Pay It Backward and Cancel Culture

 

     Western society has undergone dramatic social change in the past decades, but never more  than in the past five year years with the MeToo movement, the pandemic, the death of George Floyd, gender issues, a revision of black history and a nit-picking comb-through of bad celebrity behavior resulting in woke cancellation. 

     Sexism, racism, pedophilia, fat-shaming, homo-phobia and trans-phobia are all social issues being re-scrambled in the dawn of new social protocols. We must retool the collective consciousness and build new inclusive norms for the intellectual and emotional well-being of our fellow citizens. Once, these individual topics were swept to the side, along with the fruitcakes who lived in an alternative universe. Any one of these topics, or individuals, were too contentious to even contemplate public discussion.  

     In our search for a more humane way through the process of scour and scrap, the current stripping away of injustice in one area has bled into layers of injustice in others, affecting aspects of our lives in ways we weren't cognizant. Have we gone too far in our search to rout out the bad apples? Should we leave no stone unturned in our need to hold the guilty accountable? It depends. Some crimes are more obvious and less defensible than others. 

     We have a switch. Instead of paying it forward, aggrieved victims of past injustices are now paying it backward. Like an aneurysm spreading through brain matter, truths from the past are leaking out and bleeding through all sectors of society - rich and poor, male and female (and other), culminating in a righting of the wrong of past injustice. It all started when child sexual abuse came out of the woodwork and it's been in high gear ever since. Personal and public sphere memory banks are being scoured, historical records are being re-examined for discrimination of any nature. Racist military figures and statuary of the past is being dismantled in order to right the wrongs of the past and, where possible, hold those deemed guilty accountable for their speech and/or behavior. But can we really go back and right wrongs when the social norms of two hundred years ago were so different from today's? Social status in the deep south meant owning a few slaves and how many depended on how rich you were. Protesting values of yesterday doesn't change history, nor right any wrongs.  

     One social reckoning started with the outing of Harvey Weinstein and Bill Cosby, not as upstanding, wealthy men of character promoting creative films and television shows for mass consumption, their image for years, but as predatory, serial rapists who bullied, belittled and threatened women. The creation of the MeToo movement, as a result, saw hundreds of women (and men) come forward to speak of their assault at the hands of powerful men. Bill Cosby received 5 - 10 years in prison while Harvey Weinstein, who was sentenced to 23 years, will perhaps die in prison unless he wins an appeal. The death of George Floyd continued in the same vein as the MeToo movement and the list of new movements have grown ever since.   

     We live in a time of social reckoning. We've turned black into white and green into blue. The emperor has no clothes but we pretend he's wearing a tuxedo. But perhaps instead of a reckoning, some are seeking revenge (and money) or to capitalize (make money) on a grocery list of first-amendment infringements. What better way to cash in than to sue for any perceived slights to your sex, your gender, your race, your religion and your obesity.     

Pay It Backwards

     Currently, there has been an outcry of condemnation for the norms of the past - slavery, racism, genocide, segregation, sexual harassment, sexual assault and bullying - to list a few. A comeuppance on behavior has led to charges in some instances. Think Bill Cosby and Harvey Weinstein, two pimply degenerates doing insufficent time. But they are only two of many.  

     The MeToo movement, years past but still in our rearview, has given many women a thoughtful moment, including me. Perhaps I, too, might have acted more assertively in past situations. Here's one example of how I'd like to rewind and do it over:     

     I lived in a small town once upon a time. Phil was a local painter, a grandiose landscape artist around my age, 40, and a good friend of my boyfriend. He was good-looking in an alcoholic Cary Grantish sort of way and had a young girlfriend with a great personality, but it didn't last long as Phil was having a shallower but more meaningful relationship with himself. 

     One night, me and my boyfriend, after drinking and partying and playing music at the bar all night, stumbled over to Phil's cabin to continue drinking and partying. Phil waved us in, drunk and pacing back and forth, excited about his latest painting, the 'best I've ever done'  he said, as he pointed to the large landscape sitting on an easel in the middle of the room. We drank more beer to celebrate. Yippee. Yahoo, my boyfriend yelled, his party call, while Phil bounced around pointing out the various aspects of his painting. He had never been so inspired.  

