Monthly Archives: September 2009

Free Polanski?


Rob asked me last night, “So what do you think about the Polanski thing.”

And I told him … for about 15 passionately animated minutes before he could get a word slid in edgewise.

It’s stunning, isn’t it? The way people have conveniently glossed over the reason the man is being held by Swiss authorities. Roman Polanski had been a convicted fugitive for over thirty years. He skipped out on his sentencing after admitting fault in having sex with a 13-year-old girl because he feared his sweetheart sentencing deal wasn’t going to work out as his lawyers had led him to believe it would. So at 44 years of age, he scurried off to the safety of France – a country that cannot extradite its own citizens – and has carried on with his career and penchant for much younger woman (though none as young as 13 again – apparently he learned that lesson), collecting awards and accolades and making lots of money. His victim, on the other hand, had to endure the regular media feeding frenzy whenever the case surfaced, enduring – among other things – the curious man made “Lolita” idea. You know that one. The patently absurd notion that little girls seductively entice old men into molesting them.

I don’t understand the sympathy Polanski evokes. Okay, maybe I can see where it comes from. People feel sorry for him because his mother was killed by Nazi’s and his pregnant wife was murdered by Manson followers, but Michael Jackson was beaten regularly by his dad, and we don’t seem to think it was okay for him to diddle little boys (and officially – Jackson was never found guilty in a court of law. Polanski has never denied doing a 13 year girl.) But in our twisted society, it’s okay for older men to force themselves on young teen and pre-teen girls under the pretext that the girls gave consent (something Polanski’s victim still maintains she never did).

I taught middle school for seventeen years. 13 year olds mostly. And let me assure you, they are not the tiniest bit interested in men old enough to be their fathers, nor are they worldly enough or smart enough to give actual consent. Teenagers have not changed since you and I were just 13. They may have access to technology that we didn’t but they are not wiser. They are still too trusting and very impulsive. They are not as worldly as they like to think they are (any more than we were). But wait a minute. I am talking about the teens that we were. Because Polanski’s victim is 45 years old today and is the peer of many of the people who read here. She and I were 13 years old in 1977.

Polanski committed a crime. Whether he was or wasn’t going to get a sweet plea deal is beside the point. He ran. He forfeited his rights to be treated as anything other than a convicted criminal trying to evade punishment. Letting him go now because the crime is so old and he’s been free so long is just another example of how inequitable our judicial system is. Rich, famous, well-connected people live under one set of rules and the average person goes to jail or are executed despite being innocent like that father in Texas.

Roman Polanski is a child rapist. He is not a victim. He has not been punished in any way by his years on the run. He is not being unfairly targeted. He does not deserve to be set free simply because his crime is three decades old. By that logic decrepit and senile old men who were forced to serve as guards in Nazi concentration camps should be left to their golden years in whatever country they lied their way into after the war because the Holocaust was twice as long ago as Polanski’s raping of a little girl.

Not sure which was my favorite part. The “it wasn’t rape… rape”, the insinuation that Europeans are cool with the idea of 13 and 14-year-old girls being molested by old men or the way it ended with blaming the mother. It certainly hit all the stereo-typing associated with sexual abuse – it’s victims and perpetrators.

T-Minus


We are heading to the States at the end of the week. We aren’t packed. Important travel documents are still in a safe somewhere and both Dee and I are on the leading edge of some kind of sinus thing. Which means everything is normal. I don’t think I have ever traveled where it wasn’t “that time of the month” or I wasn’t battling a bug/sinus infection. They are practically prerequisites.

So, in anticipation of travel I have been baking.

Yeah, that seems somewhat counterproductive to me too and yet I bake on. Two batches of raisin scones, 4 loaves of zucchini bread, 4 loaves of pumpkin bread (two with raisins), three loaves of carrot bread and there was banana bread last week. Part of the reason is that I still have zucchini in the freezer from last fall, and Rob picked another box full of the mutant things this weekend. I have already decided that I will not be blanching and freezing this fall. It’s easier to shred it and bake it. The carrots came from our garden too. If I could bake the spaghetti squash into some freezable, I would, but we are just going to have to eat squash – a lot – after we get back.

