Saturday, October 29, 2005

Stupid Statuary

Ah, yes. Something else on which you can spend your hard-earned dinero instead of buying medicine for your ailing mother. The folks at Dark Horse Comics are coming out with another line of cute li'l figurines of classic characters and just to make the others look more important, they're including Groo the Wanderer in the set. You can order it next month. You can receive it when it comes out in February. You can stare at it from then on, expressing shock and amazement at the stunning likeness of everyone's favorite mentally-deficient barbarian. Here's where you can learn about the whole line and pre-order.

• Posted at 12:39 PM · LINK

Another Thing About Indictments...

I don't know how many of you recall the McMartin Pre-School Scandal. Briefly: In 1984, it was charged that hundreds of children were molested at a pre-school in Manhattan Beach. The school's owners and employees were arrested, tried repeatedly and eventually released...by which time their lives were pretty well destroyed. Parents were outraged that no convictions were ever achieved since at some point, the evidence appeared overwhelming and the McMartin staff was pretty well convicted in the press. As the case unfolded, however, it became apparent that investigators had pressured the children to confirm tales of highly dubious accuracy. Kids, for instance, told tales of being taken down to the basement of the pre-school and forced to play "naked games"...but the school building had no basement. It also became apparent that some of the reporters covering the story were sensationalizing and misrepresenting matters and that at least one of the parents levelling accusations was, herself, mentally unstable. (If it all sounds like a TV movie, it was. It was made into a largely-accurate HBO film called Indictment - The McMartin Trial, starring James Woods.)

Today in the Los Angeles Times, one of the kids who said then that he'd been molested writes a long, amazing apology for going along with phony accusations. His name is Kyle Zirpolo and I'm not sure if he deserves praise for coming forward or scorn for not doing so years ago. Either way, it's one of those stories that's worth keeping in mind when someone looks guilty beyond any reasonable doubt. In this case, a lot of people and law enforcement officials were wrong and, worse, incapable of backing off on their crusades even after they should have realized they were wrong. It's not rare that this happens but it is rare that it becomes so obvious...and that anyone apologizes.

• Posted at 3:06 AM · LINK