Because neither lazy media or hateful mobs are a recent or American-only invention. I never did understand how that line became an all-purpose funny…
…[T]here is nothing laughable about the dingo, Australia’s native wild dog and a predator capable of inflicting considerable harm. Certainly, nothing was funny about the most famous episode involving that animal: the 1980 disappearance of 9-week-old Azaria Chamberlain while her family was camping in the Australian outback. Her mother, Lindy Chamberlain, said that a dingo had entered a tent where the baby lay, and made off with her; the body was never found. An initial inquiry supported her account. But then another inquest was held, and soon Ms. Chamberlain stood accused of having slit Azaria’s throat. Found guilty of murder in 1982, she was sentenced to life in prison, only to be released three years later when new evidence surfaced that absolved both her and her husband, Michael Chamberlain, who had been convicted as an accessory after the fact. Even so, it took nearly three more decades before a coroner, in 2012, finally issued what the now-divorced parents had long sought: full vindication in the form of a death certificate formally ascribing Azaria’s fate to a dingo attack…
CONGRATULATIONS!
This would never be an issue in America – the accused innocents would have been executed long before they were absolved of the crime.
BGinCHI
Remember that on “Seinfeld,” tuberculosis was also a punch line.
redshirt
“Dingo stole my baby” is the house band at The Bronze.
redshirt
I’ve seen a dingo in person, also. I had no baby to steal, however.
kuvasz
Back in the ’80’s a colleague of mine worked for the defense team of the Chamberlains. He told me that one of the prosecution’s key points was the manner in which the baby’s blanket was torn. The prosecution pointed to the way in which the baby’s blanket was torn. Microscopic analysis showed that the blanket was cut by a very sharp edge, and said only a knife could do such, indicting that the blanket was cut by a human, i.e., the mother.
My colleague tested that hypothesis by taking a similar blanket and tied it around a big piece of beef. Then he throw the bundle at his dogs, who promptly torn the blanket apart to get to the meat.
Know what his microscopic analysis showed? The same type of tear as the blanket in evidence. THE DINGO ATE THE BABY.
NotMax
Somehow or other over the years, the phrase mutated amongst our little social group to become “Chuck Norris ate my baby!”
Still gets a laugh whenever someone tosses it into the conversation at an appropriate juncture.
The Other Chuck
@CONGRATULATIONS!: Heck, if it’s Texas, they’d find a way to execute them after they were absolved.
the Conster
I think it became a thing because of Meryl Streep.
Tree With Water
Weren’t the Ramsey’s exonerated as suspects in the death of their little girl? In Europe most recently, the still unsolved murder of a British child in Portugal (or Spain) has intrigued the continent for a few years. At one time, if not yet still, her parents stood suspect in public opinion. When tragedy strikes a child, suspicions are always raised, aren’t they, about the conduct of the guardians? Fairly or unfairly..
Pogonip
Way way down in one of the Michael Brownthreads, Suzanne mentioned 75% of the guys she talks to are in favor of RAPE. (!). Suzanne,were you kidding? If you were serious, I hope you are not dating any of them.
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
@the Conster:
Beat me to it. It became a joke line because of the trailer of the Meryl Streep movie about the case, where Streep’s delivery came across a but comic.
IIRC, another part of the problem for the Chamberlains were that they were the “wrong” kind of Christians (Seventh-Day Adventists), so there were all kinds of wild rumors about child sacrifice, etc.
Another Holocene Human
@kuvasz: I love that expert liestomony that lays out all the smelly assfax a prosecutor could want and is all “What? Me worry?” at the whole notion of, like, testing a hypothesis (who does that).
See: Texas, Arson, investigative techniques of
Anne Laurie
@BGinCHI: No, I actually was curious about why that line became a catchphrase, because I didn’t know about the Seinfeld cameo and I’d never seen the movie. It’s quite an informative video, if you’ve got fifteen minutes to spare!
