Like, officially and according to a jury verdict, not just the kind of guilty we’ve known the past few years:
A jury found Bill Cosby guilty Thursday of drugging and sexually assaulting a woman at his home near here 14 years ago, capping the downfall of one of the world’s best-known entertainers, and offering a measure of satisfaction to the dozens of women who for years have accused him of similar assaults against them.
On the second day of its deliberations at the Montgomery County Courthouse in this town northwest of Philadelphia, the jury returned to convict Mr. Cosby of three counts of aggravated indecent assault against Andrea Constand, at the time a Temple University employee he had mentored.
The three counts — penetration with lack of consent, penetration while unconscious and penetration after administering an intoxicant — are felonies, each punishable by up to 10 years in state prison, though the sentences could be served concurrently.
It’s almost like the eleventy women all telling the same story about him assaulting them was not just a bunch of bitter women making shit up.
schrodingers_cat
How is this dog blogging? I think Cosby is too awful to be a dog.
Cermet
Now, lets see what the judge either does, or makes excuses for. That will be the next real issue.
John Revolta
Can he appeal?
HeleninEire
YAY. Now let’s see how he is treated during the appeal process. As a rich man or as a black man.
I’m going with rich.
EBT
@Cermet: Out on bail with a GPS bracelet. Likely to serve his three charges concurrently. Maybe die in jail?
MattF
Note that the jury took less than two days to make its judgement. I don’t think anyone on the jury needed additional convincing.
Waldo
Don’t worry, Charlie Rose will start the rehabilitation tour asap.
Gremcat
How is that only up to 10 years in jail. That was rape, not an accident.
Ohio Mom
@EBT: I just googled, he is 80. If he does go in for ten years and lives through it, he’s not going to have much time left afterwards.
TenguPhule
@John Revolta:
Of course.
Now prevail? That’s another story entirely.
TenguPhule
@HeleninEire:
Black.
Mary G
I clicked on the House committee that Pruitt is testifying to just now and TWO of the Republican members referred to Rep. Chelsea Pingree as “the young lady” within 10 seconds and my blood is boiling. She is holding her own, using the opening to get more time to put her points across, but fuck them.
Alain the site fixer
Good. May he rot in prison, blind, only hearing the derision of the men who used to look up to him.
TenguPhule
@Mary G:
Fucks should not be given to them. Incel them.
TenguPhule
@Gremcat:
They went for lesser felonies, easier to convict for.
Mike in DC
Good. Hopefully Weinstein, Spacey and R Kelly will be next.
jonas
He certain to appeal. This could drag out quite a long time — Cosby’s very rich and basically the rest of his life is at stake, so I’m sure he and his lawyers will go to the mat with every angle they can. But unless they can prove jury misconduct, prosecutorial misconduct or something other irregularity during the trial, it’s just going to postpone the inevitable. Bill’s going up the river.
HeleninEire
@TenguPhule: Really? I’m thinking of OJ.
ETA: But I did not think my comment through. What I meant about the appeal is will he spend it in jail or out.
TenguPhule
@jonas:
Appeals can take decades if properly managed. Free on bail can be a hell of an incentive.
SiubhanDuinne
I’m very glad indeed that justice was done and that he’s finally been found guilty — but damn, this makes me sad. What a great talent, what creativity and intelligence, what generous philanthropy: all dust. Just fucking dust. Such a waste.
Does anyone have a sense of Camille throughout this entire sorry saga? Was she an enabler or innocent collateral damage?
Kay
OT but this picture is amazing and anyway this post is filed under “dog blogging” :)
In Arizona. They’re saying North Carolina is next.
MattF
@HeleninEire: It’s a vexed question. I don’t see either way as satisfactory.
TenguPhule
@HeleninEire: OJ had legitimate legal grounds due to LAPD fuckery.
This time, not so much
Spanky
As off-topic as talking about Cosby in a Dog Blogging post:
“Testier and less festive”. Heh! Maybe Trump can try to loosen her up with a shoulder massage.
J R in WV
Pretty good news for all those victims that he assaulted. For equal treatment, too. Money didn’t make a difference. Hard to say much more… I do hope it helps the victims reach equilibrium and get on with their lives.
And a good job by the jury, not much out there more difficult than being on a serious criminal jury.
TenguPhule
@Kay:
50th out of 50 states in teacher pay.
To give an idea of just how badly off they are, a 20% raise that the governor offered would still leave them as the lowest paid teachers in the USA.
mad citizen
I hope this doesn’t devalue my Cosby comedy albums.
HeleninEire
Deleted cuz beer
Yarrow
The Montgomery County DA is taking questions. He’s so soft spoken. Earlier he sounded like he was going to cry. This case must have weighed heavy.
TenguPhule
@HeleninEire:
it depends on how good the lawyers on both sides are.
ETA: He’s rich but he’s also old, so flight risk is an open question.
Amir Khalid
@jonas:
He may have all the money in the world for lawyers, but I can’t see a judge letting him stay outside while he goes through a long appeals process.
SiubhanDuinne
@Kay:
I can see Suzanne’s husband from here!
?
Elizabelle
I think the whole thing is a tragedy. For the women, and that there were so many women (that we know about). For his family. For his colleagues and fans.
What was so wrong with this man? He accomplished so much, on his own merits, but is a stone predator as well. He did a lot of good, but destroyed it all himself.
I can’t think of a comparable fall of this magnitude, but maybe you all can. It’s kind of Nixonesque (albeit in today’s GOP, Nixon would never have resigned).
FTF NYTimes readers are cheering that Harvey Weinstein, and eventually Trump, are up next. They’re both kind of lesser souls, though. They were not as pathbreaking — um, in a good way.
TenguPhule
@Amir Khalid: His age may factor into it. if his lawyers do their jobs well, he could be under house arrest only.
