Commenting on the news is not one of my favorite uses for this blog, which is mainly devoted to more personal concerns, but the following story forces me to make an exception. Link to Fox + O.J. story.
O.J. Simpson, murdered two people, got acquitted by some smart lawyers who put together a sympathetic jury and exploited blunders by the prosecutors. Anyone other than an extremely wealthy person would almost certainly have been convicted.
A civil jury later found him responsible for the two homicides (which is tantamont to a conviction) and assessed him financial penalties that he was supposed to pay the victims' families.
Now, a book publisher is releasing his "bone-chilling" memoir called If I did it, where he describes precisely how he committed the crimes under the scant protection of a supposition -- "if."
Fox Network is paying him $3.5 million for two television segments in late November showing him talking about the gruesome murders detailed in his book.
This development disgusts me so much that it is diffcult to find any words to capture my feelings. This man not only feels no shame, remorse, or sensitivity to the victims' families, he wants to shove in their faces the brutality of how he beat and slashed Nicole Simpson (his estranged wife) and Ron Goldman to death.
There is someone I hope will analyze this book. His name is Don Foster and he is a professor of English literature at Vassar College. He analyzes writings, especially anonymous writings, and identifies their author. Among his many successes were discovering that the author of an unattributed poem was Shakespeare.
He also figured out who Anonymous was after the book Primary Colors, appeared. He demonstrated that it was Joe Klein. He also has contributed to the famous Unabomber case. His book, Author Unknown, shows how he worked on these cases and others. I'd like Professor Foster to study O.J. Simpson's book for details he may have revealed that only the killer could have known.
I would hope that on the basis of such new evidence, Simpson could face new charges. Who will ever punish his lawyers? Who will punish the publisher, and who, indeed, will punish the Fox network?
A concerted outcry might yet force Fox to withdraw its deal. Otherwise, a consumer boytcott will be in order.
-30-
1 comment:
Don Foster isn't your man. He was wwrong when he identified the Funeral Elegy as being the work of Shakespeare and he was wrong when he identified "jameson", a middle aged woman from Massachusetts as John Andrew Ramsey, a Southern college boy. (He was also wrong when he identified jameson/John Andrew as a killer.)
There are pages on Foster online. I hope you check him out and find another person to hang your hopes on.
I believe the science is legitimate, but the "expert" is, IMO, not.
Post a Comment