Fifty years ago, my dad & us kids used to illicitly feed the Bronx Zoo’s pack of dingos dog biscuits through the wire fencing. After watching those guys toss around & crunch through sizable bones with no more apparent effort than they used on those biscuits, it seemed quite plausible to me that a motivated dingo could carry off an infant and not leave much evidence behind for the prosecutors.
Another Holocene Human
The more a “forensic examiner” swears that the matching technique is 100% accurate and lays on the certainty porn…
the more they’re bullshitting. Guaranteed.
Just a pro-tip if you’re on a jury. It would be really embarrassing if you vote to convict and the poor slob gets exonerated later.
Another Holocene Human
@Mnemosyne (iPhone): I guess vegetarians who eat babies are totally legit, like the notion that gentile blood is kosher for passover. Sounds reasonable.
Another Holocene Human
@Tree With Water: Remember that woman Nancy Grace drove to suicide.
Good fucken times.
BGinCHI
@Anne Laurie: I think Seinfeld is responsible. It’s pretty damn funny, context aside…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ghCTZF61ey0
Pogonip
May I make one more Michael Brown remark, only because I have not seen it mentioned in anything written about the case?
Brown is 35 or 105 feet away, depending on whom you believe. Is there some reason the cop can’t roll up the window while hitting the gas? Probably every woman in America knows to do this if someone rushes her car; wouldn’t a cop?
My own opinion, which is worth what you are paying for it, is that the cop panicked (people prone to panic shouldn’t be in a job like that) and everything else followed in his attempt to cover that up.
We now return you to your regularly scheduled dingo discussion.
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
@Another Holocene Human:
Well, nobody said they ATE the baby after sacrificing her to their weirdo pseudo-god of Seventh-Day Adventism, which clearly is not Real True Christianity.
IIRC, the Adventists made some pretty good inroads with Pacific Islanders, so there’s probably a good dollop of racism towards the “natives” mixed in there, too, even though the Chamberlains themselves are white.
Jordan Rules
@Pogonip: Yeah and consider how play-cop Zimmerman was allowed to kill Trayvon after being told not pursue him. There were a whole bunch of things they both could have and should have done.
In response to the black menace it’s kill, kill, kill…no other course of thought or action is necessary.
p.a.
@Another Holocene Human: Willingham
elmo
@redshirt:
Gotta watch that descending “E.” That’s a man’s chord. You could lose a finger.
kindness
It’s funny because we are sick puppies.
I believed her and I have used that line. One sick pup.
Ripley
Years ago my girlfriend and I house-sat for some friends of hers; they lived in rural Washington, lots of acreage and very isolated. We went to pre-meet them to get instructions for irrigating, dog care, etc. They kept a dingo – thankfully to be boarded elsewhere for the time they were away, but it was present and in the house for our meet-up. It lurked, head down but watching, constantly skulking and skirting the walls, grunting periodically. The whole dynamic of ‘people in a house with pets’ was markedly different – this was a wild animal barely contained, and it looked for all the world like it was sizing up a good meal: me and the GF.
I love animals, but I couldn’t wait to get the fuck out.
Another Holocene Human
@Mnemosyne (iPhone): they’re an annoying and patriarchal cult who can be kinda annoying with their diet nonsense that they spend a lot of money to push publicly, but I wasn’t aware of the race angle, huh.
Suspect something similar with JWs. Most of us know them as the nuisances who go door to door they also proselytized a ton among West Indians. Though the hierarchy secretly believes that none of these later converts could be numbered among the ‘elect’. Very exploitative.
JWs were big political targets during the first half of the 20th century.
AoG is funny too, very kooky, VERY hateful, very abusive, the northern (western) white cesspits are very racist too yet they are big in communities of color. Go figure. Assemblies of God are not only Sarah Palin’s worship choice so that says it all but they’ve ruined the lives, very directly, of people quite close to me. They are vile. I despise AoG.
probably going to offend somebody with this so let me say this, all religious traditions have their abusive cults, evil teachings and suckfest congregations…
and atheists are not immune either
Patricia Kayden
@CONGRATULATIONS!: Why am I laughing? But you’re so right. Personally, I believe part of the hysteria surrounding the Chamberlains was that they were members of a “weird” religion. They were easily demonized.
