That Slate article is very introspective. Maybe it’s making more people think and “not play nice” in the future.
Freelancer Jesse Brown was working on the matter and brought it to the Toronto Star, so he and Star reporter Kevin Donovan have been working on it together for months. Everyone else is playing catch-up.
If Rob Ford gets involved in any way, it could explode.
I’m on my phone so can’t search the thread easily, but early on (maybe a week ago Monday?) I posted a link to an article in the Washington Post, which had links to a few other US sites which were covering the story.
In particular, it linked to an article by Savage, who was expressing scepticism about the BSDM defence.
There has been an article (opinion piece) that mentions both.
Jian Ghomeshi, Rob Ford and the cost of Canadian politeness, from the Ottawa Citizen.
I’ve read most of the links here to the women’s stories, and the stories of the women who knew those women, and I’m losing track of who is whom, but I think it’s fairly clear that the man has done what the women claimed. When I first heard of the story, and read a link to his Facebook post, I thought just maybe he was the victim (since I’ve seen women lie about men in order to exact revenge) but now I’m convinced otherwise. But one thing puzzles me a bit: not one of the women has said, when describing being suddenly struck, or choked, or smashed against the wall, that they were afraid of being raped, or that he might kill them. They describe being startled, and scared, but not afraid for their lives. Am I missing something in their recounting, or has this been covered in an article I’ve missed?
The closest I remember is the lawyer, Ms Seth, who described being digitally penetrated against her will.
If proven, that would be sexual assault under Canadian criminal law (we no longer have an offence of rape).
As the person who didn’t know what to do with her copy of 1982 who brought the subject up, can we not detract from talking about the implications of Jian’s dismissal, the allegations, what it means to the CBC and also to us as a culture, to discuss book burning. Neither **EmilyG **nor I were seriously ever going to burn our books, but it becomes a legitimate questiion: When someone whom you respect and support by buying his books and albums (not to mention being a taxpayer supporting the CBC) no longer has your respect, what do you do with the memorabilia?
I agree that our rule of law begins with presumption of innocence. Still, as the number of allegations increase, as the stories all have similar details, as so many former employees and co-workers… preyed upon, abused, harassed, demeaned or otherwise , say “We all knew about Jian” I am less and less likely to believe his spin. Too many women have had their stories discredited at the hands of male abusers. So now I am no longer proud to own his egocentric and narcissistic biography.
As mentioned in the Steve Faguy piece I linked above, hardly anyone is on Ghomeshi’s side anymore. (Except maybe his lawyer?)
I’ve seen brief mentions on CNN and the NYTimes, I believe, but buried in the bulleted list of smaller stories below the headlines.
Predicting a motion to dismiss in a civil proceeding is like predicting that the sun will come out tomorrow. It’s almost malpractice if you don’t move for dismissal immediately.
A pdf of the motion to dismiss at the bottom of the article.
kittenblue - I think it is possible to assaulted without being in fear for your life. That has happened to me. Until more of the women accusing Ghomeshi are interviewed, there will still be questions.
I’m ashamed to admit that as a “Q” fan I initially fell for his Facebook post. Now, I’m so cynical I’m wondering if his heartrending post about his father’s death was posted to get sympathy when the reporter came out with his story. From what I’ve read he needs to hit somebody to get his rocks off. Just take a blue pill, already.
Another point about this story - I’ve followed this story pretty closely & I must say I’m sick of comments coming from Americans making fun of Canada. As if other countries can’t have cultures and issues of their own that matter.
Everyone – the following is all off-topic.
Unfortunately, I was out doing stuff IRL and have been offline since mid-afternoon yesterday, so didn’t see any of the reports.
I’m not issuing any warnings, but everyone concerned needs to drop the hijack now.
twickster, MPSIMS moderator
What sort of comments were Americans making? I hadn’t seen anything like that.
L C Strawhouse - I’m sorry I don’t have time to dig up specifics right now, but I saw a lot of comments along the lines of - Why should we care about what happens in Canada, and comments implying that Canada is a cultural backwater that Americans don’t need to bother read about.
Oh. Well, that’s just content-free brainless trolling - it would be “worse” (better?) if they actually managed to make some incisive points about Canadians. If Americans need a frame of reference, you can always tell them it’s a bit like the Don Imus scandal.
I speak only for myself, but I’m guessing I’m far from alone: I only became aware of him during the Billy Bob Thornton incident. I was and I remain on Team Jian on that one: Billy Bob was a sullen psycho a-hole- I don’t give a damn what Q had been “instructed” (what an arrogant word) not to mention- and I was extremely impressed with how well he handled it and said so at the time. I so wanted him to ask Billy Bob to “Here’s a great idea: when your suck ass band plays, why don’t you sing in that funny retarded voice you did in SLING BLADE!”
After that I listened to/watched his show on YouTube occasionally, I liked his page on Facebook and learned of some good interviews that way: Dan Aykroyd discussing his real life ghost chasing, Al Gore, Lewis Black, and others- he was/is a good interviewer. I’m not dissing Canada at all when I say I wondered a couple of times if he planned to move to the U.S. and go on television where the earning potential was far higher, but I figured that like Chris Hardwick he’d found his niche and was about the level of fame he wanted to be and while Toronto isn’t the boondocks it probably does have a more big fish/small pond feel.
Then I did a “Hmmm?” doubletake when reading his FB post about his sex life. I assumed his big reveal was going to be that he was gay (which I can’t imagine being that big a deal anywhere anymore for someone who’s not a romantic lead) or that he was straight and got a 19 year old pregnant maybe, but quickly went :eek::eek: at the TMI and then the pile-on.
And I totally see this inspiring an L&O episode.
Way worse than that, actually; Don just made an ill thought ornery-old-white-jackass comment, but he “did not use his hands”.
I’ll use the (scandal free to my knowledge, and adorable) Chris Hardwick again: it’s similar to if we learned the same thing about Chris Hardwick. He’s probably fairly close in popularity and recognition to Americans as Ghomeshi is to Canadians (i.e. well known but not a superstar).
I don’t minimize Canadian culture, but I do keep in mind the airwave geography of most Canadians living within American TV range while only a small percentage of Americans get Canadian shows, so it’s not surprising that we’re not as up on Can-pop-cult as Canadians are on US.
I didn’t mean to compare the wrongdoing of Ghomeshi and Imus - obviously they were completely different, and their audiences were very different as well.
But I think that (pre-scandal) they both had a similar level of popularity in their respective countries, and both of them seemed to aspire to be respected cultural commentators (beyond just a talk show host) who hobnobbed with politicians. I remember Imus referring to George Bush Sr. and Jr. as “41” and “43” (gag), implying they were friends who met socially.