lust and evil on someone who is innocent. Beautiful women are one of the great gifts God has given the world, and in the South, and at football schools, you can see lots of beauty on display. It is fine to respect and admire that without being trashy or dirty. Whether it is signature pictures of models put up by old men who are lonely, or comments about how someone has a busted nose by guys who are fat and have enough back hair to knit a sweater, our sports boards do not need it.
And Vivian Bernstein has a brief but potent essay, "Erin Andrews and the Ugliness of Judging Beauty." But see Jessica Quiroli, at High Heels on the Field, "Erin Andrews Doesn't Deserve Your Lousy Behavior":
Women in the sports journalism business have busted down clubhouse doors to gain respect.
Being a pretty blonde who appears to some to be too friendly, is not an affront to the women who fought so hard. What is an affront to all women and all those trailblazers, is the attitude that a woman who's considered attractive, should be treated like a whore.
Tell me, friends, did it make you smirk when ESPN reporter Erin Andrews was violated in her hotel room by a peeping tom? Did you immediately jump to her defense? Would you have if it was, say, Christine Brennan treated in this manner?
If you didn't defend her, you are beneath the dirt of a baseball field. You're not even fit to be the spit on a spit ball.
A friend in the business has a great response to men who mistreat her in any clubhouse. "If I were your wife, or sister, or daughter, and some guy were treating her the way you're treating me, how would you feel?"
What if, a girl you're close to or related to, was filmed naked against her will? I don't believe you'd take the attitude that she deserves it.
News flash to all: being friendly and pretty, doesn't constitute being mean you have a right to treat a woman any way you please. It's not an invite. You may not agree with how friendly Erin Andrews has been seen to be, but that's her personality. Her body and her hotel room are not your right for that reason.
News flash to women in the business: We are in this together. We are outnumbered. There is strength in our numbers if we support each other. Let us not be weakened or our bond be damaged. We've come too far. It's too important. It's a piece of feminist history. Never, NEVER forget that. Lipstick and a sundress don't make me less of a feminist or baseball writer. That's male designed thinking. Don't join them. WE ARE BETTER THAN THAT.
Over the past week or so, we have been blessed with the unveiling of not one, but two tapes that will forever be entrenched in the history of the sports blogosphere.
It all started last Friday when we were treated to the creepy (yet incredibly hot) peephole video of ESPN sports reporter Erin Andrews as she curled her hair, ironed, and got a squat or two in there as well. It has since received an enormous amount of attention. Even Bill O'Reilly and the people at FOX News couldn't resist the temptation of showing viewers a sample clip.
Actually, no. It's not a hoax, not at all. We don't know everything about this story yet, but we know that Erin Andrews was manipulated and brutally victimized. There's a lot of greed and sexism stewing in America today, and much of it is getting swept under the rug by our fears - all kinds of fears, and especially the fear of looking inside of ourselves and acknowledging our fallen state. I'll have some more thought on this in my Erin Andrews traffic report tomorrow. The results - and my conclusions - might surprise you.
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Some people will stop at nothing to make a profit and HeroBuilders.com is no exception. This site specializes in making action figures of newsworthy folks like Sarah Palin, Jon Gosselin, and George Bush. But now that ESPN sportscaster Erin Andrews has been catapulted into fame because some creep decided to film her naked in her hotel room, the site is going to immortalize her forever in colored plastic.
She’s going to be made into two dolls, one will look all professional and the other is going to be rockin’ a red sundress. A red sundress? Ugh, I wouldn’t be surprised if they made a special-edition nude one, too. The dolls usually cost around $40 and look way more muscular than the people they’re supposed to represent, but as long as the site makes money who cares, right?
Back in the day, the righteous fight was for respectability. Women weren't objects. Or playthings. Or idiots. Every time a female reporter entered a clubhouse, or asked a thought-provoking question to a chauvinistic jock, or wrote a breathtaking lede, the slow-moving world of sports took another small step toward enlightenment. That was one of Visser's aspirations then -- not to be seen as some sort of trailblazer (which, without question, she is), but as a professional. As an equal. Now, however, thanks to this odd physical obsession over all things Erin Andrews, as well as to the ritualistic hiring of women reporters based first and foremost on looks, we are back in the dark ages.
