Some Musings and DVD Reviews

I have been sick pretty much the bulk of the past week.  Sinus infections truly suck. Thanks to being slightly better off moneywise, I went and blew in some money on a couple of one-season television DVD series.  Against my better judgment, I bought the 1960s turkey It's About Time.  One could review the show in two words besides "it stinks."  Those words are these:  Sherwood Schwartz.  That is really all one needs to know.  Like his semi-hit and cult favorite Gilligan's Island, the show had a catchy theme song, appealed to children, a Robinson Crusoe plot (and in this series combined with Twilight Zone-type time travel), some truly talented character actors (Imogene Coca, Joe E. Ross, Frank Aletter, Jack Mullaney, and Mike Mazurki), and a plethora of rotten scripts.  Unlike Gilligan's Island, it lasted just one season thanks to audience indifference and critical rotten eggs hurled at it.

I mean it.  I liked the show when it first aired, when I was in the sixth grade in 1966, but, looking at it fifty years later, it is just awful. The only thing the show had going for it was the theme music.  As an aside, Sherwood Schwartz, the show's creator, wrote the theme just as he did for Gilligan's Island and The Brady Bunch.   In my view, he should have stuck with music.  He would have made far less money, but he wouldn't be remembered today as being the Sultan of the Vast Wasteland.

I will try to get through the show, but it is going to be hell to do it.

On a better note, the other television DVD I got was 1957's Decoy, which was a syndicated series set and filmed in New York City.  Unique for its time, it focused on women in law enforcement, with Beverly Garland playing the protagonist.  Her character was the first television female character to be the main character of a series.  It is a really good show, with stories, like Dragnet, based on real cases.  It has almost a documentary feel to it.  Since it was filmed in New York, one gets a good look at how the city appeared in the late 1950s.  There is also a booklet with the DVD explaining the history of the series and how that series helped pave the way for women in law enforcement in that city.  It was dedicated to the women who worked for NYPD.

I also picked up a DVD collection of seven Jean Harlow films, which I won't review here today because I don't feel like it.  However, instead of buying a DVD of David Stenn's 2007 documentary, Girl 27, I downloaded the film to my Kindle Fire because the DVD is out of print and damned expensive to get used (about 70 bucks from Amazon.com sellers).  David Stenn is a writer whose work I am familiar.  He wrote two biographies (edited by Jacqueline Onassis when she was an editor at Doubleday before she died in 1994):  one of Clara Bow and one of Jean Harlow.  I have both of these books, which were praised by critics and considered definitive works.  Stenn always does his homework when he writes books.  When he was researching the Harlow book (called Bombshell), he came across the rape scandal at MGM where a young dancer named Patricia Douglas was raped by an MGM salesman when she left a drunken party as part of a convention that was held by the studio in 1937 to celebrate its record sales.  She tried to get legal help and was stopped every single step of the way.  MGM owned not just a studio and its stars, it owned every single apparatus in Hollywood and L.A. County including the district attorney's office and the police department.  If people think women in Hollywood have it bad now, and they do, it was much, much, much worse years ago.  The casting couch reigned supreme, with the likes of Darryl F. Zanuck being the very worst of these louses who promised starlets they could be famous if they gave him what he wanted during his lunch breaks.  Douglas was raped by a salesman out of Illinois, I think it was, after he dragged her from the party into a parked car and beat her up on top of raping her.  She was only twenty years old at the time (she died in 2003), but she was very, very sheltered when it came to men.  The rape destroyed her life and her relationships with others, including straining her relationships with her mother and her daughter.  Stenn befriended her, wrote an article about her, and a few years following her death at 86, released Girl 27.  

I always prided myself a bit for knowing quite a bit about classic Hollywood, but I had never heard of this case at all.  That is how successful MGM was in obliterating it from the public conscious.  No studio would get away with this now, but it was a different era.

I think the fact there is all this emphasis now on sexual harassment in Hollywood and other areas of public life that the movie has been reexamined and more people have bought used copies, thus inflating the price on the second-hand market.  I always prefer the DVD version, but I have to take what I can get.