TenguPhule
@Elizabelle:
Michael Jackson, sans criminal conviction.
Elizabelle
@SiubhanDuinne: Yeah, I am wondering about Camille too. It’s reported neither she nor the four daughters were in court today.
Gremcat
@TenguPhule: But since there is no minimum is it possible that he does not do any jail time at all?
SiubhanDuinne
@mad citizen:
What’s a ‘cubit’?
Amir Khalid
@Amir Khalid:
Especially if the appeal is seen as merely an attempt to delay imprisonment.
Kay
@SiubhanDuinne:
Is he there?
I wish I was there. I want a real march. The gun march in Cleveland was a rally. Milling around, free form. I want to GO somewhere :)
Teachers are smart – “let’s all wear the same color and walk in the same direction, whatdoya say?” THAT’S a march.
Elizabelle
@TenguPhule: Yes. Kind of. Although he was in the process of making a comeback. But that was a tragedy too, and not just for the accidental death. More squandering of talent and possibilities.
feebog
That is a boatload of teachers for sure. Twenty percent raise still doesn’t raise them above dead last? Arizona is not as expensive as say California, but it sure is not the cheapest state in terms of housing.
narya
@Mary G: i’d love to see her refer to them as the “old men.”
terraformer
Sadly, our discourse has been so poisoned by the right wing, misogynists, bros, and like-minded Neanderthals that the proverbial “27%” (if not more) will still see a jury conviction as nothing more than feminism/political correctness/liberalism gone amok.
TenguPhule
@Gremcat:
In theory, yes. Probation is possible.Unlikely, but can’t be completely ruled out.
The requirement that prison not be an automatic death sentence makes imprisoning very old people slightly more complicated, especially when those old people can pay for very good lawyers to point this out to the judge.
TenguPhule
@SiubhanDuinne:
Cue-bert’s lesser known video game cousin.
Yarrow
@Kay: Wow! That is a lot of teachers. Go Mr. Suzanne! And way to go teachers all over the country!
TenguPhule
@feebog:
Nope. That’s how bad they’re starting from.
Yarrow
@Kay: I think Suzanne said that Mr. Suzanne was going to march. Hopefully she’ll show up later and let us know how it all went.
Jeffro
@Kay: Go teachers go! March in every state (well, except Massachusetts, that is…they seem to pay/treat their teachers pretty well there)
@Yarrow: great minds and all that…=)
Jeffro
Btw with the Cosby conviction (and Cosby’s subsequent profane courtroom rant), some on the Twitters are running that old clip from EDDIE MURPHY: RAW where Eddie pretends to be Bill lecturing Eddie about his bad language. I’m dyin’…
chris
@Spanky: Grenell.
Whenever i hear Cosby’s name I remember how much I liked him in “I,Spy” when I was young. Now I’m content for him to die in prison.
Jeffro
These teacher walkouts and strikes are incredible.
Let the usual suspects try to paint the teaches as ‘liberal activists’ or some other BS: everyone in education knows better. There are plenty of Republican educators in that Arizona march and there will be in every other state march. It’s not a partisan issue to want to be respected and decently paid for doing one of society’s most important jobs.
Uncle Cosmo
@SiubhanDuinne: Lessee, cubit, cubit, I useta know what a cubit was…
(I saw him do that live on I think the Dean Martin show when I was 12 or 13 & I nearly pithed my panth laughing. What a waste.)
In other news: Novocain does not kill pain, it just delays it…
And now it’s time for…LIGHTS…..OOOOOUT. For real.
J R in WV
@Spanky:
I don’t think the German Republic is required to accept a sexist pig as their ambassador, at all. They can refuse to accept him, just don’t accept him and let him stew at the embassy, refuse him entry, even. That wouldn’t be polite, but this guy isn’t polite either.
Or they could accept him, and send him home the first time he violates EU standards of politeness, equality, and manners, which seems like it may only take a week or two.
TenguPhule
@Jeffro:
I’m sorry, it is now.
Every Republican is FYIGM.
TenguPhule
@J R in WV:
My, you’re optimistic.
/I’d give him three hours, tops.
TenguPhule
@Uncle Cosmo:
I could have told you that.
Uncle Cosmo
@feebog: Who knew that instead of being grateful for one another (so that they aren’t ranked dead last), both Alabama & Mississippi (& hell, throw in Arkansas) can all shovel their gratitude in the direction of Phonyix (sic sic sic)….
SiubhanDuinne
@Kay:
Yes, I’m sure he is. Suzanne mentioned in a thread last night (I think it was last night) that Mr. Suzanne would be out marching today and Friday. Good for him. Good for all of them.
Yarrow
@Jeffro:
It is if you’re female.
1. Most teachers are women
2. Teaching is a helping job
3. Helping jobs and jobs mostly done by women (lots of crossover) are ones those people should be doing out of the kindness of their hearts and because they love to do it. They should be able to live on appreciative words from others.
4. Demanding respect and fair pay makes them feminists and harpies, thus dangerous.
Also, teaching is not considered “one of society’s most important jobs” in American society. It’s just not. See above and why can’t they “just make due” with what they have? They should get a husband with a good paying job and they can teach on the side.
It’s all bullshit of course. But we need to change how teachers are seen and respected so that the profession is also respected and teachers get paid well.
Shana
@Gremcat: 10 years per count, 30 total.
AM in NC
@Kay: And if NC is next I know a whole lot of parents (myself included) who will be out there marching with them. We are sick to death of what Art Pope and his bought-and-paid-for GOP General Assembly have done to our state. Our hope is that enough suburban voters and women will flip their votes to overcome the Republican vote suppression and gerrymandering advantage in 2018 and 2020.