The theory that ESPN reporter Erin Andrews was the victim of someone who knew her, possibly a fellow ESPN employee, continued to gain more credence on Friday.
A number of websites, as well as a report by CBS News, used sources to conclude that the infamous video was shot by someone who knew where she was.
"I would say it would probably have to be somebody who's close to her, just to get in the area of her," Patrick Malkmes told CBS News. Malkmes was identified in the report as a private investigator and CBS consultant.
The website RadarOnline.com, using sources, said the shooter of the video was "probably a fellow ESPN employee, since it's the network that books the hotels for employees traveling on assignment."
The same source told RadarOnline.com that ESPN is "freaking out" as the investigation continues into how this happened.
The video, lasting several minutes, was shot through a peephole and showed a nude Andrews inside her hotel room.
Meanwhile the New York Post furthered the story on Friday's editions by reporting that the website where the videos first appeared, Dailymotion, has not been contacted by police.
"We have not been contacted by authorities or heard from investigators," a spokesman for Dailymotion told The Post.
The Web site where voyeur videos of ESPN sideline reporter Erin Andrews first appeared has yet to be called by police -- raising doubts about how aggressively the case is being pursued.
"We have not been contacted by authorities or heard from investigators," a spokesman for Dailymotion told The Post yesterday.
Computer-security experts said cops could quickly find the peeping Tom's identity by subpoenaing the site's records.
Andrews' lawyer, Marshall Grossman, refused to say which authorities had been contacted about the case and why no law enforcement had yet reached out to the site.
"For any investigation to have the maximum chance of success, it is wise not to publicly comment on it," Grossman said.
A person using the online handle "Goblazers1" in February posted a half-dozen video clips showing Andrews, 31, nude in a hotel room, brushing her hair.
The videos were shot though a peephole, with the striking blond sports journalist unaware of the voyeur.
The posting by "Goblazers1" did not identify Andrews by name.
The city where the video was shot has not been identified, and no law-enforcement agency has said it is investigating. The FBI has said it is not involved.
Andrews notified ESPN of the videos on July 16 and asked for help taking them down, a network spokesman said.
ESPN's general counsel then sent out a letter demanding they be removed, without mentioning Andrews by name.
That letter sparked speculation among site operators that the woman was Andrews. Shortly afterward, her lawyer confirmed it was her and threatened legal action against people displaying the images.
TMZ has learned ESPN reporter Erin Andrews made a call to 911 Wednesday claiming a suspicious person was outside of her Georgia home.
Just days after her peeping Tom incident became national news, Andrews made a call to Dunwoody police around 2:10 PM, claiming someone was knocking on her door and wouldn't leave.
When cops arrived on scene, they discovered the person was a member of the news media looking for an interview with Erin, and eventually allowed the reporter to leave without incident.
Things are still amiss for EPSN correspondent Erin Andrews. In the wake of the release of footage videotaping her naked in a hotel room without her consent, Andrews is currently taking any means to put her life together. A source tells RadarOnline.com exclusively that the TV personality is trying to put on a brave face, but is privately struggling and has problems sleeping and feeling comfortable alone.
“She’s shaken and kind of paranoid,” the source said. “Everyone is very nurturing to her- which she appreciates- but you can tell the whole thing has devastated her. It’s all so reprehensible.”
Since the incident, security now does multiple sweeps of her rooms before entering and after leaving. She also fears being alone and has talked to a therapist.
If nothing else, the Erin Andrews nude Web video flap has produced one moment of high comedy.
In its diligent reporting on the issue, the gossip site TMZ.com ended one dispatch with this: "We will not post this video because it is a clear invasion of privacy."
Yes, that would be the same TMZ that has videographers scouring Hollywood trying to catch celebrities in the act of leaving a nightclub intoxicated, being with someone who is not their significant other or getting annoyed at the videographers trying to catch them getting annoyed.
Then there was the media Web site - we're looking at you, New York Post - that railed against the "peephole pervert" exploiting the "sideline siren," then posted that story alongside a slide show of images captured from the video, complete with black bars covering Andrews' naughty bits.
Beyond the heaping tablespoons of hypocrisy, though -- oh, and the fact that most sites still claiming to have the video will probably load malware onto your computer -- there's not much that's funny here. Andrews, a 31-year-old ESPN sports reporter who also happens to be slender, busty and, by most estimates, beautiful, was apparently filmed illicitly in two hotel rooms naked.