    After a few hours, we had drunk all the beer, our energy was flagging and it was late and with a lightening sky, it was time to go. My boyfriend and I stumbled towards the door with Phil behind us. But just as I was turning to say so long and stepping over the threshold, Phil's oily fingers grabbed my crotch from behind and twisted my little clam as if setting a minute minder. Just like that. When I turned, his eyes were gleaming. 

      How would the adult in me handle that situation if it happened today? What would I do? Just leave again, as I did? No. Because with age, I have a better sense of how to level the playing field because at that level, it's anybody's game. I've also learned through years of study and research that, for the most part, retribution is therapeutic.

      So here's how the night would have ended. After Phil pinches me, I would turn around and wobble back into his house saying I really had to bloody well pee. Right now! I'd charge back into the living room and while stumbling towards the shit can, I'd trip and drunkenly collapse over his painting, knocking it backwards and taking the table down with it, accidentally smearing his 'best ever' with cigarette butts, beer and ashes. I'd make like I was too drunk to stand, cursing and fumbling as I lie there, humping on the painting just for a lark to lighten the mood, cracking the frame as I lean on it to stand up again on my wobbly legs. So. Sorry.      

   

From One Rapist to Another (Bill Cosby on Harvey Weinstein)

Bill Cosby, the most maniacally conceited, loathsome individual on the planet, is back in the news (no he didn't drug and rape anyone while imprisoned) for his comments on the verdict in the Harvey Weinstein case. For those who don't know, Harvey Weinstein is the ex-Hollywood mogul who was convicted of the rape and sexual assault of two women and who is awaiting his sentencing on March 11th. If he doesn't remain in the hospital with a pretend heart attack, which he 'suffered' when he was put in handcuffs, he will await his sentence at Riker's Island, a holding tank filled with like-minded criminals, where he won't be editing scripts with Bill Cosby.
  

America's rapist Dad, who is doing 5 to 10 years for his own rape conviction, has found it necessary to comment on the guilty verdict befitting Harvey Weinstein. According to Bill's publicist (yes, he still has people working for him), Cosby believes that Harvey Weinstein didn't have a fair trial because the jurors weren't sequestered, therefore, had access to the extensive media coverage surrounding the case and the 'sentiments of public opinion.' Also, to Cosby's indignation, the judge forced the jurors to come up with a verdict even after they were hung on a few points. But Cosby's main complaint is that men, especially wealthy, famous men, will have nowhere to go to find impartiality and justice. So. Sad. He goes further to say that 'if the #metoo movement isn't just about Becky (white women), I would challenge at #metoo and ask them to go back 400+ years and tarnish the names of those oppressors that raped slaves. This is a very sad day in the American Judicial System.'  Message to Bill Cosby:  You would more than likely have raped the slaves, too.

Yes, I agree there should be justice. Bill Cosby should have his upper and lower dental bridges removed and his gums glued together with Gorilla Heavy Duty Construction Adhesive. Then, he should be shot out of a water cannon head first into a brick wall at 30mph right into his C6 section. Perhaps that will dial down all the intellectual guidance he's imparting to his gullible cellmates. Certainly then Lookaway Camille will find the empathy to visit her husband in jail because she hasn't been to visit his sorry ass yet.

Bill Cosby Verdict

No, this is not Bill Cosby's mugshot, but close enough. This is a synthesis of those with whom he'll be sharing the television room in prison, perhaps to catch one of his re-runs as Dr. Huxtable. What I like about this expression is it's missing the smugness that we have all come to know and despise about Bill Cosby, along with his stubborn refusal to man up to his 40+ years of rape crimes.

Although he had hoped to do his crime time in his slippers and pajamas in the comfort of his mansion with its lovely gardens, he has been sentenced to 3 - 10 years in the slammer with dozens of other sex-offenders scratching their balls nearby. Perhaps he can work in the laundry, or peel potatoes in the kitchen, or really get down in the trenches and learn some humility by cleaning toilets and mopping up.

Cosby's wife, Lookaway Camille, is shading his television co-stars who correctly made the choice to distance themselves from both of them. Time you did the same Camille, although I think it's too late for you. You've demonstrated that you're as bad as he is and that you rightly deserved him for the past 54 years of your ersatz marriage.