Some have criticized Stenn inserting himself through the film, but in a way it was like a true-life mystery story, with him being the "investigator" trying to track down the seemingly elusive Douglas.  He found her in a small apartment in Las Vegas, where she had lived for many years.  Still sharp mentally, she recounted the horrors of the evening, the futility of trying to get justice, and the tragedy of her life.  At first she resented the intrusion, but she grew to like and trust Stenn enough to open up about the rape, which she called "the attack."

Good movie, well worth seeing.

And that is all I am going to say about anything today.  I am trying to get my strength back up for work tomorrow.

What An Embarrassment for His Mother

to have raised such a screwed-up twerp as this "pick-up artist" who couldn't get a woman if his life depended on it.

Not only has he embarrassed his mother for raising such an idiot, but he has virtually guaranteed he will NEVER be able to find a regular job or will be forced to change his name.

However, his face is rather memorable.

He has to realize there is a limit to free speech. Many countries do not tolerate the bullshit that he spews on his woman-hating blog. He also needs to know what "satire" is and not claim it after he gets into trouble:

This is the man at the center of a worldwide storm after advocating legalizing rape on private property - in a sweat-stained T-shirt at the door of his mother's house.

Daryush 'Roosh' Valizadeh, 36, the self-proclaimed 'King of Masculinity' called police after receiving death threats from around the world and canceled a series of 'tribal meetings' in 45 countries set for this weekend.

Valizadeh, who is at the center of public protests at home and in Canada, Australia and the UK, is on record as advocating women be banned from voting, describing a woman's value as dependent on her 'fertility and beauty', and stating that women with eating disorders make the best girlfriends.

I am guessing he is likely a head case. However, what is more scary than him is that he has a following of thousands of screwed-up guys who think women exist for their own pleasure and use.

Guys, women are not objects whose only purposes are for screwing and having babies.

This "Advice" Is So Offensive It About Makes Me Pull My Hair Out

This "expert" is dispensing advice that is long outdated, advice that was popular in the 1970s when rape really became a topic of public discussion and there were changes in laws helping victims. These days, though, we know better. Self-defense is basically useless when a woman has a gun to her head or a knife at her throat. Taking courses gives them a false sense of security. But, more disturbing, is the mentality behind this approach. It says that men, poor babies, can't help themselves but rape, so it is up to WOMEN not to be victims. I, like almost all women, were brainwashed with this crap, the goal of which had nothing to do with personal safety and everything to do with keeping women out of the public sphere unless they have a man to "protect" them from other men. Women can't go out alone at night, they can't travel alone, they can't eat out alone, they can't hike alone, they can't bicycle alone, they can't hike alone, they can't live alone, they can't do one goddamned thing alone. Men, of course, could do everything they wanted at all hours of the night. If men got attacked by other men, well, nobody ever blamed the victim for being out where he shouldn't. However, women get this shit all the time hurled at them.

The fact that most men DON'T rape is proof that men can be taught, from an early age, to respect others' personal space, to respect girls and women, to not see girls and women as objects to abused. Not hard, folks.

I couldn't give a shit less what perpetrators are "thinking." They don't have any right to perpetrate a crime on others.

Women Have the Right To Freedom of Movement

Some comments I made following the controversial interview second-wave feminist Susan Brownmiller made the other day about rape:

Women are far more likely to be raped by their husbands or their significant others than they are by strangers. Yet they are told to be watchful of the boogeyman in the bushes and can't do one thing alone. They are catcalled on the street by rude men because the message being conveyed by these jerks is you have no right to be on the streets alone. You have to have a man as a security guard, I guess, in these jerks' minds. That is not living a life at all. It is not living at all if you have to be paranoid. This is why 90 percent of the comments here are utterly stupid even if they think they are conveying "common sense." The older I get, the less tolerant I am of stupid beliefs. Restricting women's freedom of movement in the remote chance they are ever raped by strangers is not okay. And the rape culture is really all about restricting women's right to their own space, to self-determination.

I don't know how many times I was told over my 60 years by my sisters, by my mother, by co-workers, by friends, by acquaintances, that I should never ride my bike alone, I should never jog alone, I should never hike alone, I should never go to the movies alone, I should never walk in the dark alone, I should never travel alone, I should not live alone, I should never do one single thing alone. It infuriated me to hear this garbage nonstop, but I did all of those things and MORE on my own. I was not going to not enjoy life because of a remote risk somebody might rape me. I was not going to stop living because of this idiocy. ALL women should do the same.