J R in WV
@TenguPhule:
Well, I’m assuming he’s spending most of his time in the embassy, ’cause he isn’t invited out so much… see how that works? But you’re right, once he gets out in public.
gene108
@SiubhanDuinne:
Same here. Kind of bittersweet. Cosby had a ground breaking career on T.V. He was somebody to look up to. Kind of sad, when a one-time role model turns out be a serial rapist.
Can you still like Fat Albert and The Cosby Show? Or should we all boycott them, so that we are never reminded he was ever here?
I wonder, if any of the institutions that have given him awards and accolades, will want them back now or strike him from the record as having received it.
Just stunning for me that this is how is life played out in the end.
Jeffro
@TenguPhule: Eh, we’ll see. Looks like both the public and public officials are starting to wake up to what teachers really make, how long it’s been since most have had a raise (if not an outright pay cut), etc etc.
The teacher shortage here in VA is nuts. School divisions ought to be going full-bore talking to high school kids and undeclared undergrads, like, yesterday. “We’ll pay half your tuition for your Bachelors AND Master’s degrees if you’ll teach for us for five years”. It’d still be cheaper than what they spend to recruit from the ever-shrinking pile of grads.
HeleninEire
@chris: Kinda OT but relevant to Daniel Dale’s twitt. Did the hop on hop off here in Dublin with my niece. It goes through Phoenix Park where the American Ambassador lives. Big fucking mansion. The tour guide told us that Trump has not named an Ambassador to Ireland. I had no idea. Really asshole? One of the easiest Ambassadors to place and you don’t do it?
The good thing is the Embassy is working beautifully. Got my American passport renewed in less than 2 weeks. Cuz bureaucracy works.
aimai
@chris: Yes, I had a huge crush on him in I, spy.
Yarrow
@Jeffro: Teaching is really hard work. It’s not a respected job and the pay is crappy. Plus you’re working in a place that’s a target for people to get shot. Little wonder people don’t want to be teachers.
J R in WV
@AM in NC:
Regarding teachers and strikes – proud that WV Teachers led the way this year. I heard that their pay raise may be eaten by health insurance hikes.
Until we do something with big pharma and their price structure – whatever we want to charge, because you’ll pay it or die, motherfuckers!! – we can’t ever get ahead in this country.
My wife has a prescription that he insurance co-pay was hiked to $500 for either 30 or 90 days I forget which. The hateful part is her doctor, who practices at a non-profit health center sent her to their pharmacy, which charged her $55 flat, no insurance. I don’t know who was robbing her with the $500 charge, but I do know it was a rip off that someone (almost certainly an insurance exec) should go to jail for! If it were illegal to steal from the sick!!!
Elizabelle
@gene108: Cosby has a Presidential Medal of Freedom.
Awarded in 2002 by G.W. Bush. (Breathing a sigh of relief it was not conferred by Bill Clinton.)
Jeffro
@Yarrow:
Not sure I agree completely with this (but then again I live in a pretty blue, pretty pro-education area of the country here in NoVA, and work with educators). Most other folks seem to feel or say that it is one of the most important jobs…they just don’t put their (their state’s, their country’s) money where their mouth is. Even Fairfax Co residents shot down a ‘meals tax’ that was intended to go mostly to the local, well-regarded public schools. They can’t have it both ways.
Having said that, the pay situation in some of these more rural states (or even the rural counties here in VA) is pretty dire.
gene108
@Yarrow:
In my senior year, either fall 1991 or spring 1992, I was talking with a very good English teacher, who said the reason teaching pays so little is because it has been considered “woman’s work”. A woman does it, gets married and is financially supported by her husband, therefore there’s no reason a teacher should expect to live off her salary.
Kind of a revelation back then, but I see it is very, very true as I have gotten older.
jonas
@J R in WV: It’s possible to accept an ambassador’s credentials and then just completely ignore him. Ambassadorships are really just ceremonial positions — career embassy and State Dept staff do most of the actual work.
Jeffro
@Yarrow: You’re preaching to the choir – been there, done that. I hear ya ;)
(on the schools-as-targets thing – most data I’ve seen shows that non-gang, non-suicide school shootings have actually been going down for a while now, and it never was one of the major causes of gun violence to begin with. Just very high visibility in the media. But it probably needs a deeper dive and some source checking on my part)
Yarrow
@Jeffro: That’s the thing. They give lip service to how important teachers are, but they don’t want to pay them anything. And pay is a sign of value in this country. See my comment above about helping professions and how they’re supposed to live on appreciative comments. It’s bullshit. Until we pay them like real professionals we don’t value teachers as a society.
People know their kid going to a good school is important and they’ll move and sacrifice so the kid gets to do that. At some level people know education is important. But in general they don’t seem to make the leap from “my kid needs to go to a good school” to “we need to fund our schools and pay our teachers so the schools are good.”
Brachiator
@Elizabelle:
Yep. Cosby’s obit will be very interesting. How do you capture the complexity of his career and the degree to which he ruined every shred of his reputation by his contemptible behavior?
Cosby was a huge contributor to contemporary American popular culture. We can get in an easy dig at Eddie Murphy commenting on Cosby’s call for clean humor. And yet, legions of comics modeled their material and style on Cosby, decided to become stand-up comics because of his success.
It is easy to take for granted how trail-blazing Cosby was in “I Spy,” and how deserved his Emmy wins were. He was the equal, and in some ways the superior to his fellow spy (the ever cool and dapper Robert Culp), and almost single-handedly wiped away decades of movies and tv in which a black character was a butler, driver or other variety of comical, shuffling domestic. And the later Cosby show was so revolutionary that the Huxtables were even acceptable to apartheid South Africa (though as “colored,” of course).
Cosby was one of the most notable entertainers who also emphasized the importance of education, and earned his own PhD.
