This is crazy. I was really disturbed when I heard about this local rape case, and now it seems like they're saying the woman participated in making a porno consensually? I wonder. And how could a consensual act also be "one of the most brutal cases" that the cops had ever investigated?
Heyamoto's still doing it. And not showing any signs that she's going to stop.
This local pastry chef may be a good reason to try the desserts at Mulvaneys when I go. It says she lives above an Asian market downtown. I wonder if she's my neighbor?
I think it's stupid for the Bee to devote this much space to an article about a chain. He reviewed two separate Ruth's Chris's Ruths' steak's house's. That's excessive.
I refuse to read anymore of Heyamoto's columns.
ReplyDelete-Connie
Connie, what would Martha, Joan & Melissa say?!
ReplyDeletemiller
That is a really fantastic article about Ginger!
ReplyDeleteFor the time being she isn't offering any desserts at Mulvaney's because chef makes them all but you can buy her chocolates there and they're great.
Putting aside the fact that the movie "Dune" has come up again, and in the strangest context possible (perhaps he was under a deadline to win a 10-year-old bet with someone that he'd never mention it in a restaurant review) -- maybe I've been living in a cranberry silo for too many years, but is there any point whatsoever for a big-city paper to even DO reviews of chain restaurants? Isn't it assumed they have the same menu and ambiance (or lack therof) whether you're in Costa Mesa, Indianapolis or Jakarta? It just seems like a baffling waste of column inches when there's hundreds of other estabslihments that need the good notices or, more fun yet, the tartly written drubbing?
ReplyDelete(whisper)he is the one
ReplyDeleteThe funny whispers from Dune are my favorite movie quotes ever!
(whisper) the sleeper has awakened
You're right, I think that big papers don't usually review chains. For instance, Frank Bruni recently reviewed Hooters in the Times, but on his blog, not in the paper. I can think of a lot of better uses for that space, among them a long article on, say, the Vietnamese restaurants on Stockton Blvd., or an ad for breast enlargements. It seems to me that Dunne enjoys writing about wine more than food and he probably wishes he was at a big enough paper that he could just be the wine columnist. Maybe not, just unfounded conjecture, my raison d'etre. I'm kind of using that phrase wrong.
(whisper) the spice
Ginger was offered a job at Mason's as the pastry chef (a position much needed there), but I guess it wasn't enough money. Looks like going to culinary school does pay off, sometimes.
ReplyDeleteWell, that settles it -- I'm going to leave a long, confusing message on Dunne's voice mail in the middle of the night saying that the order of Bene Gesserit has become clouded with a sense of grave ire over his reviews, and is breeding a Kwisatz Haderach in the event that he doesn't get his reviews in order or send out his resume to papers big enough to pay a columnist to drink (as opposed to merely driving all the editorial staff TO drink). And I'll use the scary "Dune" whisper voice.
ReplyDeleteGod, I like to think it'd be a miracle if I ever wrote a paragraph with geekier references than that last one, but I'd be wrong...
Hats off (or better yet, stillsuits off) to everyone for making Dune references.
ReplyDelete-heckamax
Stillsuits.
ReplyDeleteWell played, my good sir. I think I've been topped. Just remember, fear is the mind-killer, young Paul.
that is crazy about the rape thing. i read that headline when it first hit the news and was shocked. Later i heard that the accused were laughing at the arraignment. because i believe that only a small portion of humanity is truly sociopathic and thereby capable of laughing at someone else's tragedy, i started to think those guys weren't being accused fairly and that there was more to the picture than originally told by the woman who levied the charges--particularly because she waited an hour before calling the cops after the "rape" occurred. I should so be a criminologist.
ReplyDeletewaiting an hour after having a brutal crime commited against you? that doesn't seem at all strange to me.
ReplyDeletehonestly, i'm not being sarcastic here.
i know i went into shock for close to two hours after a car accident i suffered and that obviously pales in comparison.
and beating the shit out of her probably had nothing to do with the movie. so, i'd still be pretty skeptical of the men involved.
RE: Rape Case...
ReplyDeletePolice called this "one of the most brutal" assaults in recent memory, because they sometimes like to begin opening arguments before the jury has been selected.