There's nothing extraordinary about what she's doing in the clips - brushing her hair, ironing pants, checking her backside in the mirror - but the fact that it is Andrews, lust object of a high percentage of young American men, has made the video into the Pamela Anderson tape of the moment.
Judging by Google Trends data, much of the nation has spent most of this week looking on the Internet for some variation on "Erin Andrews peephole video."
NO one would have known that a sick voyeur had secretly videotaped ESPN reporter Erin Andrews nude in her hotel room, if the Mickey Mouse sports network hadn't sent a letter to an obscure Web site demanding that it take down its link to a fuzzy video of an unidentified blonde. The video had gone largely unnoticed since it first went up in February, according to a girlie-posting site, DonChavez.com ...
Okay, here's some news from inside the sports world's guilty angst: Jay Mariotti comes awful close to saying "she had it coming," in "Lesson of Erin Andrews: Grow Up, Boys!":
Unlike one of the Erin-consumed leeches - who admitted this week, "I have never met Erin Andrews,'' - I have met her as an ESPN colleague. She could not be more friendly and down to earth, which, in this case, probably contributed to the rampant EA Mania. If she were aloof, she wouldn't be nearly as popular and droolworthy among the testosterone-fueled masses. But by smiling everywhere and saying hi to everyone - from the face-painted freshman at Michigan State to, yes, even the very bloggers who exploit her -- she only fed the monster and left the absurd impression that she actually might dig them. Wrote Christine Brennan, the USA Today columnist: "I wish it didn't happen to Erin, but I also would suggest to her if she asked (and she hasn't) that she rely on her talent and brains and not succumb to the lowest common denominator in sports media by playing to the frat house.'' In truth, Andrews has been vexed in handling the intense amounts of attention, including her distinction as Playboy magazine's "sexiest sportscaster in America.'' One minute, she's on the dance squad at the University of Florida. The next, she's wondering how many millions of perverts are blowing up her photos on the Internet. Or what rumor is surfacing next on a blog about this sex tape or this baseball player or this college basketball player, none of which involved any attempts by the bloggers to substantiate.
But when another sleazy day has ended and the creeps tell their bosses about all their Erin-generated page views, Andrews still has to live with the fallout. She grew to be a well-respected sideline reporter who was placed on college football and basketball because, well, she's young and relates to her audience. They're not stupid in Bristol; she brought in ratings. And for anyone who suggests she exploited sexuality with some of her outfits, I'll remind you that it's 2009 and no one should expect her to dress like a Granny. I've seen Katie Couric wear shorter dresses. Last summer, Chicago Cubs manager Lou Piniella saw her in a stylish summer dress before a game in Milwaukee - professionally acceptable, according to my sample poll of females -- and cracked, "Is this a baseball game or a modeling assignment?'' That prompted an Illinois sportswriter to columnize that she "sauntered around the visiting clubhouse, flitting from one Cubs player to another. Her skimpy outfit - designed to accentuate her, um, positives - had players leering at her.''
What you need to know: Piniella is 65; the writer in his 50s.
"It's really sad that ... I have people watching every single move I make," Andrews told a Minnesota newspaper at the time. "These players are not into me like that. If anything, I think these guys look at me like a little sister or one of the guys. I don't look at myself as a sex object. I've never carried myself in that way. I'm a girl that loves sports. I'm a tomboy. That's the last thing on my mind when I'm in the clubhouse -- worrying about players checking me out.
"I thought at some point we were all past this. I'm not going to change. I can't change.''
Unfortunately, the perverts didn't change, either. It's unconscionable to think a human being would hatch a plot knowing the hotel location, the number of her room and, apparently, when she would disrobe long enough to shoot video footage through the door peephole. She is seeking criminal charges and filing civil lawsuits, but face it, she has been robbed of her privacy and equilibrium forever. How can she return to a hotel room without wondering if someone's peeping? How can she live wondering 24/7 if someone is leering? I wouldn't blame her if she left the sports business and entered the entertainment world. Just a few months ago, USC linebacker Ray Maualuga approached her from behind on the sideline and did a grind dance, which invites other athletes to do the same. But I fully expect her to stand firm and report back to work in September, when her college football duties begin on -- gulp -- college campuses across the land.