I had the morbid thought that perhaps I was nesting with all this baking – no not for a baby – but in case of some disaster that was about to befall us. But what kind of horror calls for baked goods?

Rob brought up the suitcases this evening and the packing nightmare is underway. The sadists at the airlines have changed carry-on rules in addition to adding a baggage fee for all checked luggage. Given the iffyness of fall weather in Iowa, I am monitoring the weather and plotting for maximum efficiency.

“Make sure you pack enough underwear for Dee,” Rob reminded me. “You never pack enough for her. I couldn’t figure out why until I realized it’s because you hardly ever wear it yourself and it probably just doesn’t occur to you that you are shorting the poor kid.”

Nice.

Underwear is already accounted for and secured, but not much else.

Have I mentioned that I am not a good or pleasant traveler? Especially internationally? Doesn’t bode well for our future as nomads, does it?

But It’s Too Small to Matter, Right?


Dee was one of the top 15 readers in the bookmobile’s summer reading program. Nevermind that Rob and I read most of the books to her because she shared this honor with about five kids under the age of four. That’s the digression.

We attended the bookmobile party honoring the top readers, who received giftcards to Dairy Queen*, and participate in a scavenger hunt for more cheap tainted Chinese plastic. After the awards, there was a quickie lunch of hotdogs and cake. I don’t eat meat because my stomach literally punishes me for even the slightest transgression, but Dee happily downed one. Her horror about flesh eating hasn’t made the leap to what she actually eats yet. That will be an interesting day. She also accepted a piece of chocolate cake with obvious disappointment because she isn’t a fan of chocolate in large chunks – Smarties in vanilla ice-cream, okay, but that’s the extent of it.

Parents were naturally eating alongside children, so I stood out as I always do, and had to explain multiple times that I can’t eat meat and I avoid baked goods because of a peanut allergy – particularly when chocolate is involved. I realize that food allergies or intolerances are not readily or easily understood by most people who don’t have to interact with the afflicted on a regular basis. I know too that there is a a certain amount of resistance to the idea that the good of a few people sometimes means inconveniencing more people**, but I am always surprised by stories of the willful disregard of someone’s allergies by people who think that the allergic are somehow overstating their sensitivities.

“I have a friend with a peanut allergy,” one of the librarians said, “whose mother-in-law nearly killed her with chutney. My friend asked if there were nuts in it and her mother-in-law repeatedly assured her there weren’t. She ate the chutney and was deathly ill. The mother-in-law admitted then that there were nuts but in such a tiny amount, she didn’t think it would hurt.”

“That’s terrible,” the other librarian said.

“But it’s too small to matter sometimes, right?” the first said, looking to me for confirmation.

“Even tiny amounts count,” I assured her.

After we got home, I found a message from my dear friend, Sis, whose oldest daughter is getting married next weekend. I called her back and we chatted. She wanted to know if there was anything she could do to facilitate our trip and to invite us to the rehearsal dinner and the brunch the morning after. At the last moment I remembered the food. Buffets are notorious for spreads a mile long and just as deep without a single thing I can eat. Even though she is one of my closest friends, she is baffled by what I can no longer eat.

And it’s not that anything is necessarily deadly – that I have encountered to date anyway – but gastric pain (not discomfort, there is a difference), sore throat, and what I can only describe as hives on the roof of my mouth are unpleasant enough for me to avoid things even if it means not eating at all and merely watching others.

Fortunately, most of my own family love me enough to move tiny mountains to ensure I can eat (my dad’s funeral dinner was another matter – I really had to nag to get edible food on the menu). I am sure something will be thrown together and in any event there is a restaurant and room service.

*I really dislike the practice of rewarding kids with food. Her dance teachers hand out suckers and the school has popcorn and chips. Small wonder there are so many freakishly large children these days. It’s not healthy to have rolls of fat and if it’s rolling, it’s not baby fat.

** Smoke is the other issue that brings out the intolerant whether they are smokers or people who see nothing wrong in that most horrid of suburban inventions – the backyard firepit. People with lung aliments should simply suck it up and quit overstating the impact on them, right?