Brownmiller is wrong on both this issue and domestic violence issues. She apparently hasn't read her own book since she sent it to the publisher 40 years ago. The current rape activism is a natural outgrowth of what she wrote. It is long overdue to put the blame where it squarely belongs, and that is on the men who rape.

Susan Brownmiller Is Of a Different Generation

and nothing is more indicative of that fact than her recent remarks about college rape culture. In her time, it was just assumed rape was there, there was no hope to change men, and that it was up to women to avoid situations where rape could happen. In other words, women were told they should never go out alone, travel alone, eat alone, live alone, or do anything else alone because some boogeyman was going to grab them and rape them.

The fact is victims are not to blame for being victimized. The blame rests SOLELY on the perpetrators.

You want to reduce or eliminate rape? Start raising men to respect women, that women's bodies are not men's to do whatever the hell they want. Restrict access to porn, which is extremely damaging to male-female relationships.

Women have the right to go wherever they want, whenever they want. Men have NO right whatsoever to violate their personal space.

How hard is that to understand, people?

Brownmiller is 80 years old, which is hard to believe.

Update: Fixed link.

Despicable To Shit All Over Dead Public Figures

With all due respect, this author is completely full of shit. How "courageous" to come up with the story now that Judy Lewis, Clark Gable, and Loretta Young are dead. I am astounded people believe anything about dead public figures not realizing that nobody can sue on their behalf. These so-called family members are trying to make a buck off of something where the principals are not around to defend themselves. Disgusting.

EVERYBODY knew Gable and Young had an affair during the making of 1935's Call of the Wild, which I have written about on this blog. It is truly despicable that a son and daughter-in-law, or I should say it is almost all the daughter-in-law rather than the son, would come up with this bullshit decades after Gable is dead and can't defend himself and after Young and Lewis are dead also. Young should have disinherited both of them.

Most likely Young, a devout Catholic, felt shame over what she did, and she was known to pursue married men like Gable and Spencer Tracy. That of course isn't judging her, but it is a leap in logic to say Young was ever raped by Gable or anybody else. She was pretty damned independent, and I never could see any man trying to dictate her life other than on her terms.

The daughter-in-law is like B.D. Hyman and a few other showbiz relatives who seek to capitalize on their dead relatives and never mind truth. The current popular subject is Cosby and rape, and what better way to keep your name in the headlines and make up a story that your mother-in-law also was raped and by the "King of Hollywood," no less.

Some commenters pointed out numerous errors in the story, and the author and Young's daughter-in-law sheepishly acknowledged them and made the corrections. However, if as an author you are that careless with relatively minor details, what makes anybody think you aren't equally reckless with the big ones?

Call me skeptical.

This Article Should Mark the End of Joan Jett's Career

I am surprised more outrage hasn't been voiced over the allegations in this article.

It was bad enough that Kim Fowley, a vile son of a bitch, committed heinous acts, but it is even worse to be a WITNESS to those acts and not do one damned thing about it. Worse still is if you actually sat around and LAUGHED at them.

It is only because of all of the allegations against fellow perv Bill Cosby that Jackie Fuchs ever came forward with her story of her rape and trauma.

I am sure there are more stories about other prominent people pulling the same shit during that era.

How Is It Some Idiots Get Paid or Get Notoriety for Saying or Writing Something Stupid,

while many of us out here try to embark on writing careers and either can't get published or that we can't afford to strike out on our own? How is it that morons like this woman, who I never heard of before her outrageous statements defending rapists, are allowed a forum?

It's like trying to justify the lynching of black people when the KKK was running roughshod over the law.

Rape is actually a form of terrorism. It's long overdue that we take it seriously.

Nobody has the right to another's body without that person's consent. Men are NOT possessed with "uncontrollable urges" to have sex with anybody who walks, and it is NOT women's responsibility to either give in or have to fight them off. Women should NOT have their lives restricted because of some fear they will be raped.

I get so sick of this.

Corruption in a Small Town

We really haven't come a long way in this country regarding rape.

The victim and her mother spoke out:

Since the morning her daughter had been left nearly unconscious in the frost of the home’s front lawn, this northwest Missouri community had come to mean little besides heartache.

