People often ask me: "Cridmo, how fuckin' cool is twitter?"

The answer is very... Twitter is very fuckin' cool.

Last night at about midnight the "police" had a hostage "sitch" (term of art) at this shopping "center".

It's not that I care... But the twitter feed from @LAScanner was awesome... He's just a guy who listens to a police scanner and shares what he hears. When your only experience of such things is TV news it's incredibly dramatic to read the sequence, even seven hours later.

And even if you could stomach watching a local news channel, those people had already gone off the air. There were hundreds of people in a movie theater near the crime scene ("Gangster Squad") who were locked into the cinema under police protection, so there was kind of an Aurora odor to it all.

I still haven't read how it ends, so for all I know there were hundreds of violent killings, or it's still going on. Or (most likely) it ended 20 minutes after I fell asleep last night.

Twitter. I loves the twitter.

Scanner guy fell asleep before it was over. Who can blame him?

The parking fees in that place can wound and maim. It's just a weird, weird place for a shopping mall, with nothing special about it at all. When it opened, I thought it would be over in 6 months, and that was before the crash.

This story got even worse.

(Note final graf:

The report also did not challenge the assertions of Mark Thompson, the head of the BBC at the time, that he had no role in killing the Savile investigation and was unaware of the sexual abuse accusations until he left the BBC last September. Mr. Thompson is now president and chief executive of The New York Times Company.

Poignant, no?)

Listen, I'm not soliciting nominations or trying to start a witch hunt, but it's really surprising to me that this didn't happen in the United States. We have plenty of loathsome, untalented entertainers, but the boomer generation Brits really set a new low standard with that guy.

Is it at least possible that we have some subtle discernment in our celebrity-making machinery that deserves some respect. Seriously. Savile isn't ours, and we should be proud and/or grateful.

>> it's really surprising to me that this didn't happen in the United States.

I think Britain is a much more insulated society, though they love their scandals as much as we do. They also have freedom of the press restrictions.

Sure... But Elizabeth pinned a medal on that sumbitch. Elizabeth! And the whole point of a powerless monarch is that she can sit outside in the lobby and judge vibes.

I'd never heard of him before (roughly) the Steyn piece... But the guy creeps me out from a grave and ocean & a continent away. America has had so very many bullshit famous people... Certainly as many as Great Britain, and after showing just as much courage in a horrible war. How did a nation devolve to where such a pervert could coin a catchphrase and make a living in media?

You're right about this, one way or the other... An inability to challenge and punish consequential liars, either by or within the media, has gotta be part of their problem.

Elizabeth and the Pope! And that was the GOOD Pope!

It's a final consequence of celebrity worship. Look at the whole Kanye \ Kardashian spectacle right now. Neither of them represent my morals or interests, but try to go a day without hearing about either of them.

Not to run away with this, but people turn a blind eye everyday for a chance in the sunlight. Look at all the parents that left the children in Michael Jackson's hands for sleepovers.

Right now I have a very close friend who is grieving the death of a parent. A sexually, physically abusive parent who spent many years in jail for those often repeated crimes, but is now revered by the child left behind. You have to wonder...

(Reminds me of "Stand By Me" where the narator talks about his friend who defends his Dad who burned his ear off with a stove, but the narator didn't give a shit about his own non-abusive father. As they said in Fight Club, "You know how they say you're always hurt by the people you love? It goes both ways.)

"What twelve-year-old staggering from the dressing room would want to take on a confidant of palace and police?"

I think that sums it up. The rich & powerful who Savile ingratiated himself with had pretty daughters & granddaughters too. But he always kept his pecker in his tracksuit around them. The upper classes did not believe he was a monster because he didn't act like a monster around their children. He only raped & terrorized the children of ordinary, lower-class folk.

I missed that line, but was thinking about the bigger picture earlier... It would be one thing if, you know, it was the county sheriff who turned a blind eye. (Consider the nightmare in Ohio that people have been talking about.) Throughout history, whenever things like this have happened, it's been a punishing horror for the victims.

But imagine if you were one of at least 200 (or perhaps a few thousand) victims who turned on your TV set and saw that horrible man being given an award by Queen of Mother Fucking England in the 21st Century. And then they smiled at each other and he bowed and she nonchalantly walked off.

What would you think of Western Civ?

I'd turn away from sanity.

Seriously, I'll never forget after 9/11 when Elizabeth allowed herself to photographed singing the national anthem... The United States national anthem... As we were winding up for war in Afghanistan. (Who do you think those red rockets were glaring at, exactly?)

But it only takes one of these to remind me that royalty is, in all contexts, without exception (motherfucking EVER), reprehensible.

Apocryphal story heard today:

Guy is pulled over by a State Trooper for speeding. The guy says to the trooper "Yeah, I know I was speeding. Can I buy tickets to the Policeman's Balls to get out of this?"

Trooper replies "Policemen really don't have any balls."

The trooper stands for a second and then says "Have a good day. Go on your way."

People often ask me: "Cridmo, what's it like to be right about everything, and then to have your impulsive expressions take root as conventional wisdom?"

The answer is that I'm cool with it. Better to know the truth in your bones than wait for the needy kids to catch up, y'know?

"Is it at least possible that we have some subtle discernment in our celebrity-making machinery that deserves some respect. Seriously. Savile isn't ours, and we should be proud and/or grateful."

I think it more likely that this is sheer luck.

The parking fees in that place can wound and maim. It's just a weird, weird place for a shopping mall, with nothing special about it at all. When it opened, I thought it would be over in 6 months, and that was before the crash.

Posted by: Crid [cridcomment at gmail] at January 11, 2013 7:13 AM

I went to that theater once, about 4 years ago, to see a movie on Thanksgiving. It is a strange place and I've never wanted to go back there. The layout, the location, everything about it was weird ju-ju. I used to drive by it all the time, would always tell myself that I should check it out to see if anything had changed about it, but never brought myself around to it. Now I know I never will.