Mike J
@redshirt: Dingoes ate my baby, to be pedantic.
Patricia Kayden
@Ripley: That poor dingo. I hate when people own wolves (and other wild animals which should not be tamed) as pets.
Another Holocene Human
IDK maybe this is the Boston speaking but if I were a poor person of color and really wanted to escape reality wouldn’t a loonie leftist cult afford a bit more personal dignity and less self loathing that right wing charismatic abusive xtian cult nuttery … and that stuff’s expensive too.
Plus you get to idolize Cesar, Angela, and Che instead of worshipping some slimey ass sex offender preacher. And you get to read and discuss academic texts instead of paying out for gematria and worship guides and books and dvds that regurgitate the pre-packaged sermons. Rip. Off.
I’m not gonna bring Black church into it because they go for catharsis on Sunday without taking their feet of the ground, completely different from this conspiracy theory psychotic break stuff.
Another Holocene Human
LaRouchies are a bridge too far, though.
Patricia Kayden
@Pogonip: I heard someone (foolishly) argue that after Brown assaulted Wilson through the car window, Wilson had no choice but to gun him down — regardless of how far away he was or if he no longer posed a threat. Something about not allowing that kind of disrespect to go down …
Howard Beale IV
@Another Holocene Human:
Indeed: Brother Jimmy Swaggart is a perfect example of their mindset.
KG
@Patricia Kayden: Here’s what i don’t understand about the situation in the car. Wilson testified that Brown was hitting him and his only thought of “how do to avoid being beat up in my car” was to pull his gun. Pulling a gun in a close range situation is safer than driving the car 20-30 feet away? That seems incredibly, strange to me.
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
@Another Holocene Human:
Jonestown was a leftist cult. That didn’t end well.
beltane
@Ripley: Friends of ours have a wolf-dog hybrid who is indifferent enough to adults and older children but who unexpectedly snapped at our 7 year old the last time we were there. We haven’t visited since, it’s just not worth it.
beltane
@KG: Wasn’t there a SYG in Florida where the so-called attacker actually drove away and was pursued by the shooter? It would seem that carrying a gun turns men into very dainty, delicate little creatures.
beltane
@Another Holocene Human: When you stop to consider it, it’s really a wonder that extremist anti-American groups haven’t attracted more recruits from among our various marginalized citizens the way they have in Europe.
The Other Chuck
@beltane: What do you think the Tea Party is?
Pogonip
@KG: Me too. One would hope the Brown family’s attorney asks these questions in the civil trial.
KG
@beltane: there’s just so much about the shooting that doesn’t make sense. and then the grand jury proceedings are insane – the prosecutor clearly didn’t seem interested in getting an indictment, and as a lawyer, I’m not sure I’ve ever heard of a case where that was the case.
someone posted the scene from the first episode of Newsroom where Will McAvoy goes on the rant about how the US isn’t the greatest country in the world anymore. (sidenote: I really wish that show could have lived up to it’s early potential) the line that hit me was “we didn’t use to scared”.
Shaun Appleby
A point overlooked here is Lindy Chamberlain’s and her husband’s active Seventh Day Advent church affiliations; he was a pastor in the church.
As unbelievable as it seems today, in lily-white suburban Australia of the early 80s their peculiar faith qualified them as the ‘other’ and their church as a ‘cult’. Google ‘lindy chamberlain ritual’ to see the faint remnants of what was once the salacious gossip of a nation.
So the media and public somewhat gleefully exercised their newly discovered collective social consciences in a shameless witch-hunt. Truly. She would have been executed if only the penal code had permitted it.