And yet, and yet, he was a monster. It appears that he may have developed his predatory technique early on, and as his career and fame grew, he could use his power and authority to more easily ensnare his victims. As much as I may cheer his conviction, I am still sickened by the idea that many people may have deliberately assisted him, or at the very least looked away as he drugged and abused so many women.
And as with Harvey Weinstein and others, I am saddened to my bones by the women whose lives, careers, and dreams were damaged and broken by this man that they looked up to, believed in, and sometimes respected and loved.
I hope that these women, and perhaps others who never came forward, can get some small measure of relief from Cosby’s conviction.
AM in NC
@J R in WV: Exactly – all of these interrelated problems stemming from the greed of the 0.1% and the GOP politicians they own. I sure hope Dems come out strong over the next few elections talking about the common good and how looking after the common good was what made our country great, rather than allowing greedy sociopaths to hoover up all of our national wealth for themselves at the expense of us all.
rikyrah
@Kay:
Saw that.????
Yarrow
@gene108: That’s exactly right. It used to be that if a woman got married she could no longer teach. Then if she got pregnant. She was supposed to let her husband support her family. Of course she didn’t need a real salary.
J R in WV
@jonas:
I intended to include that in my short list of options, but I see that I missed it somehow. You are of course correct!! Thanks for pointing that out.. just ignored, sounds like the least stressfully political way to deal with sexist ambassador and female head of state.
TenguPhule
@J R in WV:
What makes you think that would stop him? One wrong tweet, phone call, text or email.
Karen Potter
The man is a sexual predator; I don’t care what good he might of done, he harmed women.
This reminds me of rape and murder case in San Jose in early 70’s; two men raped a woman in her front yard, while they were celebrating with a bottle and getting ready for next round she got up, went in house, came out with gun and shot both of them killing one. She went in and called the police; the police sent her in first ambulance to hospital because she was bleeding heavily. It went to trial, not as a rape case but murder case; the judge wanted the police to be punished for sending her to hospital, the doctors punished for refusing to release her until damage done was repaired and she stopped bleeding. Her lawyer got the survivor to admit to rape, he bragged about holding her down while the other man raped her and then him holding her down while he raped her. The judge’s instructions to the jury were to ignore the rape, and focus on the woman getting up, going in house, coming out and shooting two men. The jury found her not guilty on counts, the judge was furious and let people know it. I remember when the verdict came out; there were a number of men who were willing to be interviewed that believed rape had nothing to do with her committing premeditate murder.
I read the comments about it being a shame that all Cosby did will be tainted by this verdict; all I can think “he was a serial rapist.”
Cheryl Rofer
About time
John Revolta
@J R in WV: The way I understood it the WV teachers kinda got hosed. Their union leaders and the Governor snuck the deal through without a vote and while they got their pay raise, their health insurance issues were skipped over. And of course, the pay raise is coming out of other items in the state budget.
StringOnAStick
@SiubhanDuinne: Anybody else here recall listening to Cosby’s records? Anyone else besides me remember the “Spanish Fly” bit? As a early teen I knew what Spanish Fly was purported to be, but I was also young enough to think that’s not a nice thing or idea. I share the same birthday as Cosby, and until this stuff started coming out I thought that was kind of cool. I first started losing my fondness for him after watching him on The Daily Show and I thought his behavior was strange and arrogant. Now? Yuck. I’ve experienced what those women experienced, being absolutely helpless from being drugged and knowing you can’t report it. One of my very young co-workers had Ketamine slipped into her drink at a bar last month; thankfully she knew something was wrong when it hit and had friend who responded immediately when she told them to get her out of there. The ER blood test is how she knows what she unknowingly took.
jl
OK, that is done. Is O’Reilly going to get some legal attention? From what I read, he did things just as bad. MO was different, but looks like a lot of fraud and extortion in bogus NDAs.
Cacti
@John Revolta:
Yes.
And almost certainly will.
Elizabelle
I’m glad to see teachers take the lead for paying our public servants more.
Teachers get disrespected, right and left, particularly in their pay package. Meanwhile, we can’t call police and other first responders “heroes” fast enough, and they get some egregious pension packages. (I think the corrections officers’ lobby in California is in a class of itself.)
This idea that we can get great services on the cheap — “free lunch, citizens!” — has got to stop.
Dorothy A. Winsor (formerly Iowa Old Lady)
@gene108: We used to get far better teachers and nurses than we’d paid for because girls’ career choices were so limited. So smart girls because teachers and nurses. The pay rates still reflect that attitude that you can pay them peanuts and they’ll turn up anyway.
Incredibly, we still better teachers and nurses than we pay for.
Calouste
@J R in WV: I think the sexism might be brushed under the carpet in the name of good relations. But how long do you think it is going to take before the new ambassador expresses the sentiment that things were so much better in Germany 80 years ago? Anything like that doesn’t fly in Germany at all.
efgoldman
@SiubhanDuinne:
When I first heard tha routine, mid-60s, I laughed so hard i almost puked.
Now the thought of him makes me almost puke
Maybe he’ll share a cell with OJ, help look for the real killer.
StringOnAStick
@Uncle Cosmo: Dental pendant here. Novocaine hasn’t been used in the US dentistry for probably 20 years due to a high incidence of allergic reactions. Lidocaine, Articaine, Cetacaine, Carbocaine, etc, yes; Novocaine, no. Novocaine has been renamed to Procaine and is used for spinal anesthesia and epidural and peripheral nerve blocks in hospital settings but isn’t the drug of choice for anesthesiologists because of that allergic reaction issue.