It May Be Too Late for Camille

I named in a previous post the women who stand by their husbands regardless the cost in humiliation to themselves or their families - Dottie Sandusky defending her pedophile husband who's now in jail, Hillary Clinton defending Bill's philandering but still clocking him upside the head with a well-deserved vase and John Edward's long-suffering wife who is thankfully now dead and buried. And who can forget the loser Ted Haggard's weepy confession of his many sins?

By far the most deluded and cantankerous of all these wives, however, is Camille Olivia Cosby, who refuses to give up on her repellent husband Bill Cosby, even after he has been found guilty in a court of law to raping and assaulting dozens of women over a 50-year period. He is now awaiting his sentence at home in the luxury of his Pennsylvania mansion as she continues to lash out at not only his female accusers, but his fellow actors on television who have decided not to ruin their careers by supporting him.

Camille Cosby married Bill when she was 20 years old and was with him through his breakthrough years as a decorated black actor and comedian in a white man's world. Why wouldn't she defend him? She's been locked in as his manager and look-away wife for more than 50 years as he dallied with other women. She knew he was unfaithful, she can't be that stupid, but did she know he was a necrophiliac? Drugging and raping comatose bodies? Perhaps not. But Camille, it's time to wake up and apologize and ditch that serial rapist you're defending because you, too, will wind up a prisoner, sharing his sentence and tainted legacy until it's too late to recover any of your dignity.


 

Bill Cosby To Lose Medal of Freedom

Bill Cosby took another hit today with the news that a bill has been introduced in Congress that will strip him of his Medal of Freedom. Colleges and universities around the country have already rescinded some of the nearly 60 Honorary Degrees that have been bestowed on him throughout the past four decades. An unexpected blow for a man who, at one of his university talks, said that blacks and "the lower economic people are not holding up their end." 

Bill Cosby is at the center of a sexual assault case which he is now fighting in court. He has refused to admit to his guilt because he says he is innocent of all the charges brought against him and, to add more fuel to the inferno burning through his career, his wife has now been called in to testify at his defamation trial. In spite of the lawsuits filed and the consistent testimonies of the many women involved, Bill Cosby continues to have a large number of supporters who believe that these women are lying, that they somehow colluded with each other to humiliate and defame Bill Cosby.

Cosby, besides the degrees that have been bestowed on him, won an extraordinary amount of awards during his acting career and he's entitled to keep those, but the degrees he obtained from universities without having had to study and earn them, many think should be declared null and void. Even if he has not yet been declared guilty in a court of law, the court of public opinion reads over and out for Bill Cosby.

The comedian once declared in his fireside chats that "we have to start holding each other to a higher standard." His scorn for the young black man of America who "can't keep his pants up" is now falling on deaf ears.

Necrophiliac Jimmy Savile

It doesn't get much sicker than the loathesome Jimmy Savile. We are finally seeing the depths of how deeply depraved, disturbed and despicable he was with the publishing of the final report by NHS and the Department of Health in relation to hospice/hospitals premises in which Jimmy Savile kept rooms and worked. The number of hospitals involved and the number of assaults and rapes are too numerous to mention, but what is clear from the report is that Savile had free reign in all of these hospitals to commit his atrocities on children and vulnerable young women and boys simply because of his star status and fundraising capabilities.

After Savile's death in 2011, reports started to trickle in about his behavior until it became a full-blown investigation with the inception of Operation Yewtree on the 5th of October 2012. By that time, 600 people had come forward, providing investigators with information and allegations as to Savile's crimes, with many of the crimes being 'opportunistic in nature.' The NHS Report states that '73 percent of the cases reported involved individuals under the age of 18 years. The age range given for victims at the time of the abuse were between 8 and 47 years. 82 percent of the victims were female.'

What is remarkable is the number of times he was reported and the number of times victims were ignored or told to be quiet about the incident. The nurses despised him and he was referred to as 'that pervert' who smelled of cigars and body odor. His sexual innuendos were well-known around the hospital. Why wasn't he stopped? In some cases, patients were not believed and told they were making the story up. 'Victims felt unable at the time to report Savile's behavior...because they feared they would not be believed as Savile was seen as being a powerful and influential figure.' One staff member at Stoke Mandeville Hospital who complained about Savile was 'severely reprimanded' and the complaint was dropped. This seems to be the case with many victims of sexual assault as seen with Bill Cosby's detractors, who say that the victims in his case are making it up in order to blackmail him for money.