Also, it was a second inquest which indicted her and her husband; the first inquest issued no indictment and was quashed by the Supreme Court of the Northern Territory after the weight of public opinion was brought to bear. It was an unedifying spectacle from start to finish; a muscle-flexing for Murdoch’s nascent media empire. One might argue that the Chamberlains were perhaps pawns in one of Rupert’s campaigns to demonstrate the power of his tabloid press, looking back on it.
samiam
Son of Steve Cole the one man angry mob would have been right in saying the mother is guilty because Greenwald said so and also because…..other stuff he read on the internet
redshirt
@Mike J: Right on, at The Bronze.
beltane
Minneapolis protest in support of Mike Brown plowed over by car: http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/11/25/1347505/-Still-reeling-from-pointergate-Minneapolis-protestors-for-Mike-Brown-plowed-over-by-car
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
@beltane:
I’ve been considering finding a protest to join here in the Los Angeles area. On the one hand, I want to show that at least some of us white people think this decision was fucked up and bullshit. On the other, I don’t want to be the white woman who barges in on other people’s anguish to make it all about her.
beltane
@Mnemosyne (iPhone): The pictures I saw of last night’s NYC protest showed many white people in the crowd. At this point, it’s more about a desire for change rather than anguish. Unchecked police power is a bad thing period
bargal20
@Mnemosyne (iPhone):
There are lots of reasons to decry what happened to the Chamberlains, but to try make it a race issue is possibly the dumbest tack I’ve ever seen, and an insult the the many,many real victims of racism in Australia. Congratulations.
JPL
@Shaun Appleby: A Seventh Day Adventist Church purchased a home next to where I was raised. My sister and I would try to peak into the windows because my parents called them holy rollers. We thought that meant they all rolled on the floor. Yup even here in the states, they were viewed as a cult.
Mike G
The Chamberlain case was Australia’s OJ trial, it dominated the news for years. The family’s Adventist religion was definitely an ick factor in Australian public opinion. Aussies at the time were fairly agnostic (aggressive Xtianity seems unfortunately to have grown in popularity in recent times) and much more wary of bible-thumpers than US culture, so it was easy for the trash media to gin up suspicion about child sacrifice and other wild speculation.
The forensic analysis at the trial was really sloppy. There was one claim by the prosecution that they had found a spray of baby’s blood under the dashboard of their car, which turned out to be standard sound-deadening foam installed by the factory.
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
@bargal20:
Which part are you disputing, that the Chamberlains were accused of being cultists because they were Seventh-Day Adventists, or that the SDAs converted a lot of Pacific Islanders?
I’m speculating about why people would assume that Seventh-Day Adventists would sacrifice children as part of their religion. If you think there’s another reason why the Chamberlains were accused of it, please let me know what it was. I admit that I’ve only seen Australia at the movies and on TV, but I can’t imagine another logical reason why SDAs were assumed to be devil worshippers.
another Holocene human
http://m.alligator.org/news/crime/article_39c360d4-7464-11e4-9610-db0717ca16a4.html?mode=jqm
So this happened. :)
No victim shaming in article. Progress!
Kyle
@another Holocene human:
Can that really be the guy’s name?
Was the story reported by I.P. Freeley?
Viva BrisVegas
@bargal20:
Very true. The most important aspect in the whole Chamberlain saga was the role of the press. Particularly the Murdoch press. They churned this story into frenzy.
Had the case been treated in the media like any other, nothing would have happened to Lindy Chamberlain. It would have been assumed that a dingo took her baby.
The one racial aspect of the case was that local aborigines repeatedly told the authorities and anybody who would listen, that they knew from tribal lore that dingos did in fact take babies. Everybody ignored them, for the same reason that everybody white always ignores aborigines.
I always thought that “a dingo took my baby” took off as a catchphrase because of Meryl Streep’s, shall we say, unique take on an Australian accent.
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
@Viva BrisVegas:
I guess I’m still not getting how Seventh-Day Adventists got turned into baby-sacrificing cultists in the Australian press. They are a Christian sect, so what exactly set them apart as far as the press was concerned? I’m genuinely curious, because that’s a part of the story that has never made sense to me.