Barbara
@HeleninEire: The position of Ambassador to Ireland is one of the easier ones to fill because there are so many prominent people of Irish heritage in America, both sides of the aisle. But when you prioritize getting an ambassador to the Vatican but can’t be bothered to fill the position of ambassador to South Korea for more than a year there is obviously something very broken.
jl
As for the, as far as we know, junior league yahoo, Admiral Jackson, looks like what exactly happened will be submerged for the time being. Interesting that a number of people from previous admins continued to strongly defend him. Had two narratives that seemed completely inconsistent.
Then I read that the damaging leaks initially came from GOPers in Congress. So, made me wonder whether it was a hit job from GOP because Trump didn’t vet Jackson on what for GOP is most important qualification: privatization scam for VA. My inference is on principal that everything that comes out of current GOP is bad and for bad purpose. Impossible to know the truth of it right now, maybe ever.
Steve in the SFO
@SiubhanDuinne:
Your question made Jesus cry
efgoldman
@terraformer:
Fuckem
Brachiator
@jonas:
Germany is an important posting. A purely ceremonial ambassador to the country would be insulting to the host country and a waste of resources.
A family friend, before he retired, was a career foreign service officer and as ambassador worked his butt off.
Ironically enough, one of the next government leaders scheduled to visit Trump is Angela Merkel. The confirmation of this new ambassador does not augur well for signs of co-operation between Trump and Merkel.
Heidi Mom
@Elizabelle: And, leaving the morality of the situation to one side for the moment, there must have been women who were quite willing to have sex with a rich, handsome (when young), famous actor, but he wanted them unwilling. I guess, to paraphrase Woody Allen, the tortured psyche wants what it wants.
schrodingers_cat
New bot/troll sighting with weird English. They seem to have started posting since yesterday. I wonder why.
schrodingers_cat
@SiubhanDuinne: Unit of length.
TenguPhule
@Heidi Mom:
Unconscious. Which is somehow even worse.
efgoldman
@Yarrow
My mom had to resign her commission as an army nurse, and quit, when she married my Dad a week after Pearl Harbor.
TenguPhule
@Barbara:
I’m sure Trump will nominate a flaming Catholic to the position.
Gin & Tonic
@schrodingers_cat: It was the basis of a very old Cosby comedy routine.
Heidi Mom
@TenguPhule: Nevertheless, I’m a big fan of Novocain (or whatever is used in its stead these days). By the time the delayed pain arrives it’s a dull ache, which is far preferable to whatever horrors one would have suffered without it.
Heidi Mom
@TenguPhule: True!
schrodingers_cat
@Gin & Tonic: I seem to have avoided knowing anything about Cosby except that he starred in a popular sitcom where his character wore ugly sweaters. I intend to keep it that way.
Wasn’t he giving lectures to black kids not that long ago, telling them to pull up their pants or something similar?
TenguPhule
@Heidi Mom:
Its not. I speak from experience having had 2 wisdom teeth impacted and essentially crushed and sucked out of my gums at the end of my college days.
When the pain arrives late to the scene, it carries additional interest and penalties on delivery. You get a dull ache about 2 days later.
celticdragonchick
@AM in NC:
I’m a teacher in NC and I will march.
Elizabelle
@Heidi Mom:
Or unconscious. Yikes. Any psychologists (or others) want to unpack that one? Obviously, it is the behavior of a rapist. It’s the stealing?
TenguPhule
@Elizabelle:
Closest proxy to having sex with a dead body. Without having to worry about decomposition.
/enjoy your nightmares. //
ruemara
@Karen Potter: That is horrific because that judge felt that the rape was less of a matter than her actually taking revenge for her rape. And getting treated for what was obviously a violent rape. God, you know, men need to come get men. Rod on The Black Guy Who Tips often says he has no doubt that sexuality is genetic because why would women ever choose to be with a man? Look at the shit we do to women. I have a lot of male friends and people I love and I find myself less able to even slightly argue against that point.
@Elizabelle: What Tengu said. It’s a variant of necrophilia. The attraction is to an unresponsive body.
LanceThruster
@Elizabelle:
Is that merely because of the optics or some other reason? And is there any parallel between Camille and Hillary? Serious question.
Yutsano
@TenguPhule: Newton Leroy Gingrich?
@LanceThruster: …
What are you babbling about?
WereBear
@Elizabelle: It is the power and control.
D58825
@Gin & Tonic: The comedy routine was ‘Noah how long can you tread water’. In the routine Noah didn’t believe it was G++ that was talking to him. And a cubit is a biblical measure of lengthy. It was part of G+ds instruction to Noah on how big to build the Ark
Elizabelle
@schrodingers_cat: Here’s Cosby’s famous “poundcake speech” (as in, people getting shot over poundcake — although, in this case, by the police)– annotated by Buzzfeed.
I’d never seen or heard the whole thing.
D58826
The comedy routine was ‘Noah how long can you tread water’. In the routine Noah didn’t believe it was G++ that was talking to him. And a cubit is a biblical measure of lengthy. It was part of G+ds instruction to Noah on how big to build the Ark
Elizabelle
@LanceThruster: I did not want to see the rightwing make hay with it — “look, he was awarded the Medal of Freedom by another sexual predator.”
It’s already an article of faith with them that WJC is a rapist.
celticdragonchick
@StringOnAStick: Yes, I used to listen to all his records. I have one of his most famous ones on CD.
I have friends who work at the Gulfstream facility in Savannah, Ga, where Cosby had maintenance done on his airplane. I started hearing things…he was friendly and glad handing in person, but he stipulated that only black mechanics were allowed to work on his airplane. Things of that nature. Last I heard, Gulfstream decided they were vulnerable to an EO complaint because of Cosby’s demands and told him that he could rent space and hire his own mechanics, but if he wanted maintenance done by Gulfstream then he would have to accept whoever they assigned.