Consider the case of the first grade teacher dude from Antelope who was arrested and then had his name and picture plastered all over the place (in the Bee and on local news television):
3/30/05 AM, http://www.kcra.com/news/4330043/detail.html
Sac County Sheriff Minister of Information, R.L. Davis (sounding awfully sure of himself):
"The acts he committed are monstrous acts that he committed with these children...We want this out there because if there are other acts that have taken place that are inappropriate with any students that he dealt with, we want to know"
3/30/05 PM, http://www.kcra.com/news/4332830/detail.html
"What we've got is essentially a disgruntled marriage here, where there's a custody battle," (defense attorney) Chastain said. "If you had an ex-wife that wanted to ruin your life, what better way to do than to make these kind of allegations." ... In response, Sheriff's Department officials said they have physical evidence of abuse as well as the verbal allegations.
4/05/05 PM, http://www.kcra.com/news/4350534/detail.html
"Further investigation into family law documents and the inability to medically corroborate the molests makes it unlikely that the case could be proven beyond a reasonable doubt," the (Sac County DA) news release said.
So...we go from the Sac County Sheriff Department vigorously trying the case in the press (telling us how much physical evidence they have against the suspect), to the District Attorney saying that they don't really have any evidence. Then, when they admit that they don't have any evidence against you, instead of getting your good name back, they leave a cloud over your head by saying that they would be unlikely to prove the case in court.
Who knows what really happened in either of these cases (and that question will always follow these guys around). What we do know for sure is that the original suspects in each case were dragged through the press before being "cleared" and now they will always be associated with something rotten. They will always have to explain to prospective employers, dinner dates and landlords why their name turned up on Google (if they even get invited to explain themselves). These spokespeople for local law enforcement should be tarred-and-featherd when they are found to be so wrong after being so glib in their statements to the media.
I don't know, I still think something is amiss with this case. I think the fact that she might have been consensually filming a porno at some point just made her an unsypathetic victim. We were talking about it last night and Brew seconded something I was thinking when we thought it might be preliminary for a WEAVE spokesperson to jump up and say she was hurting real rape victims by reporting this. Do they even have all the facts? Have they seen the video? Whether or not what happened was legally rape I'm sure it was pretty gnarly and at least WEAVE could support her a little bit. I'm envisioning a scenario that started out consensual and then more and more dudes kept arriving and maybe at some point she wasn't cool with it. More speculation, of course.
ReplyDeleteBut you know what else was weird about the reporting and the police quotes? How they kept emphasizing how small she was. Is it not as bad if I get raped cuz I'm tall?
i guess Hecka, they think you can stand your own, against, what was it? ten men?
ReplyDeleteand i agree Norm. the police and the media have a huge responsibility to be careful in their reporting. it's far more difficult to retract a statement like that then it is to put it out there.
i'm not condeming the men. i just said, i'd still be skeptical.
It is totally fucked whenever someone gets their name dragged through the mud without justification. That said, I can see why people (reporters included, duh) jumped on the bandwagon against these guys. People who tape sex acts for later display or sale are sleazy. And people who get turned on by violence, staged or not, are even worse. So, these perverts are working from a tough position, defense-wise. In a perfect world, society would be able to put aside their biases, but prosecutors, cops and attorneys and jurors are just as bigoted against dudes who like to film similated rapes as I am, so it's tough shit for the accused. In some ways, I'm glad the cops have such fucking morons as spokespeople. It shows how far from reality their statements are and how dishonest reporters who continue to quote 'em without any disclaimers (disclosure: the cop has proven himself a liar many times over) are too.
ReplyDeleteAs for whether there was a crime committed, I am not going to engage in the speculation that has appeared above since I only know the "bumper sticker" version of the story. I will start paying attention to what evidence gets in and gets tossed and see what I think then.
I do agree with Katy Monster that when you get kicked around or smacked around it can take way more than an hour to be able to even process what happened, let alone submit to an interview by a stranger in a strange place, so the fact that she waited proves nothing. Either she's a victim or the guys are. Only the shadow knows.
Beckler, the reporting of her size is probably just a way to get more words on the page. At least I hope so. It doesn't make a difference and shouldn't be a part of the reporting. Big people get hurt by people smaller than them all the time.
Ed
It's always been difficult for prostitutes to seek justice when raped, and even for wives, so just imagine how much harder for someone making a porn film.
ReplyDeleteI don't know the details of this case beyond the article, but I'd be interested in just what she agreed to on the video. Agreeing to have sex on film, or even to have sex with more than one partner on film is not the same as agreeing to be battered and raped for 12 hours. But of course, agreeing to do the video would make it hard to prosecute, especially if she agreed to any degree of simulated rape.
I hope the WEAVE folks had more information than I do before they made their statement.
Disturbing story all around.