Note:
America and the world get to know some individuals by virtue of their status as victims. Celebrity bestowed by "victimhood" can happen in a variety of ways.
Some victims enter our public consciousness due to the hurtful acts of others; other victimhood is self-inflicted. Some people become well known victims out of carlessness, accident, or circumstances. Others are victims of war, terrorism, racism, or political correctness.
Whatever the case, most celebrity victims are unintentional celebrities, and many no doubt would have preferred their privacy to the celebrity into which they were suddenly thrust. Ah, but the media love a good, bankrollable victim...
Never mind that beauty pageants, like modeling shows, are among the very silliest events that we Americans are expected to watch. Beautiful girls, many of them surgically enhanced, strut and wriggle their way to minor celebrity, and the saddest part of pageants is the question and answer portion, which usually involves a great deal of simpering.
Nevertheless,at the Miss USA pageant in 2009, Miss California USA, Carrie Prejean, became the victim of political correctness run amuck.
Contest judge Perez Hilton asked Prejean if all U.S. states should legalize same-sex marriage. She waffled prettily at first, but finally said that to her, marriage was an institution for a man and a woman.
Perez is gay. Prejean is an evangelical Christian. And never the twain did mix.
Hilton called her a dumb bitch online and indicated that her answer had cost her the Miss USA title.
Soon thereafter, topless photos of Prejean surfaced on the Internet. Her reaction was that the shots were taken back when she was young and foolish. Still, the racy photos did not seem to square well with her conservative old-time religion.
The Great Comb-over, Donald Trump, owner of both pageants, ruled that Prejean would remain first runner-up for Miss USA and that she could retain her Miss California crown. Trump noted that President Barack Obama had expressed pretty much the same opinion on same-sex marriage as did Prejean.
In protest to Trump's handling of the matter, pageant director Shanna Moakler, resigned. She had been Miss USA 1995. My my.
Wednesday, May 20, 2009
Victim Peter Arnett
Veteran journalist Peter Arnett was cut loose by both NBC and National Geographic in 2003 for daring to criticize the bungled U.S. invasion of Iraq. He was one of several journalists fired around that same time for opposing the Bush occupation of that nation.
Arnett, a New Zealand-American Pulitzer Prize winner for his reporting in Vietnam, was not the kind of journalist favored by the George W. Bush administration. Arnett actually spent significant time in the places from which he reported, and he had not had his teeth pulled by being "embedded" with the military as a precondition to being allowed to cover war news.
Bush was not the first president to dislike the independence of Arnett's reporting. President Lyndon Johnson had wanted to get Arnett fired or moved for not pushing the party line during Vietnam, but the owners of America's media at that time had not yet become so craven.
The excuses for firing Arnett in March 2003 were that he had arranged a 15-minute interview with Iraqi state television and that he had criticized the way war policy was being implemented by U.S. forces. Arnett easily and rapidly found work with anti-war media in Britain.
At the Wall Street Journal, correspondent Farnaz Fassihi was taken off the Iraq beat for having called President Bush's rosy assessment of U.S. progress in the war a disaster.
In Grants Pass, Oregon, columnist Dan Guthrie was canned by the Daily Courier for harshly criticizing President Bush's initial response to the 9/11 attacks, saying that the president had bolted under pressure.
In Texas, the Texas City Sun fired columnist Tom Gutting for writing that when George W. Bush was elected, everyone recognized that he was not our brightest president and that he had hidden out instead of leading boldly immediately after 9/11.
It is especially noteworthy that opinion columnists at American newspapers were fired for having expressed their honest opinions.
Being so ready to flee from controversy and dodge dissent was just another nail in the coffin of old-style American journalism.
Arnett, a New Zealand-American Pulitzer Prize winner for his reporting in Vietnam, was not the kind of journalist favored by the George W. Bush administration. Arnett actually spent significant time in the places from which he reported, and he had not had his teeth pulled by being "embedded" with the military as a precondition to being allowed to cover war news.
Bush was not the first president to dislike the independence of Arnett's reporting. President Lyndon Johnson had wanted to get Arnett fired or moved for not pushing the party line during Vietnam, but the owners of America's media at that time had not yet become so craven.