FWIW…also heard about other celebrities. Eisner from Walt Disney was said to be a total asshole. Colin Powell was well liked and popular with the mechanics, and Oprah Winfrey had a lot of trouble keeping pilots on the payroll and was notorious for being verbally abusive to employees.
Brachiator
@Heidi Mom:
Unconscious and unwilling. Many of these women never even had the chance to consider whether they wanted to have a fling with Cosby, even though I guess a few later did.
But the whole thing is revolting. Many of these women didn’t know exactly what Cosby did to them. There is something additionally hateful in this. He had his way with them with total disdain and disregard for them as beings. He could have afforded a sex doll. The distancing of rendering the women seemed especially important to him. Did he, in some twisted way think that this somehow preserved his fidelity to his wife?
His fame aside, he should be compelled to be interviewed by a good shrink.
In a lesser way, this also brings to mind Louis CK, who supposedly apologized to the women he abused. But I cannot believe his self-serving “explanation” that he did not know it was wrong to force women to watch him pleasure himself. Similarly, Cosby has claimed that some women willingly let him drug them. Bullshit. This compulsive desire on the part of these men to dominate women is beyond sickening.
Dmbeaster
@TenguPhule: No, he is likely to be sent to prison. The usual standard for allowing a felon to stay out of prison pending appeal is the trial judge’s perception that there are serious issues for appeal raising doubts that the conviction will be upheld.
The biggest issue on appeal that I am aware of is the ruling allowing his deposition testimony as evidence. That was clearly a colossal screwup by former defense counsel, but I dont know the strength of the estoppel argument (that the former prosecutor wrongfully induced a belief that the deposition would not be used). The trial judge rejected it, but was it a close call in his mind? Who knows.
peter
@StringOnAStick: Yes, his record To Russell, My Brother, Whom I Slept With (1968) contains one of his best routines — hijinks with his brother at night which end up with the arrival of their very angry dad, with THE BELT…
ixnay
@Elizabelle: Some place, possibly a British reporter, described Camille as “smirking.” FWIW.
celticdragonchick
@peter:
That and the bit with Fat Albert playing Buck Buck and then the Frankenstein statue placed at the top of a stairwell to scare people. It was funny as hell…and I can’t stand to listen to any of it now.
Elizabelle
The whole thing is just so awful and sad. No winners.
Except, maybe, the prosecution team.
Brachiator
@TenguPhule:
Kinda the closest proxy to murdering a woman and having sex with her corpse.
Apparently, nine out of ten necrophiliacs are men, but one of the most famous ones is Karen Greenlee. She is still alive, and there is a 1996 film, Kissed, based on her life.
Some relatives own a mortuary. They have had to screen employees to eliminate those who have an unhealthy fascination with bodies.
Ceci n est pas mon nym
Somebody here has several times posted an old blog entry on “How to like Problematic Things” and that’s where I am with Cos. For me, no, this stuff does not erase my memories of his records as a kid, or “I Spy”, or “The Cosby Show” and all that it accomplished. Nor does it erase the memory of the time my wife and I attended a live performance in VA (at Wolf Trap). It was a good show.
As it turns out, the person who made all that great entertainment is a horrible person. He’s not the first, though he certainly seems to be among the worst. Sid Caesar was by all accounts a horrible person with a violent temper. How he treated women I don’t know, but I’ve read stories about him throwing furniture around the writers’ room. The cute kid who played Alfalfa was a little delinquent who would hide razor blades in his pockets and invite the other cast members to reach in. He died in an ugly incident over some kind of gambling argument. And then there are all those years of Garrison Keillor, his radio performances, meeting him in person, his writing, but also a not great record on sexual harassment…
And so on and so forth. The product is separate from the person.
Yes, I know Cosby’s crimes are worse, much worse than most of those. You do not have to know the life story of every actor or comedian you see on screen to decide how you feel about their performance. I am very sad that the real-life Cosby is such a terrible person, but I still intend to go back and listen to that old stuff again. And fully expect to enjoy it.
After he dies.
Mike J
http://thehill.com/homenews/house/385035-house-chaplain-forced-out-by-ryan
SiubhanDuinne
@schrodingers_cat:
Yes, I know. It’s a famous, quotable line from Cosby’s “Noah” comedy routine.
jl
@Mike J: “balanced and shared by all Americans.”
Now that is an outrageous scandal that the GOP can understand and prompt them to resolute action. I hope that is all there is to it. Would make sense if that is the case, though very sad and accurate indictment of GOP.
Uncle Cosmo
@StringOnAStick: Yeah, you’re a real pendant, all right. The road to ridicule & incoherence is often paved with unchequed Spel-Czech cobblestones. Then again it coulda been worse, the machine might’ve replaced whatever you typed with pendejo….
FTR the Cosby routine from which that is a direct quote came out on LPs in the early 1960s, IOW more than a generation earlier than your pendantic citations.
FWIW, the burden of that routine was that
LanceThruster
@Elizabelle:
Thank you for that observation. I think you’re correct. Condemnation of most sorts seem to fall along partisan lines.
TenguPhule
@Mike J:
Another possibility.
TenguPhule
@Mike J:
I’m sure the person they find will be perfectly suited to Jew-baiting, Muslim-bashing and demand a new crusade against the heathen devils.
Captain C
@TenguPhule: Chris Rock: “If Jerry Seinfeld was on trial for double murder, and the only cop who found the gloves just happened to be in the Nation of Islam, he’d be a free man. He’d be eating cereal right now.”
debbie
That he called the prosecutor an asshole in court pretty much sums up what Bill Cosby really is.
Kay
@Elizabelle:
Arizona is down 28% in funding just since 2008. “Per student”, which isn’t really how schools are funded, but still.