After reading this stuff all week, I'm not impressed with Mariotti's analysis, much less the blaming. He's getting some pushback, in any case. See Deadspin, "Jay Mariotti On Erin Andrews, AutoSummarized."
Invasion of privacy for profit is what we all do to some degree in this day and age of Internet, camera-phone journalism. We're in desperate pursuit of clicks and ratings. There was a time when athletes could visit nightclubs and whatnot without fear of being photographed or videotaped.
Erin Andrews isn't the first "good girl" to be exposed in this way. Vanessa Williams famously resigned her Miss America title after someone tried to publish nude photos of her without her consent. A relatively tame sex tape purporting to feature Kristin Davis (Sex & the City's prudish Charlotte), surfaced last year. God-loving, gay-hating Carrie Prejean raised a stir with her topless photos. And just last week, celebhotline.com claimed to have nude footage of Gossip Girl's Leighton Meester doing something or other with her feet.
So why are the anonymous and click-happy denizens of the interwebs more interested in a princess than a Playboy model? The simplest reason would be the opportunity to see something they don't ordinarily get to see — a body not usually on such display. Another, creepier reason, though (especially creepy in Andrews's case, because she didn't even know she was being filmed), is the unwillingness factor. Unlike a Playboy model, a princess doesn't want you to see her naked ...
Maybe the fascination of the Andrews footage is partly about "candor," but it's also about taboo — the thrill of seeing something you're not supposed to see. And it's about the sexual value of a woman's perceived virtue — as 1960s frat boys will tell you, a fallen Madonna is better than a whore.
After you read Jezebel and WaPo above, be sure to go back and read Clay Travis at Fanhouse, "Erin Andrews Video Straddles Sports Culture's Sexual Fault Line" (this is the most important theory of the phenomenon, IMHO). There will be lots more analysis, but I think the Travis piece and the Jezebel article offer the best theories.
Okay, what about the investigation? Actually, the ultimate criminal, the original hotel stalker who taped Erin Andrews nude, will never be caught - unless, ESPN indeed did play an inside game and they know the identity of the perpetrator (and legal action forces the network's hand). That hypothesis, by the way, sounds supremely horrible if true. Remember yesterday's report from the New York Daily News, "Erin Andrews Peephole Video Likely Shot by Fellow ESPN Employee: Report."
Actually, it's no surprise: O'Reilly's show is all about shock conservatism with hot-babe analysis. Frankly, I wish he'd have Courtney Friel and Jane Skinner on the broadcast more often.
What bothers me more is how many women want to see the video of Erin Andrews undressing in her hotel room, some just as much as men. In earlier years, women might have stuck together, and instead of calling her a sleaze, they'd take the position that she has been malignantly exploited by some creep at hotel with a video camera.
The piece hammers Whitlock for linking Beisner, a former Denver Broncos cheerleader, to Deadspin, the online sports magazine:
Jason Whitlock believes that the influential website Deadspin is largely responsible for popularizing and perpetuating the Erin Andrews peephole controversy because it posted a link to the website hosting the Erin Andrews peephole video (it has since been taken down). Whitlock points out that until Deadspin mentioned it, the Erin Andrews peephole video had been virtually ignored.
Whether this is true or not is highly debatable, but it does demonstrate in no uncertain terms that Whitlock has some issues with Deadspin.
Actually, it's not debateable at all:Deadspin indeed linked to the hosting website on Sunday, and on Tuesday former Deadspin columnist Will Lietch wrote his big mea culpa, "Erin Andrews and Guilt, Imagined and Otherwise."
Okay, more commentary on who's to blame: What about the hotel? See, "Erin Andrews' Nightmare":
What's interesting is that some hysterical commentators have taken the knee-jerk "blame the internet" view of the situation. Almost nobody has yet so much as pointed out that a presumably reputable (but as yet unidentified) hotel allowed a logistically mystifying act of privacy violation to take place on its premises. Privacy is the very pith of the hospitality business; it is part of what we buy when we rent a hotel room. The internet has been an engine of fame and fortune for Erin Andrews, and its power to intensify the effect of the original crime committed against her is inherently equal to its power to make her a celebrity. But what was done to her in that hotel -- and surely the hotel needs to be named and shamed, for the benefit of the world -- would be a sadistic crime of equally severe import whether the internet existed at all.
