I thought I was going to spend the morning talking about the fact that American Apparel may well be headed out of business, not because it’s too damn expensive to make clothes in the United States without the 1800 illegal workers that were lost in a raid (although I’d like to point out that they could have gotten legal workers for the same price in someplace with lower costs than Los Angeles), but because the banksters have maneuvered them into a place where they may have to default on debt. How dare they disrupt the Latte Economy by making stuff here!
But I had the audacity of sleep.
Somehow I must have missed last night that WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange had been arrested on rape charges. Doesn’t matter any more, as the charges have already been dropped.
What the heck happened? Was it a simple mistake, quickly corrected? Or was it as Mr. Assange suggests, “a dirty trick,” a clumsy attempt to shut up WikiLeaks for saying something that somebody in power doesn’t like? And no, I am not accusing anybody in the current administration, as surely a site like WikiLeaks has made more than one enemy. Heck, maybe it was the Mormons!
More to the point, how are various news sources going to treat this story? Will it quickly die down like the nothing story it ought to be (“man accused of something, charges dropped, everything back to normal”)? Or will this linger, with the incident being brought up every time WikiLeaks makes the news (“accused rapist Julian Assange…” “WikiLeaks, headed by suspected rapist…” etc.)?
Rape is a serious crime. This incident shows one of two things: that anybody can accuse a man of rape without any evidence and get charges brought; or that anybody can get off of rape charges if they know the right people, have enough money, get enough publicity, whatever. Either way sucks for everybody, both male and female. Accusations like this, that are decided to be without merit, do more to harm victims of rape than any stupid comic. (For the record, I laughed at the comic and the answer to criticism as well).
This thing is too heavy. Have some amusing images!
Ok, In Closing: If you can help a kid near you afford school supplies, please do; don’t take your checkbook or anything else you won’t critically need to the airport; teddy; 8 banks taken over by the Feds yesterday; new normal?; funny, when you add “profit” to something it costs more; “Is it smart to redshirt boys?” (Usually, NO!); unemployment rates suck (CNN’s interactive map will show foreclosure activity too!); why books are better than e-books; on visiting a Creation Museum. Have a great weekend.