The excuses for firing Arnett in March 2003 were that he had arranged a 15-minute interview with Iraqi state television and that he had criticized the way war policy was being implemented by U.S. forces. Arnett easily and rapidly found work with anti-war media in Britain.
At the Wall Street Journal, correspondent Farnaz Fassihi was taken off the Iraq beat for having called President Bush's rosy assessment of U.S. progress in the war a disaster.
In Grants Pass, Oregon, columnist Dan Guthrie was canned by the Daily Courier for harshly criticizing President Bush's initial response to the 9/11 attacks, saying that the president had bolted under pressure.
In Texas, the Texas City Sun fired columnist Tom Gutting for writing that when George W. Bush was elected, everyone recognized that he was not our brightest president and that he had hidden out instead of leading boldly immediately after 9/11.
It is especially noteworthy that opinion columnists at American newspapers were fired for having expressed their honest opinions.
Being so ready to flee from controversy and dodge dissent was just another nail in the coffin of old-style American journalism.
Tuesday, May 19, 2009
Victim Nick Berg
Nicholas "Nick" Berg was the first Westerner captured and beheaded by Islamic militants during the Iraq War. His captors videotaped the horrific act and put it on the Internet for all to see.
Berg, an engineer who was Jewish, owned his own company that worked on communication antennas. He went to Iraq in 2003 hoping to get contracts for antenna repair work. In April of 2004, he disappeared. The video showing his beheading at the hands of five masked militants was aired in May 2004.
Berg, whose friends remember him as a brilliant, cheerful and adventurous man, appears to have been in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Berg, an engineer who was Jewish, owned his own company that worked on communication antennas. He went to Iraq in 2003 hoping to get contracts for antenna repair work. In April of 2004, he disappeared. The video showing his beheading at the hands of five masked militants was aired in May 2004.
Berg, whose friends remember him as a brilliant, cheerful and adventurous man, appears to have been in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Victim Juanita Broaddrick
Nursing home administrator Juanita Broaddrick waited 21 years to accuse Bill Clinton of rape. Her reason for not doing so sooner, she said, was that she did not think anyone would believe her over the word of Clinton, at that time a candidate for Governor of Arkansas.
At the time of the alleged rape, 1978, she was working as a volunteer in Clinton's campaign. She maintains that Clinton phoned her in her hotel room, asked to meet in that room rather than downstairs-- to avoid reporters, and once inside the room, forced himself on her.
She also claims that Clinton later tried to apologize to her, but that she told him to go to hell. She came forward with these charges after Clinton's celebrated Monica Lewinsky affair.
Along with Lewinsky, Broaddrick was hardly alone in the string of women who have complained about Bill Clinton's womanizing ways. Others include Elizabeth Ward Gracen, a former Miss America;Kathleen Willey; Paula Jones; Dolly Kyle Browning; Jennifer Flowers; Sally Perdue; Christy Zercher; Eileen Wellstone; and Sandra Allen James.
If all or most of their charges are true, then Bill Clinton has been one busy boy, and Hillary has had to overlook a great deal to maintain her own political aspirations.
At the time of the alleged rape, 1978, she was working as a volunteer in Clinton's campaign. She maintains that Clinton phoned her in her hotel room, asked to meet in that room rather than downstairs-- to avoid reporters, and once inside the room, forced himself on her.
She also claims that Clinton later tried to apologize to her, but that she told him to go to hell. She came forward with these charges after Clinton's celebrated Monica Lewinsky affair.
Along with Lewinsky, Broaddrick was hardly alone in the string of women who have complained about Bill Clinton's womanizing ways. Others include Elizabeth Ward Gracen, a former Miss America;Kathleen Willey; Paula Jones; Dolly Kyle Browning; Jennifer Flowers; Sally Perdue; Christy Zercher; Eileen Wellstone; and Sandra Allen James.
If all or most of their charges are true, then Bill Clinton has been one busy boy, and Hillary has had to overlook a great deal to maintain her own political aspirations.
Monday, May 18, 2009
Victim James Byrd
A victim of a racial hate crime if there ever was one was Jasper, TX, resident James Byrd Jr., who was chained to a pick-up truck and dragged around three miles.