I've been really happy to see that a lot of male sports bloggers are writing about feeling badly and almost feeling complicit in the objectification of sexualization of Andrews because of past posts they wrote about how hot she is, or featuring pictures of her that were meant to somehow titillate their male audience.
I also think that it's awesome that our own Community bloggers - like Dangerfield and Marc - have taken on the broader questions surrounding sports culture and masculinity.
What I'm really interested in, however, is the non-consensual issue that comes up in this story. People aren't interested in this video, this isn't a big internet sensation, because Andrews is a hot celebrity who people might be able to see naked. You can see plenty of hot women naked online. Folks want to watch this - and people find it interesting - precisely because Erin Andrews didn't know she was being filmed. And that reveals something really fucked up about the way American culture views women.
This would be a great analysis, up there with Jezebel above, except that Feministing, which is Jessica Valenti's personal blog, displays naked tail-flap women at the top of the banner masthead (an obviously sexist peep-exploitation gimmick that helps keep reader-eyes glued to the page). In other words, Valenti's a total hypocrite. Plus, she was called out big time for pumping-up her breasts in a comely sweater for ex-President Bill Clinton a few years back. Ann Althouse pointed it out her post, "Let's Take a Closer Look at Those Breasts," and Glenn Reynolds linked:
Quoting the title of this post unleashed some serious Instalanche action. (I knew it would.) The most ever, actually. And late on a Friday! What are you going to do? Guys love breasts. I think Jessica knows that quite well. And I think for all her gasping outrage, she's thoroughly pleased to get this attention.
The attention to her breasts, that is. She's a babe too, and recently married (to a man), so there's always hope for randy guys who meet her scheming for an untimely divorce. See Jessica Valenti, "My Big Feminist Wedding."
If you are not aware, ESPN sports news correspondent Erin Andrews has an illegally shot video of her walking around her hotel room naked buzzing around the Internet. Yes it's hard to find if you just browse the web and I'm not in the biz of telling how to easily find it. But what I can tell you is this. The video itself is no big deal. Yet for Erin it has accomplished a great deal for her. It's what I call the Paris Hilton Effect. Scandalous video equals instant celebrity status. After all, Paris Hilton was just a rich nobody until the video of her having sex with an ex boyfriend hit the Internet.
OK, the guys reading this are asking, what does Erin Andrews look like naked? In this case Erin Andrews was just standing in her hotel room naked, doing her hair. In the video there is nothing to see. The resolution is low and the poor video could really be of any tall nondescript blond. Yes you can see her fully naked but frankly it's not of an overtly attractive body. She's not overweight, but other than what appears to be evidence of potential breast implants there is nothing remotely exciting either.
A couple of points: One, while a single case (from an essentially anonymous blogger), here's a clear example that men aren't the only ones interested in watching the video. Indeed, in the case of Kitt Badlove, this is the most nonchalant secondary voyeur's account I've read yet. And second, I have to completely disagree that Erin Andrew's peephole invasion is a "career boost." Hardly anyone is speculating as to what Ms. Andrews should do next. But she's scheduled to start sideline reporting for ESPN's college football programming in September. When the football games start, the working assumption has to be that every guy in the stands has seen Erin Andrews nude. Ms. Andrews has declined interview requests, and ESPN - for all the scandal and speculation on an inside perp - appears set to keep Andrews on as scheduled. Yes, the fame will propel Andrews into the ranks of the media elite if she chooses to move on from the network. But who knows her psychological state? Not only will every handshake from a stanger feel like someone's copping a feel, but the small-town innocence that made Andrews so approachable to the fans by necessity must be abandoned. Anyone could be the next stalker.
The Cambridge cop prominent Harvard University professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. claims is a racist gave a dying Reggie Lewis mouth-to-mouth resuscitation in a desperate bid to save the Celtics [team stats] superstar’s life 16 years ago Monday.
“I wasn’t working on Reggie Lewis the basketball star. I wasn’t working on a black man. I was working on another human being,” Sgt. James Crowley, in an exclusive interview with the Herald, said of the forward’s fatal heart attack July 27, 1993, at age 27 during an off-season practice at Brandeis University, where Crowley was a campus police officer.
