I Hope It Wasn't Staged

Somebody should have done that to her a long time ago.

Murder by Nancy Grace

Nancy Grace has once again proven she is the most disgusting public figure in the United States. Her relentless attacking of people accused of crimes regardless of extenuating circumstances or guilt in order to increase ratings is a travesty. She is lucky she wasn't disbarred in Georgia after having gotten into major trouble with higher courts for prosecutorial misconduct.

Now she has under her belt at least two suicides as a result of her on-the-air rants:

Medrano admitted to drinking a fifth of vodka in the hours leading up to her son's death, according to the criminal complaint. Medrano also told police she had gone to bed at midnight, but woke at 3 a.m. and fed the baby formula. She woke three more times and spoke with her other children, but did not leave the couch.

A preliminary blood-alcohol test by police showed Medrano at .11 percent. The legal limit for driving is .08 percent.

About a week after she was charged, flame-throwing CNN talk-show host Nancy Grace featured the case on her show. Grace held up a fifth of cheap vodka and said she was going to see how many glasses she could get out of the bottle.

She poured at least nine as the words "vodka mom" appeared on the screen.

Grace said during the show that she had attempted to contact Medrano at her house. She then spoke to a reporter from her show and two officials unfamiliar with the case as she theorized that Medrano had been sleeping on her child for hours. "There was a long period of time that baby's life could have been saved," Grace said.

Why she is still on the air after this is a mystery to me. She already had gotten into trouble over Melinda Duckett's suicide. There is no accounting for taste, I guess, when there is money to be made.

News, Etc.

Don't wear such a low-cut gown, Nancy.

Why hasn't she been booted off DWTS already?
_____

Since the end didn't happen for the world, the end happened for Harold Camping.

He's not dead, just retired.

Entertainment of the Day

Two pit bulls go at it:

Miscellaneous

Since Melinda Duckett CHOSE to be interviewed by Nancy Grace, it is hardly Grace's fault the woman offed herself.

The lawsuit is absolutely ludicrous, no matter if one likes Nancy Grace or not.

This stupid Huffington Post entry thinks Grace should pay the piper because he doesn't like her, but that's not the way it works in the courts.

The one thing Grace did here that I disagree with was airing the interview. But that's it. The Duckett family IS trying to cash in on her death.
_____

Today I was going to hike all the way up to the Five Lakes Trail on the Alpine Meadows road on the way to Tahoe City. I went almost all the way up, but the weather was starting to look bad, so I turned around and went back down the trail. I went close to five miles round trip anyway.

I did encounter some rain on the way back. I just wasn't going to take a chance on lightning storms.

I took no pictures or video of the outing.
_____

As the World Turns.

Nancy Grace had her twins on Sunday.
_____

Regnery Publishing, an outfit which is known for bulk sales of its right-wing diatribes masquerading as books, is in deep legal shit:

In a suit filed in United States District Court in Washington yesterday, the authors Jerome R. Corsi, Bill Gertz, Lt. Col. Robert (Buzz) Patterson, Joel Mowbray and Richard Miniter state that Eagle Publishing, which owns Regnery, “orchestrates and participates in a fraudulent, deceptively concealed and self-dealing scheme to divert book sales away from retail outlets and to wholly owned subsidiary organizations within the Eagle conglomerate.”

As Tony Bennett said in that immortal movie classic, The Oscar, "You lie down with pigs, you come up smellin' like garbage."
_____

As the World Turns II.

Chaz Higgs professed his innocence so much, he slashed his wrist this morning in a suicide attempt.

The trial is set to resume Thursday, and Higgs' attorney predicts a mistrial.

The attorney appears not to be too smart by allowing Higgs to testify in his defense, considering the fact he would face cross-examination by the prosecution.

And what does Kathy Augustine's family think of this latest stunt?

Houston said he was told by the Higgs family that he wanted to testify yesterday to tell his story, and then was ready to join his wife.
“We don’t know why this happened,” Houston said. “But yesterday he was reliving the events and I’m told that he waited a year to clear his name so he could join his wife. It was his goal to do that for his family.”
But Augustine’s brother, Phil Alfano, said the suicide attempt was a hoax.
“It’s just another act,” Alfano said after the hearing. “He’s a cold, calculating SOB, that’s all this is.”
Augustine’s daughter, Dallas, agreed.
“He does this whenever he gets backed into a corner,” she said, referring to the suicide attempt he made in the days following Augustine’s death. Dallas found him and called 911.

Where is Nancy Grace on this one?
_____

I can't ignore the big story of today.
_____

Speaking of Grace, now I know why she was coy about marriage and kids when somebody asked her about that when she gave her lecture in Reno in April.

Apparently she's known this guy for decades.

More here.
_____

As the World Turns.

The Reno Gazette-Journal has a report of the Nancy Grace appearance last night.

I'd say there were more than 400 people there.
_____

I Just Returned

from hearing Nancy Grace speak at the Pioneer Center for the Performing Arts in downtown Reno. Earlier in the evening, she was on television live from Reno talking about today's tragedy. She said tonight she will be in Virginia tomorrow to cover the Virginia Tech story.

Grace appears to me to be much more personable and likable in person than she does on television. I suppose being in entertainment (and hell, even as an attorney) one takes on a persona and does a lot of acting. She's also on the short side (she said she is 5-feet-1) and describes herself as "chubby." I for one would not describe her as such; she is far from anorexic, but she is more normal looking than most women on the idiot box. Tonight she talked about her career as a prosecutor, with some funny anecdotes as well as some sad stories. She talked about how she became a lawyer, but she was very careful talking about her fiance's murder, not after what the New York Observer wrote about her. Through all of the cases she prosecuted, she felt the ten years she did it were the best of her life.

Grace said at the beginning of the talk that she didn't feel she was a New Yorker until 9-11. She described her experiences during and following that tragedy. She noted she was close friends with Barbara Olson, who was killed at the Pentagon, while she often disagreed with her (especially regarding the bogus Clinton impeachment). She said she didn't know Ted, who made a semi-career as a professional widower following Barbara's death (and remarrying last year a woman he met at the 2002 Kentucky Derby, and anybody who likes the Kentucky Derby isn't all bad in my book), but she knew Barbara pretty well.

After the talk, she answered some questions from the audience. Grace believes that if our friend O.J. were tried today, the result would have been different than in 1995. That's because the L.A.P.D. had such a bad reputation (and I would add the Rodney King case was very much present in that courtroom). She answered questions about Aruba, about the Darren Mack case (where she couldn't understand why he didn't receive the death penalty--I would hazard a guess that both families were against it, but I don't know that for a fact), and of course the wonderful Chaz Higgs, the alleged killer of his wife, the late state controller Kathy Augustine. She also believes that the son of Melinda Duckett is dead. She didn't elaborate further, since that story got her into hot water.

When I first arrived at the center, there were few people there. I was beginning to think nobody would show. But it wasn't long before a lot of people showed up at the last minute. I'd say at least as many people showed up for this talk as showed up for the Lesley Stahl talk of a year ago.