In 1998, three sadistic Bubbas beat the 49-year-old Byrd, who was black, apparently slit his throat, and used a logging chain to drag his body over a rural road as an example of white power, or something such. According to testimony, Byrd had been walking home from a party, caught a ride with the three men, then got into a fight with one of them. The three left Byrd's mutilated body in front of a black church.
In response to this brutal killing, Texas passed the James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Act to increase penalties for such murders.
In 1998, three sadistic Bubbas beat the 49-year-old Byrd, who was black, apparently slit his throat, and used a logging chain to drag his body over a rural road as an example of white power, or something such. According to testimony, Byrd had been walking home from a party, caught a ride with the three men, then got into a fight with one of them. The three left Byrd's mutilated body in front of a black church.
In response to this brutal killing, Texas passed the James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Act to increase penalties for such murders.
Victim Max Cleland
Former Georgia Senator Max Cleland, a triple amputee from Vietnam, has been the victim of Republican smears that were lower than a snake's underbelly.
Joseph Maxell Cleland had run the Veterans Administration during the Jimmy Carter presidency, had been Georgia's Secretary of State and had represented that state in the U.S. Senate from 1996 until losing re-election to his Republican opponent in 2002.
Cleland ran afoul of the great Republican smear machine by criticizing some of the policies of President George W. Bush, especially the draconian and controversial Homeland Security bill.
Politicians will be politicians, of course, but the worst low blows against Cleland came during the time he supported presidential hopeful John Kerry. Cleland's patriotism was harshly questioned by the chickenhawk politicos of the Far Right, most of whom had never found it quite convenient to serve their country in uniform. These spokesmen were somehow able to turn Kerry's combat service into a negative andvia their gutter campaigning, make Cleland, recipient of the Silver Star and Bronze Star, sound like an enemy sympathizer. It was revolting enough to gag a moose.
Joseph Maxell Cleland had run the Veterans Administration during the Jimmy Carter presidency, had been Georgia's Secretary of State and had represented that state in the U.S. Senate from 1996 until losing re-election to his Republican opponent in 2002.
Cleland ran afoul of the great Republican smear machine by criticizing some of the policies of President George W. Bush, especially the draconian and controversial Homeland Security bill.
Politicians will be politicians, of course, but the worst low blows against Cleland came during the time he supported presidential hopeful John Kerry. Cleland's patriotism was harshly questioned by the chickenhawk politicos of the Far Right, most of whom had never found it quite convenient to serve their country in uniform. These spokesmen were somehow able to turn Kerry's combat service into a negative andvia their gutter campaigning, make Cleland, recipient of the Silver Star and Bronze Star, sound like an enemy sympathizer. It was revolting enough to gag a moose.
Victim Jill Carroll
Reporter Jill Carroll was kidnapped by the mujahideen in Baghdad in January 2006 but was finally released unhurt. She was the 31st foreign journalist kidnapped during the Iraq War.
Carroll was working for the Christian Science Monitor nwspaper when she and her driver and interpreter were stopped by gunmen. The interpreter was shot to death, the driver escaped, and Carroll was taken hostage. A brief videotape was later released on Al-Jazeera. Her kidnappers wanted to trade her release for that of all female prisoners held by the U.S. in Iraq. Two additional video segments showing Carroll were eventually aired.
Five Iraqi women were released from U.S. custody, which apparently satisfied Carroll's kidnappers, who called themselves the Brigades of Vengeance. Carroll was dropped off near the offices of the Iraqi Islamic Party in Al Ameriya and reported that she had been humanely treated during her three-month captivity.
Carroll was working for the Christian Science Monitor nwspaper when she and her driver and interpreter were stopped by gunmen. The interpreter was shot to death, the driver escaped, and Carroll was taken hostage. A brief videotape was later released on Al-Jazeera. Her kidnappers wanted to trade her release for that of all female prisoners held by the U.S. in Iraq. Two additional video segments showing Carroll were eventually aired.
Five Iraqi women were released from U.S. custody, which apparently satisfied Carroll's kidnappers, who called themselves the Brigades of Vengeance. Carroll was dropped off near the offices of the Iraqi Islamic Party in Al Ameriya and reported that she had been humanely treated during her three-month captivity.
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