It’s a date Crowley still can recite by rote - and he still recalls the pain he suffered when people back then questioned whether he had done enough to save the black athlete.
“Some people were saying ‘There’s the guy who killed Reggie Lewis’ afterward. I was broken-hearted. I cried for many nights,” he said.
Crowley, 42, said he’s not a racist, despite how some have cast his actions in the Gates case. “Those who know me know I’m not,” he said.
Yesterday, Lewis’ widow, Donna Lewis, was floored to learn the embattled father of three on the thin blue line of a national debate on racism in America was the same man so determined to rescue her husband.
The President's healthcare reform is the big policy item this morning. It's an indefensible monstrosity, obviously, as apparently even the President had a hard time defending it. See, the New York Times, "Obama Moves to Reclaim the Debate on Health Care." The transcript of the press conference is here.
Has anyone actually read the bill? Representative Loretta Sanchez hadn't, which made it kind of hard for her to explain the legislation to consitituents. If you don't have time, this guy's done you a favor, "The HC Monstrosity-All 1,018 Pages." More on that at the New York Times, "Experts Dispute Some Points in Health Talk." But don't miss the outstanding analysis from Clifford Asness, "Health Care Mythology." He covers the major myths and misconceptions (actually, a really thorough bashing of this legislative disaster), then adds this:
At this point you might accuse me of offering only complaints about the Administration's plans, without constructive suggestions of my own. There is truth to that. But I make no apologies. If people believe crazy things it's first and foremost important to change that before progress can be made. But also, I think we're doing okay enough without radical changes, certainly not hastily panicked changes towards socialism, and also because I lack the expertise to recommend the detailed practical steps that would be productive (in contrast it requires much less expertise to see that the myths above are indeed lunacy).
Pardon me for being a bit insulted, but according to President Obama I am the problem. No, really. It's my fault. After 10 years of higher education after college; after internship rotations that required up to 140 hours in the hospital in one week (cardiothoracic surgery: do the math - there are only 168 hours in a week); after 18 years of medical practice during which I've successfully treated thousands of people for their life, limb, and livelihood threatening injuries; after years of dedication to the profession of medicine that saw me attend hundreds of hours of continuing education to maintain and improve my skills and knowledge and that made me accept substandard payments from Medicare, Medicaid and HMOs, it's come to this. It's my fault.
The President supports, if he knows what's in the bill,
paying for it by taxing only "the wealthy"
reducing payments to physicians by having the government dictate rates which, because of the future structural deficits, must be reduced
giving the government further ability to hamstring my practice by controlling access to procedures
leaving loose the dogs of law to sue willy-nilly looking for jackpot justice
All of those provisions leave doctors as the villains ...
I love elephants. I'd like to know if the trainers' whips can be used without the beating. But given how casual the men look, I have no doubt that those elephants get whapped into line routinely. My family skipped Ringling Bros. this summer. Every year the animal rights activists are out there protesting. It's hard not to shamed, and readers know that's a trick with me!
The world-famous Ringling Bros. circus faces fresh accusations of animal abuse today after undercover videos show handlers beating elephants before they enter the ring.
The tape, made by a man who posed as a stagehand for six months, is likely to stir outrage and give animal rights activists new ammunition in their campaign against the circus that bills itself "The Greatest Show on Earth."
A worker with People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals used a secret camera to document what the group calls the abuse of animals as they're led from holding pens to the stage.
The animals are seen herded together, wearing headdresses, while trainers stand around, appearing to randomly whip them with bull hooks across the head, legs and body.
Loud cracking noises can be heard.
In one scene, a handler curses an elephant, saying, "F--- you, fat ass" before using his whip to nonchalantly strike its trunk.
The elephants are led with a bull hook - a long pole with a metal point at the end - used to pull them by the trunk.
The undercover PETA employee scored a job with Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus and traveled with the circus as it toured seven states, a spokesman said.
Footage was shot between January and June, the animal rights organization said, and included a stint at Madison Square Garden.
"He witnessed these elephants being beaten for no apparent reason," said Daphna Nachminovitch, PETA's vice president for cruelty investigations, who described the abuse as "consistent" and "routine."