I have written about Jimmy Savile before and I had hinted that Jimmy was probably a necrophiliac because he was suspiciously enthusiastic about ferrying dead people to the morgue. So I'm not surprised to read that he was seen having sex with a dead body, as reported by several witnesses. 'On one night in the 1970s, a night porter saw Savile wheeling the dead body of a child into a morgue.' Another witness, a therapist, said he was told that Savile 'had been seen trying to have sexual intercourse with dead bodies in the hospital mortuary,' and a nurse also recounted his activities at the mortuary. This activity went on for years. I won't use the word 'evidently' anymore because not only did he screw dead bodies, but he also robbed them of their eyeballs and made jewelry out of them. He boasted that the rings he wore were 'made from the glass eyes of dead bodies at the mortuary.'

Police are now investigating Savile for murder and I wouldn't be surprised if they come up with more shocking discoveries. Afterall, he was friends with Peter Sutcliffe. Stay tuned, the horror that is Jimmy Savile is not over yet.

A Narrow Escape - Perverts in Montreal

 ten years old

Are we living in a world with more sexually deviant men than we ever realized? Or have we just taken the shade off this subject?  Sexual deviancy was never a topic of conversation before the 80's.  However, over the last several years many sexual scandals have been unearthed - the Roman Catholic Church; the Franklin Affair; Jimmy Savile; Dolphin Square; Ian Watkins; the Jerry Sandusky scandal; Jeffrey Epstein; and Bill Cosby - all vilified in the press. This is the tip of the iceberg - there is a prolific number of perverts and baby snatchers out there, too many to mention.

As a child growing up in Montreal, Quebec, I was flashed numerous times by naked men in cars who were handling their wankers as they sat waiting for me to walk by, either by myself or with girl friends. It happened so many times, in fact, I thought it was a normal part of growing up. However, one day I was almost kidnapped. This is the story of what happened to me and my friend Elizabeth when we were ten years old:

One morning, Elizabeth and I decided to go get an ice cream at the shopping center which was located beyond a large field behind my house. We biked through the field until we reached a service road that ran behind the shopping center.

To get on to the road, we had to stop and lift our bikes over a metal guard rail that ran parallel to the road for about 50 feet. Nobody was around. Elizabeth lifted her bike over and rode away towards the shopping center,the front of which was down the service road and around a corner, about 50 feet. I was about to mount my bike and follow when a light blue delivery truck stopped. I looked over as the driver's door opened and a short, bald man with a pot belly climbed down and walked towards me.

“Hey,” he said as he started towards me. I wasn’t sure if he was talking to me and turned to see if anyone else was there. When I turned back I froze. The zipper to his pants was open and bobbing up and down between his fingers like a flagpole in a Fourth of July parade was his penis. He fondled it and continued towards me. He doesn't know his dink in his hand! I thought. I froze and stared at his penis.

“Can you tell me where Morgan's is?” he said, as he stood three feet away. I gawked at his penis and remained silent.
“I asked, can you tell me where Morgan's is?”
“It's over there,” I said, pointing up towards the other end of the road.
“Okay, thanks,” he said, moving towards me. Suddenly, I gripped the handlebars of my bike and ran as fast as I could around the corner of the shopping center to where Elizabeth was waiting.

I told her about what happened but we went into the drugstore anyway, ate ice cream, bought comics, bought some gum and wandered around the other stores. An hour later, we decided to go back to Elizabeth's house.

“There he is.” I pointed to the blue truck in the parking lot across from our bikes.
“Where?” she asked. I pointed again and as we looked, he waved.
“Right there. The blue truck. That’s him! He waved!” Elizabeth looked and he waved again.
"What are we going to do?" I said.
"I don't know. Let's wait until he goes."

We waited and returned half an hour later. He was still there, sitting in his truck.

“Let's go really fast,” said Elizabeth.
“I don’t want to go.”
“I have to go home.”

Elizabeth got on her bike and I followed her around the corner of the shopping center to the guardrail where she lifted her bike over. I started to lift my bike when the blue truck drove around the corner and stopped in the same place as before. This time, he quickly got out of his truck, looking around as he hurried towards me, his penis in his hand again.

“Hey,” he said. I stared at his dick, my knees shaking.

“I want to show you something. I just have a little thing I want to show you,” he said, coming towards me. Just as he reached for my elbow, I dropped my bike and leaped over the guardrail and ran back towards the corner of the shopping center. He ran after me.  I stopped and crouched against the wall of the shopping center, putting my hands over my head as he loomed over me.