The states just kept cutting and cutting – because they cut taxes and public education is a huge part of their budgets- and it finally boiled over. They ask them to do more every year, too. The latest thing is “financial literacy”. They keep adding to their duties. They never subtract, so it’s just program piled on top of program and no additional money for any of them. When one adds “financial literacy” one can’t cut math or english to make up for it. Same with drug abuse prevention and “social emotional learning” and computer science.
Americans shove every problem off on public schools. Which is okay I guess, they’re a convenient dumping ground for everything everyone else is too lazy to solve, but if we’re going to demand they fix everything from mental illness to income inequality we’re going to have to give them more funding.
Kay
Here’s the link to the decline in funding since ’08.
Brachiator
@Ceci n est pas mon nym:
I’ve made a similar accommodation for some artists. Roman Polanski, for example. Will not watch new works.
debbie
@SiubhanDuinne:
Camille must have felt all kinds of shame and anger throughout the first trial. But for this last trial, the defense attorneys painted Cosby as “lonely” and easy bait for women predators. That Cosby allowed them to say that convinces me that Camille is the one who’s really been abused. Why she remains by his side is absolutely beyond me.
Litlebritdifrnt
@AM in NC: But do teachers in NC have the right to strike? As I understood it they have to use up all of their personal/sick time in order to take the time. At least that was my understanding when I lived in the State and my DH was a teacher there.
Mel
@Elizabelle: It’s the daughters that I worry about. Truly collateral damage. Hoping like crazy that nothing untoward happened to them while living in his household.
celticdragonchick
@Litlebritdifrnt:
I’m not sure. I’m a full time sub and I will join a picket line if this happens. There are no public worker unions in NC…they are banned, but that is not an impediment to a state wide strike by any means.
Uncle Cosmo
@HeleninEire: Understand that ambassadors’ residences tend to be much larger than the ambassador’s family requires, because that’s where the ambassador hosts the embassy’s social functions. Sensitive information, communications, computers etc. are kept in the embassy proper – & no one but embassy staff gets beyond the public areas (where passports, visas etc. are processed &/or issued) without a specific need to do so & rather careful monitoring.
Circa 1990 my international folkdance ensemble performed a suite of dances from the (then) Yugoslav republic of Macedonia in the residence of the Yugoslav ambassador to the US. We were part of a celebration marking the opening of an exhibition of Macedonian culture**, co-sponsored by the embassy and the Smithsonian. I wondered why we were in the residence & not the embassy & the embassy staff patiently explained all this to me.
(**NB anyone who want to argue about what actually constitutes Macedonia is cordially invited to take it somewhere else – I am only reporting the situation.)
LanceThruster
@Yutsano:
Your snotty characterization aside, IIRC, Mrs. Clinton would be very agressive in attacking the character of Bill’s accusers, whether the women had come forward about consensual encounters or those instances claimed to be more akin to sexual assault. If they were accepted by Hillary as true but needed to be squelched for political expediency, that’s one thing as far as mere infidelity goes. The ugliness of abuse of power and position if nothing else more sinister is itself troubling. If I’m not mistaken, Camille early on had been publicly supportive of her husband, though I can’t recall if she maintained that position throughout the trials.
I distinctly recall reading pieces that essentially said that it was open knowledge that Bill Clinton was considered a “player,” but that it didn’t matter all that much to supporters. Accusations of all type were lumped into the vast right-wing conspiracy dismissal. At the beginning of the Cosby revelations, many comics came forward to say that Cosby’s MO was somewhat “common knowledge” in the industry. That being said, because it was asked about Camille, I still wonder what would be a fair assessment for both these wives: victims, or enablers?
Mel
@Mel: Realized that I wasn’t clear. It’s the daughters and every woman he assaulted that I worry about. Camille – if she didn’t know decades ago, she surely figured out over the past three years that he has done (and lied repeatedly about doing) horrible things to multiple women. And still took his side.
Kay
My favorite is guns. Americans have a gun problem. Guess where it landed- public schools.
Betsy DeVos is traveling the country telling schools how to fix America’s gun problem. We’re really good at that- telling schools how to fix some national problem because apparently schools are solely responsible for fixing every imaginable national dilemma. And they never bring money. If the plan is to go tell public schools to fix something that no one else has been able to fix bring lots of money to cover the cost of your solution or don’t bother coming.
Elizabelle
@Mel: Four daughters, all “E” names, and the one son who was murdered on a highway exit in Los Angeles. Ennis. That was a tragedy.
One of the daughters died this year while awaiting an organ transplant. I do wonder what they will have to say. Maybe Cosby really compartmentalized his life. For his family’s sake, I hope that is so.
Elizabelle
@Kay: So true. “Our children” and “education” are so important, but the schools are too often not adequately funded. Especially in communities where education is about the only path out.
Steve in the SFO
@Uncle Cosmo:
Sometimes I feel like I’ve led a very sheltered life
Karen Potter
Cosby was one of the performers that I saw live and hated after; some like George Carlin didn’t change their shows that much from a live adult performance to a tv broadcast performance. Red Foxx cleaned up his language, but the routines stayed mostly the same, not Cosby; totally two different routines. His public ones were family friendly and he came across as someone likeable and funny; his adult ones were more like Don Rickles. Nasty, vulgar and profane; the group of us who went agreed to never see him live again.
Mel
@Elizabelle: Me, too.
It’s just tragic from any angle involving women who crossed paths with him.
Uncle Cosmo
@TenguPhule: One is reminded of Tom Lehrer, who by way of introduction to one of his songs (on An Evening Wasted with Tom Lehrer, recorded IIRC at the Hungry I in SanFran ca. 1961) cited a novel by a (hopefully utterly ficticious) acquaintance, about
(Half the audience roared with laughter, half made querulous noises – & when quiet was restored Lehrer, with impeccable comic timing, muttered, The rest of you can look it up when you get home.),
Mike in NC
Has Trump tweeted out yet about how Coz was the victim of a ‘witch hunt’?
rikyrah
@TenguPhule:
I will always believe that the LAPD attempted to frame a guilty man. Nothing that they hadn’t done numerous times before..