Few dispute the basic facts of what happened in the early morning hours of Jan. 8, 2012: A high school senior had sex with Coleman’s 14-year-old daughter, another boy did the same with her daughter’s 13-year-old friend, and a third student video-recorded one of the bedding scenes. Interviews and evidence initially supported the felony and misdemeanor charges that followed.

Yet, two months later, the Nodaway County prosecutor dropped the felony cases against the youths, one the grandson of a longtime area political figure.

It's all about connections. The guy did it, and he should do the time, not be able to go on with his life as if nothing happened. He reminds me of that creep Alex Kelly, only Kelly was aided and abetted by his parents when he went on the run.

The town's reaction was way beyond the pale.


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Etc.

A Texas politician has determined he wants to reduce the number of standardized tests in the state from FIFTEEN to "only" four or five.

Pearson no doubt has been making a killing for all of those extra tests.
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Rape education should be focused on men and boys to respect women and to NOT do it.

I get so sick and tired of the idea that women need to live their lives in paranoia, in total fear, to even go anywhere.

Women have just as much right as men to go where they want and when they want without fear of being raped or worse.

THAT is the bottom line.

Some on the "Left" Muddy the Waters

regarding "forcible" rape when a simple Google search will yield information explaining why there is such a term as "forcible rape" to differentiate between it and "statutory rape."

Not all LEGALLY-defined rape involves consent issues; some, as with statutory rape, have to do with age. There is an assumption people between 16 and 18 don't have the maturity to consent, but again that doesn't mean in fact these people involved didn't consent.

Statutory rape is penalized differently than "forcible" rape, depending on the age of the so-called "assailant." Generally the age difference has to be three years or more.

More info from Nolo Press, which is a reliable source of information.

Typically people prosecuted for statutory rape are charged because some irate parent of the younger party, usually a female, wants to break up the relationship and retaliate against the older party.

However, what is interesting to note is even MINORS can be charged with it!

A minor can be guilty of statutory rape of another minor. If two 16-year-olds engage in sexual intercourse, in many states each could be prosecuted for statutory rape. In other states, only males can be prosecuted for statutory rape. Of course, such cases are rarely prosecuted. Even when they are, laws in many states make concessions to the frequency of sexual intercourse among minors in modern society. So long as one minor is not more than three years older than the other minor, statutory rape is often a misdemeanor rather than a felony.

There aren't enough jails and prisons to house the millions of people who have flouted these statutes. That's why they are rarely prosecuted.

Stuck in a Time Warp

You would think after the second and third waves of feminism, attitudes toward women and rape would change, but apparently they haven't changed a whole lot.

The Sigma Phi Epsilon survey validates many people's concerns that rape is normalized within the fraternity culture. Rape also happens in work places, churches, schools, and homes. Sexual violence is a crime that is perpetrated against women, men, teens, and children. The National Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence Survey, conducted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in 2010, recently revealed results that confirm that sexual violence occurs in our communities at an alarming rate. Nearly one in five women surveyed said they had been raped or had experienced an attempted rape at some point in their lives, and one in four reported having been beaten by an intimate partner. One in six women reported being the victims of stalking.

The "rape culture" still exists. Women are continually told they need to live their lives in paranoia because "the men can't help it" and have to take precautions for their safety. Education should be aimed at men not to rape, to respect women. Women should have every right to move about whenever they want, wherever they want.

Miscellaneous News

Engaging in horse play will cost Rodell Vereen three years of his freedom.
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Speaking of horses, Zenyatta, who is undefeated, will be challenging the boys in this Saturday's Breeders' Cup Classic and be the first female ever to win the major race on the card.

I prefer she enter the Distaff rather than face possible defeat. She has won all of her 13 starts.

Classic winners Mine That Bird and Summer Bird are expected to run in the race.
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The Richmond, California, gang rape victim says violence is always the wrong choice.
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Legimate Questions

are being asked about the Austrian justice system where there doesn't seem to be a punishment that appropriately fits the heinous crimes of Josef Fritzl.

Fifteen years is way too lenient, regardless of the likelihood he would not live out his prison term.

In this country, he would get life without parole and, if he lived in Texas or Florida, he'd even face the death penalty.

In the meantime, authorities are looking for witnesses in the case, including every person who lived in the Fritzl house over the past 24 years.