Viva BrisVegas
@Mnemosyne (iPhone):
It was insidious. There would be newspaper articles and TV reports saying that the whole thing was mystery, yet how can a dingo carry off a baby? Oh by the way, the Chamberlains are Seventh Day Adventists. Blood splatter was found in the car, does that mean the baby had its throat cut in the car. Oh by the way, the Chamberlains are Seventh Day Adventists.
The underlying assumption wasn’t so much that Seventh Day Adventists were a satanic cult, as that someone weak minded enough to become a Seventh Day Adventist might be weak minded enough to join a satanic cult.
It sounds incredible now and if you stood back it sounded incredible then, but reason was drowned out by the media megaphone.
Citizen Alan
@the Conster:
This. Literally the only thing I remember about the story is a clip of Streep as Lindy Chamberlain hysterically screaming “Dingos at my baby!” in an almost comical Australian accent.
Suzanne
@Pogonip: No, I said that 75% of men I talk to can’t be convinced that rape is a systemic, oppressive, cultural problem. Plenty of guys seem to abstractly understand that it sucks, but don’t get that rape culture is a real thing that makes all women live less freely. At least that’s what I meant to say. I have been riled up, and possibly wasn’t clear.
Shaun Appleby
@Mnemosyne (iPhone): I fully understand your curiosity as it affected me profoundly at the time as well:
I have no answers; but when you look into the eyes of your neighbours and see the shadow of a lynching it rather shakes your confidence in juries.
Pogonip
@Suzanne: That’s OK, I’m just glad to hear it was’t as bad as I thought it was! Feel free to rile on, we all get that way now and again.
Pogonip
@Suzanne: As long as we’re on the subject, can you point me to a good definition of “rape culture”? I don’t really understand the term unless it’s synonymous with “human nature,” which unfortunately most folks understand all too well.
Shaun Appleby
@Viva BrisVegas: Here’s the Four Corners report from 1981:
It was a media bonfire of public suspicion and scorn.
Mnemosyne
@Shaun Appleby:
Thanks! I’ll see if I can find that book. It sounds really interesting.
Suzanne
@Pogonip: I like this definition, from Bonnie Gordon in Slate:
Also this one from RationalWiki:
Ultimately, it is about the way culture normalizes rape as a systemic weapon against all women, much as slavery is a systemic weapon against all African-Americans and people of African descent in the US.
redshirt
Such a little baby in that photo. Can you imagine the tragedy of losing such a baby to wild dogs?!
Interrobang
I thought several years ago there was a report that they’d actually found some of Azaria’s clothing in a dingo den near where the Chamberlains were camping? I could be mistaken, though.
Mike G
@Interrobang:
They found the baby’s jacket some distance away in the desert five years later (mid-80s); it had damage consistent with dingo teeth. It was the evidence that got the mom out of jail and a new trial, where she was acquitted.
Streep had a hyped reputation as having awesome ability to do accents, but her Australian accent was awful.
Pogonip
@Suzanne: Yup. Human nature.
Jay C
@Viva BrisVegas: @Shaun Appleby:
Americans should be the last ones to scoff at another country’s overwrought reaction to a horrible dead-child case: not long after the Chamberlain affair, we went though a not-dissimilar “moral panic” over supposed “Satanic Ritual Abuse” in various day-care centers. No deaths, fortunately, but still, a bunch of people went to jail for several years: convicted on “evidence” not particularly stronger than the non-credible malarkey the Australian prosecutors put forward as a “scenario” for Azaria Chamberlain’s “murder”. Trial By Media, indeed….
Gin & Tonic
@Jay C: Just go back fairly a month or so to comments from some of the Massholes on this blog with respect to Martha Coakley and her role in the Fells Acres/Amirault case.
Gin & Tonic
@Gin & Tonic: “A month or so ago.” Where’d that “fairly” come from? Time for bed.