Alexandria Goddard, Ariel Levy, Stuebenville Ohio

Alexandria "Brockovich" Goddard

This week's New Yorker has an article about the real America, the heartland, where 17 year old high school football players are knights and the adults are still mired in their own memories of high school, because as Alexandria Goddard, a local blogger who rode to fame on the back of an alledged rape has said, "Grown men. Twenty years out of high school and they're still reliving it. They can't get over that their lives suck."

Ms. Goddard has more piquant observations, but her main interest appears less social commentary than trying to dredge up a career as the Erin Brockovich of Steubenville, which is a phrase her new "agent" used to hype her new book about the rape which she hopes to monetize. She says "We do have a rape culture and violence against women."  Well, that sells. 

Ariel Levy, who writes about the Ms. Goddard, allowing Ms. Goddard to do all the damage which needs to be done to Ms. Goddard does buy the rape culture bit. "Worldwide , women between fifteen and four-four are more likely to be injured or die from male violence than from traffice accidents, cancer, malaria and the effects of war combined. This sustained brutality would be impossible without a culture which enables it; a value system in which women are currency and sex is something that men get--or take--from them."

Well, Mad Dog was with her, for a while, until the malaria got thrown in there. First of all, even without the malaria, Mad Dog's law of large numbers holds that once you get to really big numbers, like millions, you are almost always quoting studies which are wrong and you no longer know what you are talking about. You are saying this is a really big problem because I want it to be because I'm talking about it. 

The thing about malaria: It kills more peopel world wide than any other disease. That's a big number and likely has some meaning, even though death certificate data is almost completely unreliable and where malaria is killing people they don't even do death certificates.

But Mad Dog digresses. 

What interests Mad Dog is the whole problem of young women who get drunk and the young men who see their drunkeness as an opportunity.

Before everyone carried a smart phone, the young men tended to simply sneak off to a quiet room with the drunk girl/woman, but the smart phone has introduced a new dimension to this age old event: Now the young men are not content, in some cases, to avail themselves of a willing, if incompetent, partner, they film the event and brag about it. 

Oh, America! 

When George W. Bush confronted those nasty pictures from Abu Ghraib prison and he said, "This is not who we are," he, apparently, could not have been more wrong. This was exactly who we were and still are.

In the case of the prisoners, of course, there was no complicity. 
In the cases of the girl from West Virginia who may or may not have been raped in Steubenville, there was a problem of complicity--in that she reportedly was determined to get drunk and to  "go with" her accused attacker. 

Then there is also the crowd, the modern day Greek chorus, showing up in masks with signs outside courtrooms, posting photos of the accused males on line with a listing of their class schedules so others can show up outside classroom and chant "rapist." Thirteen hundred people "from across the country" showed up for a rally at the Jefferson County Courthouse, holding signs "Rape Is Not A Sport." Do these people not have jobs? What are they doing in Steubenville, Ohio? 

But then there is Goddard, who got to appear on "Dr. Phil"  and now describes herself as a "catalyst for change. I cause change." She describes the prosecutor in the case as "gravy legs" because "gravy spreads easily." That sort of came out of nowhere, except to say people often accuse others of what they see in themselves.  Ms. Goddard has moved to the Mojave Desert where she has a new boyfriend, a Marine Corps drill sergeant. She likes soldiers, cops and football players. "I got a little boyfriend and he's dark and delicious and twenty-six."

So, where was Mad Dog? He keeps getting distracted. Drunk girls. Football players who video and post themselves having sex, adults who never get past high school, psychologically, and Alexandria Goddard, who rockets to fame and gets herself an agent by blogging about it all.

Is this a fantastic country, or what?

At least it's not New Hampshire.