The UVa story has crumbled into a pile of pathos as heartbreaking as can be imagined.

She dreamed of pursuing a career in medicine, like her childhood hero, Patch Adams.

And I don't doubt for a minute that something bad happened to her on that campus one night... Not the thing we've read about, but something pretty ugly.

Whatever it was, this is a young woman who's obviously in terrible pain. And she deserves our first concern, whatever the axes ground on her behalf.

Many times the truth is elusive. Unfortunately most people remember the first version of the story rather than the corrected version. I agree with Crid that something probably happened to this woman. Now that this mess has been opened up it would serve her interests to tell the exact truth as to what really happened. It may be painful but it is the best course.

> Now that this mess has been opened
> up it would serve her interests to
> tell the exact truth as to
> what really happened.

Good Lord that sounds blow-hardy... It sounds naive and silly-authoritarian. Elmer Gantry / Sitcom Dad / Cosby Before the Rapes.

Read the WaPo link... Or, if you're like me, power-scan it because it's too sad and too intrusive to read closely. This kid's "hero" is "Patch Adams," regarded almost universally as Robin Williams shittiest role and shittiest movie, an artless and ineffective piece of sentimental and simplistic claptrap. This girl isn't judging "what really happened" in any context with the clarity you'd find sufficient. (But of course, you haven't done anything to help her, not in this context and not in any other.) This kid is is struggling in these years, weather she was raped or not.

And then some loathsome and lonely woman from the Big City Journalism strolls into her life and starts projecting her middle-aged bitterness into the child's crisis, insisting she expose a moment of deep pain in national media just as the girl was starting to mature, just as she was starting to figure out that she'd been talking too much.

And Golly, Mr. Nelson Stuckers of Minimemi Falls, Idaho, 2000 miles away, thinks it would be convenient if she could respond in the manner of the upstanding teenage girls he knows from church on Sunday... The ones with the tidy clothes and the pretty hair.


Look, I think we're going to learn a lot —or be offered a lot of information— about this girl in the months ahead. Hers will not be a family of sober, thoughtful sophisticates. Many young people go to college before they're equipped to deal with things socially or intellectually, and that's a heartbreak, but you aren't being given the option of insisting that this woman respond briskly to your condescending towel-snaps.


For this morning, I feel sorry for this troubled young woman more than I feel hatred and contempt for the lunatic "feminism" of that reprehensible Rolling Stone reporter.

But it's early, and the sun just came out. Plenty of time to change my mind today.

"Best course" my ass.

Put another way: If you think this is all about one little girl who told a lie, you're not thinking big enough.

It would certainly be a more convenient planet if she'd been clear-headed... But you don't get to insist on that.

For any interested, here are a few links. I will summarize if you dont want to click through. First is Richard Bradleys blog

http://www.richardbradley.net/shotsinthedark/

He was the editor of Stephen Glass, and he used what he learned from being burned by Mr. Glass and said he had a few questions about the story and the reporting. If you read through from his first post about it, you can see the evolution of the collapse of the narrative.

Also, here is an interesting idea from The Z Blog.

http://thezman.com/wordpress/

He mentions that Erdely, the journalist, was a classmate of Stephen Glass and wrote a favorable article about him even after his plagiarism was known and proved. Then, he points out that Emily Renda, the lady who introduced Jackie and Erdely,worked for the white house's task force to end rape culture. Just some interesting spice for the story. Creative journalism for the cause!

> a classmate of Stephen Glass
> and wrote a favorable article
> about him

That's fascinating.

By the way, the woman who wrote this article stole a car from a local charitable organization owned by her brother-in-law a couple years ago.

Why would you doubt it?

Moynihan is watching this.

Here's what the headline was when I saw it this morning.


I should be surprised that so many adult Americans, seemingly literate ones, would be so eager to live in a supernatural world of fantasy and demonic evil.

These people are a lot more dangerous than Amy's Christians.

And she deserves our first concern,

Why, she doesnt want it, if she did she wouldnt have lied so poorly

But of course, you haven't done anything to help her, not in this context and not in any other.

And what have YOU done exactly?

This kid is is struggling in these years, weather she was raped or not.

Everyone does, you misspelled whether

but you aren't being given the option of insisting that this woman respond briskly to your condescending towel-snaps.

Then why are you optioning that this woman respond appropriately to your condescending paternalism?

I'm not your violent, alcoholic stepfather, kiddo.

No, but you are a hypocritical oblivious asshole condemning others for the very behavior you exhibit and oft celebrate in a masturbatory orgy of self congratulations.

Oblivious stupidity, what ever form it takes, just pisses me off.

[Crid:] By the way, the woman who wrote this article ...

From which comes this:

We should believe, as a matter of default, what an accuser says. Ultimately, the costs of wrongly disbelieving a survivor far outweigh the costs of calling someone a rapist.

O.M.G.

Put another way: If you think this is all about one little girl who told a lie, you're not thinking big enough.

