Who's On First?

2009-10-02 - 12:01 p.m.

I made it to the game last night. And I made it home safely. The in-between part was painful, though - we lost 11-3. I know the game is mathematically meaningless, but still.

There was a post-season rally held after the game, and then a fireworks show. Then I headed out, hiked to the McDonald's near the stadium for a quick nosh (at that point, I hadn't eaten anything substantial in about five hours) and then caught the bus home.

Once I made it home, my hip and knee started tuning up. And so did my head - all three parts ached.

Well, I still had more fun than I would have had if I'd stayed home.

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Oh, and speaking of baseball...

I found Abbot & Costello's Who's On First radio show in MP3 format.

If you right-click and select "Save Link As..." or somesuch, you can save the MP3 file to your computer and listen to it whenever you want.

Classic.

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Whoopi Goldberg contacted the Today Show to clarify her "it wasn't rape-rape" comment, saying she was trying to keep it within the correct legal aspect.

Actually, Whoopi pretty well explains that in the opening part of the clip I linked to on Tuesday - Polanski wasn't convicted of "rape", he was convicted of "unlawful intercourse with a minor". What Whoopi says in the beginning of that clip is this:

"All I'm trying to get you to understand is, when we're talking about what someone did and what they were charged with, we have to say what it actually was, not what we THINK it was."

Okay. But the conviction was due to a plea bargain. To me - and this is only my opinion, I'm not a lawyer - it's something like being charged with "murder in the second degree" and making a plea bargain for "second degree manslaughter". There are different criteria for each version. It's a lesser version of the crime, but that doesn't mean you didn't commit the crime that you were originally charged for - and in this hypothetical case, the victim is just as dead.

Polanski raped and sodomized a thirteen-year-old girl (according to the girl's grand jury testimony), but was convicted on a lesser charge. Now, maybe according to the law he "didn't" rape her, but that doesn't mean it didn't happen - and by all accounts, it DID happen. If the victim wants this thing dropped so she doesn't have to go through a trial, I can understand and sympathize. My point was that he WAS convicted and he skipped town before sentencing. THAT is something he needs to answer for.

As for protecting the show - if Whoopi made this clarification solely for the purpose of keeping the show from being sued, I'm quite sure that the show's legal department has a disclaimer at the end saying something like "the views expressed here are not necessarily the opinions of this program of this station or any of its affiliates" and so on. If there is no such disclaimer, then that would leave the show wide open to lawsuits. And IMHO, that should be the legal department's worry, not Whoopi's.

According to Meredith Viera, Whoopi also said she is "not a supporter of Roman Polanski". I'll believe that when it comes from Whoopi's mouth.

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Okay, I give up. I've now joined Twitter.

Expect Twitter stock to take a nosedive as people flee in panic.

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Okay, I have a bit of laundry to do before work.

Be seeing you.

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