Suddenly, we heard “Hey! Hey!” coming from the field and we both looked up. Some older boys were running towards us,waving their arms. The man hesitated before running back to his truck and raced off.

The older boys ran up, out of breath, as I told them what had happened. 

Back at Elizabeth's house, the police were there asking questions and I didn't know what was more excruciating, the pervert with his dick in his hand, or answering the questions that the policeman fired at me.

A few days later, we were taken by a detective to downtown Montreal. 

I got in the car with the him and we picked up Elizabeth. It was a rainy night and the wipers scraped back and forth across the windshield as we sat silently in the front of the car. Finally, the detective parked the car in an underground parking lot, leaving his headlights and windshield wipers on as he  pointed over the dashboard to a vehicle.

"Is this the truck?" he asked. I pulled myself up and looked over the dashboard.
"Yeah, that’s it.“  My heart pounded. Elizabeth nodded.

I looked at the license plate and thought how amazing it was that Elizabeth had thought to memorize the number before she ran away, something I would never have thought to do.

The detective drove us back home. The house was still dark when I went into the living room; everybody had gone to bed except for my mother.

“Did you see the truck?“ she asked.
“Yeah, we did.“
“Okay, get ready for bed. It‘s late.“

My father didn't mention it again, nor did my mother, but I suppose they knew what happened in the end to the man in the blue truck. There were times when I started to ask my father what happened, but every time I did the image of that man making time with his penis loomed up and stopped me. The whole thing was just too embarrassing for any of us to talk about.

Bill Cosby - Rapist in Disguise

I never found Bill Cosby funny at all, but many people did and he was enormously popular. He evolved into America's father figure, a person to look up to and respect. He was the first black actor to have equal billing in a television show starring with Robert Culp in I Spy, attained success as a stand-up comic, created the Fat Albert franchise, was a spokesman for Jello-O, and in the 1990's, reached a peak in his popularity with The Bill Cosby Show. He was the lovable Cliff Huxtable, the family man who doled out fatherly advice to his children as seamlessly as Cosby's pharmacist doled out Quaaludes to him.

Doctor of Humane Letters

Along the way, Cosby garnered honorary degrees from more than a dozen universities, including Doctor of Humane Letters. He became the compassionate educator of young, black youth. However, he alienated a lot of African Americans when he waxed philosophical about blacks, blaming them for their social woes by saying: 'we have to start holding each other to a higher standard' and 'it's not about color, it's about behavior.' He said, 'We are not a pitiful race of people. We are a bright race, who can move with the best. But we are in a new time, where people are behaving in abnormal ways and calling it normal.' There you have it. Bill never viewed his drugging and raping women as abnormal behavior.

Andrea Constand

The American public has discovered that not only is Bill Cosby a comedian, actor, author, activist, philanthropist, musician and educator, but also a rapist, liar and adulterer. He was charged in civil court ten years ago with sexual assault by Andrea Constand, a woman who accused him of drugging and assaulting her, but he was able to quietly settle that with money, a broom and a rug.

This charge is back in the spotlight as a result of the stand-up comic Hannibal Buress discussing Cosby in his comedy routine, which was video recorded by a reporter in the audience and then downloaded onto Youtube. Hannibal discusses rape frequently in his stand-up skits, but this time, his comments on Cosby's rape charges went viral almost overnight, putting the spotlight back on Bill's extracurricular activities of pursuing young white women, drugging them and masturbating over their corpses bodies.

However, Hannibal mentions Bill, not because of his indignation over the assaults, but because he's rankled over Bill's disparaging comments about black people. To quote Hannibal:  “It’s even worse because Bill Cosby has the fuckin’ smuggest old black man persona that I hate. He gets on TV, ‘Pull your pants up black people, I was on TV in the 80s! I can talk down to you because I had a successful sitcom!’ Yeah, but you rape women, Bill Cosby, so turn the crazy down a couple notches."

As I wrote about in an earlier article, we now have the dutiful wife standing by. Camille Cosby had to know the guy was a serial philanderer, but did she know he had reached this depth of depravity? This scandal is not going to disappear down a memory hole, so do yourself a favor Camille, take his ass to the cleaners and get on with your life. Nobody blames you.