Just like Ferguson and that New York City schlamozzle. [/nosarc]

You know what really gets me about all this? If you want to read a story in a major journalistic outlet that lays out a case for a name-brand university having a "rape culture," one was already published this year in the NYTimes, about Jameis Winston and Florida State. It has thorough reporting, a believable key story, apparent negligence (at best!) by police, and oh yeah, a VERY high-profile athlete at the center. The NYT article, is, I think, a masterful example of how to show, rather than tell, a point of view, with dry statements such as, "Why Officer Angulo had not asked to see the Potbelly’s security video is unknown" building a case that the case was mishandled by authority from beginning to end. The young woman in question is being excoriated by Florida State fans. Maybe she is a liar who just wants money, I don't know -- but she went to the police a few hours after the alleged incident occurred with bruising and apparent trauma, and Winston's defense is that the sex was consensual, not that it didn't occur. Etc.

I bring this up because you would think at a time in which feminism as a movement is trying to convince everyone that "rape culture" is pervasive and toxic, you would be hearing about Florida State constantly. The main character involved was awarded a friggin' Heisman a few weeks after it was announced that a case couldn't be brought because too much time had passed! He is expected to play for a second straight championship next month! An actual Title IX hearing just concluded! I understand why sports media essentially swept this under the rug as soon as possible, but why did I never hear about it on feminist blogs? From what I can tell, it passed through with barely, or nary, a ripple. My friends on FB have been posting that they don't want their (sometimes hypothetical future) children going to UVa -- well, no daughter of mine is attending Florida State under any circumstances.

I will leave it up to you to decide why an outrageous, thinly sourced story about an evil fraternity at a wealthy school gained more traction among the feminist movement/"rape culture" pushers than a fairly plausible, meticulously researched story about a football star at a major state university. I can think of a few different possibilities. None of them make the #YesAllWomen types look particularly good. I have to go steel myself for the distasteful possibility that I may have to root for Nick Saban to win in January, if that's what is necessary to prevent Jimbo Fisher's cesspool of a team from claiming another title. (I will also keep wondering if the reason that the College Football Playoff Committee keeps dropping Florida State down in the rankings despite the team's unbeaten status is related at all to concern that they might have that he'll have to be suspended due to Title IX violations prior to the playoffs themselves…)

Just in case you thought I was being too harsh with the "cesspool of a team" bit…

On a different note, I agree that (IMHO) SOMETHING bad happened to Jackie. Exactly what, I don't know, but something. I'd distinguish this from the Duke case solely on that (though I have no idea if the "something bad" involved that fraternity at all). But I think the issue here is that the Rolling Stone writer got seduced by the idea of a wealthy, "elitist" university that's not known for being as leftist at the Ivies having a hideous rape culture, because everyone knows that those elite, spoiled rich guys just looooove to rape, amirite? Do I think she could have found a campus where rape is really swept under the rug to some extent? Sure…as I posted above, the NYTimes did. But that would have taken a lot of hard, unglamorous work, and wouldn't have checked all of the boxes that she wanted to check.

RS retraction en route.

This could be a lot of fun.

"For this morning, I feel sorry for this troubled young woman..."

I don't. She's not a sweet innocent child. She's a borderline who has probably been pulling this kind of crap most of her life. She is so dedicated to the concept of privilege through victimhood that she does the Goebbels thing on herself: She keeps telling herself the lie until she believes it. Neither she nor the RS reporter are sorry for what they did. They are only sorry they got caught.

And now for the other side of the same coin:

"I understand why sports media essentially swept this under the rug as soon as possible, but why did I never hear about it on feminist blogs? "

Because if there's one thing Bill Clinton taught us, it's that the most hard-nosed feminist will get out her knee pads for a sufficiently high-status man. They're all whores, but they fancy themselves as being high-priced call girls.

> She's not a sweet innocent child.
> She's a borderline who has probably
> been pulling this kind of crap most
> of her life.

That's insanely harsh. It's like Nelson's comments... It has no greater perspective on human nature or development than you'd have had for the snottiest kid in your six-grade social studies class. It's crazy-individual and crazy-personal.

The thing about borderlines, especially the young ones, is that they often got that way because people "pulled crap" on them. Again, we're gonna learn about this kid's family eventually, and I'd bet a thousand dollars tonight that it's a mess... Or they wouldn't have sent her to college, and she wouldn't have gone.

For fuck's sake... The Washington Post says her "hero" is "Patch Adams." Does that sound like the mentality of a wicked manipulator, or an underfed soul?

Two problems to talk about here: (1.) Rape on campus, and (2.) really despicable articles about rape on campus appearing in stylish, under-edited national monthlies.

As you seek to address both or either of those problems, you will not be given the option of insisting that all young women on campus be well-adjusted and capable of moving through a challenging adult social realm in vigilant caution. Nor will you be able to insist that the young men they meet be inclined to treat troubled women decently, or to stay away from them altogether. 'Pull yourself together, young lady, and fly right!' means nothing to anyone.

We can, however, sue the living shit out of, and shun the wretched piss out of, fully adult reporters and publishers who make money through exploitation of this very real pain.

At least, I hope we can.

This is False Memory Syndrome. She believes these fantasies. Find the quack who has brainwashed her and you will find out the truth about this whole sordid mess.