(1) The NYT has published a piece on the "era of reckoning." That's the time we're living in now. DNA technology allows cold case specialists to solve cases that are 40 years old.
One extraordinary item is this: Long ago, cops could not extract a great deal of information from discarded clothing, fingernail clippings. But they suspected that science might one day allow them to do things they could never imagine. So they held on to possessions that seemed not to carry much meaning. And now, of course, those possessions are gold mines.
Before sites like Ancestry.com became popular, there was a problem. Cops could take your DNA and try to match you against information in a police database, but if you hadn't committed a previous crime, then the cops weren't going to have any useful information about you. No "match" would be possible. Sites like Ancestry.com solve this problem. You don't need to have committed a previous crime to be "available" to the police. If your great-aunt, or your third cousin, once felt the need to "dig" w/r/t ancestry, then your info is out there. You are genetically "on call" for the police.
(2) Film Forum is showing a fabulous documentary, "Roll Red Roll," and it's only around for the next two nights, so get thee to the cinema. A few years ago, in Ohio, a popular football player raped a kid. His coaches and principal knew, but they orchestrated a cover-up. So, having received a warm and fuzzy and permissive message, the football player raped again.
Incredibly, the second rape was caught on camera. Other football players posted comments about the rape on "social media." (What a loathsome phrase.) A blogger in another town found the various posts--took screenshots, knowing the posts would soon disappear--and began writing.
Obviously, the story goes in several different directions. The community indulges in a great deal of victim-blaming and cover-up. (You might think of "Spotlight.") The blogger worries about journalistic ethics, and about what she may be doing to the victim of the latest rape. (You might think of Joan Didion, who observed that victims of rape tend not to have their names released in the news. This is meant to be a tasteful gesture. It's apparently decorous. But when you neglect to release the name, you also imply that the victim herself has something to be ashamed of. You would print her name if she had been murdered. Would you not?)
"Roll Red Roll" is especially useful in answering the question: "How can a thing like Brett Kavanaugh happen to the United States?" Here is your answer.
(3) I'm very excited for "The Last Stone," which has been hailed as a masterpiece by various critics (and the NYT review is a rave). "The Last Stone" is a work of journalism that tracks some cops as they attempt to pin a cold-case murder on a guy already behind bars.
The book considers what it is like to lead an interrogation. You have to persuade the perp that telling the truth is in his best interest--when, clearly, telling the truth is not in his best interest. A slice of theater in a mundane setting. I will buy the book soon. Can't wait!
One extraordinary item is this: Long ago, cops could not extract a great deal of information from discarded clothing, fingernail clippings. But they suspected that science might one day allow them to do things they could never imagine. So they held on to possessions that seemed not to carry much meaning. And now, of course, those possessions are gold mines.
Before sites like Ancestry.com became popular, there was a problem. Cops could take your DNA and try to match you against information in a police database, but if you hadn't committed a previous crime, then the cops weren't going to have any useful information about you. No "match" would be possible. Sites like Ancestry.com solve this problem. You don't need to have committed a previous crime to be "available" to the police. If your great-aunt, or your third cousin, once felt the need to "dig" w/r/t ancestry, then your info is out there. You are genetically "on call" for the police.
(2) Film Forum is showing a fabulous documentary, "Roll Red Roll," and it's only around for the next two nights, so get thee to the cinema. A few years ago, in Ohio, a popular football player raped a kid. His coaches and principal knew, but they orchestrated a cover-up. So, having received a warm and fuzzy and permissive message, the football player raped again.
Incredibly, the second rape was caught on camera. Other football players posted comments about the rape on "social media." (What a loathsome phrase.) A blogger in another town found the various posts--took screenshots, knowing the posts would soon disappear--and began writing.
Obviously, the story goes in several different directions. The community indulges in a great deal of victim-blaming and cover-up. (You might think of "Spotlight.") The blogger worries about journalistic ethics, and about what she may be doing to the victim of the latest rape. (You might think of Joan Didion, who observed that victims of rape tend not to have their names released in the news. This is meant to be a tasteful gesture. It's apparently decorous. But when you neglect to release the name, you also imply that the victim herself has something to be ashamed of. You would print her name if she had been murdered. Would you not?)
"Roll Red Roll" is especially useful in answering the question: "How can a thing like Brett Kavanaugh happen to the United States?" Here is your answer.
(3) I'm very excited for "The Last Stone," which has been hailed as a masterpiece by various critics (and the NYT review is a rave). "The Last Stone" is a work of journalism that tracks some cops as they attempt to pin a cold-case murder on a guy already behind bars.
The book considers what it is like to lead an interrogation. You have to persuade the perp that telling the truth is in his best interest--when, clearly, telling the truth is not in his best interest. A slice of theater in a mundane setting. I will buy the book soon. Can't wait!
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