"We've known for years that backstage beatings occur," said Nachminovitch, "but what will strike the audience is that these elephants can't do anything right as far as these workers go.
"This sort of behavior is deeply embedded."
Ringling Bros. officials said they were unaware of the video and could not comment on its content, but they maintained their animals are treated properly.
"PETA is an animal rights extremist group," said Steve Payne, a spokesman for Feld Entertainment, which owns Ringling Bros.
The guy's right about PETA being extremist. See Jacob Laksin, "Animal Rights Extremism Meets Academia." That piece discusses Gary Yourofsky, a hardline radical activist who's been banned in Britain for seeking to "foment or justify terrorist violence in furtherance of particular beliefs ..."
For reasons found at those links, no matter how much I abhor this treatment of the elephants, I just can't get too close to these radical activists ideologically and politically - if not physically.
A white police sergeant accused of racism after he arrested renowned black scholar Henry Louis Gates Jr. at his home insisted Wednesday he won't apologize for his treatment of the Harvard professor, but President Barack Obama said police had acted "stupidly."
Gates has demanded an apology from Sgt. James Crowley, who had responded to the home near Harvard University to investigate a report of a burglary and demanded the scholar show him identification. Police say the 58-year-old at first refused and then accused the officer of racism.
Gates said Crowley walked into his home without his permission and only arrested him as the professor followed him to the porch, repeatedly demanding the sergeant's name and badge number because he was unhappy over his treatment.
I wrote about the Gates case earlier. William Jacobson has a copy of the arrest report.
Also, John McWhorter, who is sympathetic to Gates, explains both Gates' problem during the altercation and, I think, the reasonable perceptions of cops working the inner-city streets:
One night at about one in the morning I was walking to a convenience store. I was in jeans, sneakers and a short-sleeved button-down shirt open over a T-shirt. I had a few days' worth of stubble. I crossed a two-lane street far from the traffic light or crosswalk, and when I saw a car coming at about 25 yards away I broke into a quick trot to get across before it got to where I was.
I hadn't realized that the car was a police car, and the officer quickly turned on the siren, made a screeching U-turn and pulled up to me on the other side of the street. The window rolled down, revealing a white man who would have been played by Danny Aiello if it had been a movie. "You always cross streets whenever you feel like it like that?" he sneered. "I'm sorry, officer," I said; "I wasn't thinking." "Even in front of a police car?" he growled threateningly. My stomach jumped, and I realized that at that moment, despite being a tenured professor at an elite university, to this man I was a black street thug, a "youth."
I simply cannot imagine him stopping like this if a white man of the same age in the same clothes with the same stubble had done the exact same thing; he was trawling through a neighborhood which, unfortunately, does sometimes harbor a certain amount of questionable behavior by young black men on that street at that time of night, and to him, the color of my skin rendered me a suspect.
I explained again as calmly as I could that I had meant no disrespect. I frankly suspect that the educated tone of my voice, so often an inconvenience in my life, was part of what made him pull off - "Not the type," he was probably thinking. But if I had answered in a black-inflected voice with the subtle mannerisms that distinguish one as "street," the encounter would quite possibly have gone on longer and maybe even gotten ugly. He pulled off, and left me shaken and violated.
This kind of thing - i.e. the larger "narrative" - is what informed Henry Louis Gates' response to the police questioning him for breaking into his own house. It's a real problem. There are things that would help us get past it, and training white officers in sensitivity is but one.
As I pointed out, in "Henry Louis Gates, Jr., and the Racial Cesspool at Harvard," my sense is that with Professor Gates' background and social circle, that kind "white sensitivity" is completely alien. "The Man" is always getting down on the black dude. But those dudes commit the most crimes, and profiling is perfectly legitimate as a crimefighting tool when the odds are that a certain demographic is prone to particular types of criminal activity. I frankly can understand the fears of people flying cross-continental airliners when they see Middle Eastern and Muslim passengers on board. Individuals from those groups have committed the most heinous crimes on Americans. Fear and worry when "profiling" people like that makes sense.
That may be politically incorrect. But take that away, and we're left with Henry Louis Gates' belligerence, which included the comeback, "I'll speak with your mama outside," when the policeman requested that Gates step outside.
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