It's My Dog's World: I Just Live In It

The power of telling a painful story in a culture that tells people to shut up

The New York Times published an essay from Jenny Wilkinson, who writes about her experience both with the legal system and a university panel following her sexual assault on a college campus. This happened almost 20 years ago.  The tag line reads: 

After being attacked by a fellow student, I won my case before a university panel. But winning wasn’t really winning.

I am sharing this not because I agree with all the writer's conclusions, but because it has occurred to me, over and over again, but especially lately, that there are lots of good, kind people who don't know what a rape survivor goes through in order to prosecute her attacker. This is in part because they never hear anyone they know talk about their rape. It becomes too easy to imagine you don't know anyone who survived a rape; it's something that happens on Law and Order.

And rape survivors have very good reasons for not talking about what they went through: the stigma remains profound. The onus remains on the survivor to "translate" for the listener. I am grateful to Jenny Wilkinson for providing some of this translation. And I long for a day when this will no longer be necessary.

Why We Shouldn't Think of the Sandusky Case Cover-up as the Exception to the Rule

Well, they knew. 

Joe Paterno knew, and the president of Penn State knew, and the vice president knew. And the athletic director knew.  And they knew for a long time: from 1998. And they covered it up. 

And when Joe Paterno moved towards retirement, and investigators began to close in, he negotiated hard for a 'sweeter' multi-million dollar retirement package.

Louis Freeh, who led the investigation commissioned by Penn State, carefully takes apart Paterno and Co.'s patterns of covering up, delay, and stunning evasions in this report.   In his press conference, he briefly describes how many people saw Jerry Sandusky showering with young boys and did absolutely nothing about it. "There's more red flags here than you could count."  

Freeh says it: people were afraid of bad publicity and its impact: the loss of reputation and money.  Powerful people looked out for themselves in a structure that seemed engineered to help them do this.  

Powerful people looked out for themselves in a structure that seemed engineered to help them do this.  

And the structure instilled fear in the janitor--far from powerful who witnessed the rape of a child..he was terrified he would lose his job. 

From top to bottom, the system served Sandusky and put children in danger. 

I believe that far too many of our institutions are structured to conceal the actions of the powerful who are terrified that they will lose what they have.  Is this intentional?  I'm not analytical enough to say.  But this is what I've observed: too often, when there is a sturdy, near-impermeablee hierarchy, the weak suffer and suffer and suffer.  And usually, those institutions can legitimately claim that they are also doing good.  Joe Paterno did tremendous good for his players, his college, the community.  I don't think he conceived, until the very end, that he was capable of doing something terrible.  

  Good men doing terrible things, and utterly blind to it. Because they believe themselves good.  With a blind spot just the size of a defenseless child. 

 

Looking for a lost boy, 33 years later, with help from--dogs

Photo by Stanley Patz

Here in New York City, the FBI is looking for Etan Patz, a six-year-old boy who vanished off the streets of Soho on his way to school.  They are digging into a basement, and carrying it away, piece by piece, looking for Etan.

Etan disappeared in 1979.  I bet some of the agents looking for Etan weren't even born then.

If you were in New York at that time, you saw pictures of Etan. He was a beautiful kid, and his father, Stanley, took a remarkable picture of him that was posted all over New York.  But Etan never came back.  There is a man in jail, convicted child molester Jose Ramos, with strong ties to Etan's disappearance, but no physical evidence, which led to the Patzes winning a symbolic civil suit against him.  And life has gone on and it  hasn't. The Patzes have remained in the loft where they were raising Etan--and where they raised Etan's brother and sister. And they have never changed their phone number.  Just in case.  More about the aftermath of Etan's disappearance.

Now, the search for Etan has resumed, in the basement of a building near his home.  The high-tech tool that led to this?  

Cadaver dogs.    

Cadaver dogs:  canines trained to smell for, and locate, human remains, decades after a person's death.  A dog sent to a basement near the Patz's home signaled that he found human remains. 

On one of the news shows I listen to, an official said that when Etan disappeared, there were just bloodhounds.  We didn't have cadaver dogs, dogs who have been trained to smell, and find, the dead. 

Sadly, and happily, now we do.

 

 

 

Mr. Vice President, You Need My Help

Vanity Fair magazine features a long, thoughtful article this month on the ways Dick Cheney's personality  has changed since he was a light-hearted, prank-pulling Ford Administration wunderkind.  It suggests, but does not confirm, that between Cheney's health issues and likely medications,  his mood has darkened considerably. 

But that's not what's got me upset.  Vanity Fair includes a picture of Cheney walking with his dogs, Jackson and Dave, and, well..

They're big.  Big as Labrador houses.

They need my help, Mr. Vice President. They need my book.  They used to look  like this:

http://www.whitehouse.gov/kids/vicepresident/jackson.html

But, as Dave admits on the White House Web site,

I have a very well developed appreciation for food.

No kidding!   Dave, step away from the T-bones.   Now.

Mr. Cheney, I do not judge you.  During the past year, full of positive and negative stress, I put on the "newly published author's freshman 10." I understand anxiety snacking.  But I have managed to watch my dog's weight, and not just because she's my poster girl for my books.  Both of your dogs, like my dog, have reached middle age, when it becomes oh-so-important to watch their weight to avoid joint problems.

So I'm just saying:  Just because you have the weight of the free world on your shoulders, doesn't mean that Jackson and Dave should be carrying half of it.

Call me.   I would consider it my patriotic duty to give you  a copy of my book.

Enough About Cats: Let's Talk about Truth

My wish is granted.   Recovering drug addict, former writer for ALF and Thirtysomething, and memoirist who just missed the truthiness gravy train  Jerry Stahl weighs in on James Frey.  He is too kind...and too damned funny to miss.   

Four Years Ago

Four years ago today, I was lucky.  I was lucky enough to be on the New Jersey side of the Hudson River when the towers smoked and burned and collapsed.  I was lucky enough not to know anyone in those infernos--my husband, and, it seems, most of my new hometown were not so lucky.  I was lucky I was home, safe, with my dog, and my e-mail, and my new cell phone, and I knew exactly where my husband was--though he had worked very near what would be known as Ground Zero, he was now working in the suburbs.   I think of all the people today and four years ago who were far from lucky.  I thank them.  I bless them.  I mourn them.