getmygoat

I’m sure by now you’ve heard about little Caylee Anthony’s disappearance and recently confirmed death. Her mother, Casey Anthony is being tried for the child’s homicide.

I honestly don’t know enough about the case to posit an opinion on Ms Casey’s guilt or innocence. I will admit that the evidence surrounding her daughter’s disappearance and the discovery of her remains does not bode well for the young woman’s innocence, but that is for a court to decide, and I am not on that jury.

My interest lies with Casey’s parents, George and Cindy Anthony, who appear to support their daughter through this ordeal. They have suffered crowd of people camped out on their lawn because of their daughter’s alleged deeds, even though George Anthony was instrumental in the police investigation because he reported the smell of decay in Casey Anthony’s car.

I understand that the justice system does not work the way it should. Legally we are innocent until proven guilty, but in the court of public opinion we are guilty long after we have been proven innocent. Few crimes are more upsetting than the death of a child, especially when the parents - people supposed to protect and nurture that child - are the prime suspects.

But Casey Anthony’s deeds are not the issue here. Her parents have BEEN good parents and visited their daughter in prison; they have not turned their backs on her even though the world believes she has committed a heinous act. I’ll admit that I struggled with this a bit at first, so I took it up with my father, as I do with many of the moral and ethical debates I face while watching live trial coverage.

I don’t have any children, but one of my half siblings does; thus Dad knows what it means to be both a parent and a grandparent. I asked him what he thought he would do if he found himself in the Anthony family’s situation because of my actions. He surprised me by saying that he would visit me in prison and help me find a decent attorney. He didn’t surprise me when he told me I’d be better off in jail than with him, so I got the impression he would not bail me out if I weren’t remanded. Most importantly, he said he would listen to me.

I’ve spoken to other (mostly young) parents about this case. They position themselves closer to Casey than to her parents, and they declare that it is possible to be a young parent and still be a good parent, that she was a bad and neglectful mother. That may be true; I have never met Casey Anthony. Dad is the first person who related to George and Cindy. He gave me a glimpse of what truly unconditional love is; you can be angry at someone you love and hate their actions yet still be a supportive parent through a difficult time. It appears that they are being the kind of parents that people wish Casey Anthony had been.

Thoughts?

I think everyone on the planet has heard about the shoe-throwing incident that occurred earlier this week during George W. Bush’s unannounced visit to Iraq. I won’t start in on how long it took the Secret Service to step in or question how much longer people will be allowed to wear shoes around the presence (at least he wasn’t wearing heels, right?). I won’t parody what happened, even though the subject matter does lend itself to jest.

No, I want to know why an Iraqi reporter would throw his shoes at President Bush at this particular moment. I understand that his shoes were a close-by projectile and that he is most likely upset with Bush’s foreign policy; I can follow that part. But why now? I found a clip of Bush’s reaction, writing the reporter’s actions off as an attention-getting ploy.

There must be more to this than a simple publicity stunt. I assume that he plays off the attack in an effort to appear strong to the public. And while shoe-throwing is not the most intimidating tactic one can come up with, I still question the reporter’s motives.

Unfortunately I cannot find very much information about exactly what W. was doing over there in the first place, but I know he was signing some sort of security agreement. As he threw his shoes, the reporter yelled in Arabic that it was a farewell gift from the Iraqi people. Is there more than meets the eye here? Is this act a protest against George W. Bush? The agreement he signed? His other actions while in office? America? Non-Iraqis? There are so many possible grievances at stake that I can’t even begin to fathom this man’s reasoning. Any thoughts?

Those of you keeping up with TruTV’s trial coverage know that Steven Rios was found guilty of killing Jesse Valencia. This was an interesting case because it was an appeal; Rios had already been convicted once. I could discuss the fault with the findings (a friend and I re-enacted the crime scene in my living room, and depending on the amount of time before losing consciousness, a person in a headlock can do quite a bit of damage to the hands, forearms, and face of the attacker), but I am more interested in a social aspect of this crime.

The prosecution argued that Rios killed Valencia because Rios was concerned that Valencia would expose their affair. In the name of justice, we have already “outed” one person (who may or may not be guilty of this crime). I’m not naive; some married men have affairs, and some of those men having affairs commit crimes to conceal their activities. Indeed, a married man having sexual relations with another man would have more to hide than a married man having an affair with a woman because of the stigma and hate attached to homosexuality. I have no problem with this theory.

My problem is with the number of witnesses called to testify about the victim’s sex life. Apparently Valencia had a lot of partners, as the defense made clear as an alternative theory; someone else killed him out of jealousy. Leaving all comments on victim-blaming aside, I would like to know how many people were “outed” during this trial. How many people risked their jobs, their friends, their relationships with their families because of this crime?

This is not a perfect world, and many people are not accepting of lifestyles which differ from their own. Many people were subpoenaed to testify; they had no choice but to put Valencia’s (and in some cases, their own) sex lives on display before the public.

Justice is important, and whoever killed this young man should face the consequences, regardless of age, race, or sexuality. I do not feel that justice was served here on a number of levels; people’s privacy was invaded, all to the end of convicting a man under quite problematic pretenses.