But, unlike the other times, OJ had Johnnie Cochran.
Thus, their behavior was exposed, and the correct verdict was reached.
LanceThruster
@Karen Potter:
Never saw Cosby live, but saw Don Rickles at a casino in Tahoe. While most of his material was pretty funny in the standard Rickles vein, I grew annoyed at the pacing which was 2-3 jokes, and then a pause to say, “I kid. I love people.”
LanceThruster
@rikyrah:
So much truth in the observation, “LAPD is so incompetent they couldn’t frame a guilty man.”
jonas
@Brachiator: Oh, I wasn’t implying Germany wasn’t important, or that this guy’s nomination wouldn’t be insulting. A jackass ambassador isn’t really in a position to screw stuff up too badly, is my point.
Unfortunately, this political tradition of handing out ambassadorships to random fundraisers and other connected (and often appallingly ignorant) people goes way back and is played by both parties. IIRC, Obama nominated some millionaire bundler to be ambassador to Norway and during his confirmation, the guy confessed he wasn’t sure what form of government Norway had. The guy wasn’t evil, just stupid, apparently. Trump’s guy is certainly both. Otherwise Trump wouldn’t have nominated him.
Ceci n est pas mon nym
@LanceThruster: Never saw Rickles, but saw a headliner at a comedy club who, like Rickles, had no prepared set but just filled his time slot with ad lib audience interaction.
I found it really irritating somehow. Like I’d paid money for somebody who put out no effort.
RSA
@Jeffro:
I’ve been wondering about the difference between strikes and walkouts. If anyone else is curious, I thought this was a good explainer.
J R in WV
@TenguPhule:
I think a lot of people have had wisdom teeth removed. They used a hammer and chisel to break mine up, an assistant held my head for that part of a bloody exercise.
Ouch…
Aleta
@Jeffro: from the #RedForEd feed
last night:
aerial views today:
https://twitter.com/Esposition/status/989596654155194368
https://twitter.com/GinaMaravillaTV/status/989564444958048256
https://twitter.com/Cha33Cha/status/989630242728755200
StringOnAStick
@Uncle Cosmo: My point in telling you that we don’t use Novocaine anymore is if your dentist did us it and you had a reaction, you’d have a legal case since it is no longer considered the standard of care, and they were taking a big risk, and you were without knowing it. You can talk to anyone in medicine or dentistry and in an unguarded moment we’ll be honest and tell you that when patients start to say things like “Novocaine” or my mom’s favorite “osteosporosis” we know to take everything you say with a grain of salt. It’s unfortunately just human nature; if someone in your field used the wrong words for your professional vocabulary, how does it affect your assessment of that person’s understanding? My goal in telling you that is to help you sound just as understanding of our field as you want people to be of yours. Peace.
MomSense
@Mary G:
No worries about Chellie. She’s of the tough island stock and can throw down the swears like nobody else. She is wickedly funny and I love her to pieces.
Gelfling 545
@narya: She could do it delicately the elderly gentlemen. Same faux courtesy.
Karen Potter
@LanceThruster: One time that saw Rickels was at a pizza place, I was pregnant at the time and had to get up and use bathroom; I became the brunt of his set. I think that turned me off from seeing him live; since it was suddenly like being in grade school where the new kid becomes the brunt of all the jokes.
TenguPhule
@J R in WV:
Cut a hole in my gums, shoved a long sonic drill into it, basically vibrated them into little bits and sucked them out.
Uncle Cosmo
@Steve in the SFO: Not so sheltered. I’m guessing you thought we were an international group of folks dancing, when in fact we were fairly conventional USAns performing folk dances from outside the USA. – in our case, primarily Balkan (Bulgaria, Romania, Yugoslav successor states). Of 12-14 members in the ensemble, only one of us had any connection with the geographical sources (a Croatian mother). The rest of us just loved the dances for themselves.
International folkdancing was a fairly significant activity on many college campuses in the 1960s and 70s but waned as GenX matriculated. I came to it late, in my mid-20s – but it (& the other forms of dance I dabbled in anon) was invaluable for my health – dancing helped me fight a nasty case of systemic arthritis to a draw & arguably kept me out of a wheelchair for the duration. /tmi
TenguPhule
@rikyrah: Yep. They had practically a gift wrapped case and they completely fucked up by the numbers because they were arrogant AF that this was their chance to stick it to a rich black man.
Karen Potter
@LanceThruster: My all time favorite was when we got to see Bob Hope live.
Uncle Cosmo
@StringOnAStick: In the popular culture of the 1960s “novocaine” was universally recognized & understood as “local anesthetic injected into the jaw as a precursor to a dental procedure,” regardless of the specific chemical used. And that’s how the term is used in the comedy routine. I think this is an example of metonymy, or possibly synecdoche – one member of the class of such agents standing in for the class in general.
LanceThruster
@Karen Potter:
For me, sometimes seeing someone you otherwise like can be a letdown. About a decade or so ago, I went to a Rich Little performance that was to be taped for a comedy album. The stage director explained that he would be giving hand signals as to how hard we were supposed to laugh, 4 fingers being hysterical. Little’s material was for the most part dated and weak. The SD kept holding up 4 fingers no matter how tepid the joke. I got so annoyed I started doing a raucous, forced Ed McMahan style laugh at every single dud (my voice carries and we had good seats). They taped Saturday and Sunday. The agent who comped us said they didn’t use anything from our show. xD