Month: October 2026

By on

I have a problem with historical dramas. There always come some point in the story when I realize this is speculation on part of the writers. it may be true but it could just as easily be false. There is no way of knowing because the characters are long dead and aren’t able to confirm or deny the speculation.

I also get that the writers have to speculate some as these historical figures didn’t live 24/7/365 in front of the public. Speculation about a conversation between a wife and husband might have to happen in order for the drama to make sense. Most of the time, the writers try to give a best guess based on the historical information they have. It may be difficult to confirm whether the actual conversation happened as told but it makes sense in the context of what happened in history.

Then there is Ryan Murphy, the creator of American Horror Story and the Monster series. His latest story is about Lizzie Borden — a woman who lived in the late 19th century and is suspected of killing her parents. Murphy and his team go well beyond speculation in their portrait of the infamous Lizzy Borden. They wander from speculation into mostly fiction and complete fantasy, leaving the audience with no real idea what happened to Andrew and Abby Borden — other than they were killed.

Here are some of the problems:

  1. Lizzie, at the time of her parent’s murder, was 32 years old and not this post adolescence naif that Ella Beatty plays in the show.
  2. Andrew and Abby Borden were in the early 60’s to late 70’s which I could have lived with except the implication is that this middle aged couple in the television show were engaged in numerous sexual trysts that don’t really make sense for their age. Andrew is chasing and catching every maid and Abby is seducing Andrew’s brother-in-law. There is no evidence that any of these sexual liasons ever occurred.
  3. Andrew impregnated Maggie and he pays her to abort the child.
  4. Lizzie had a lesbian affair with Maggie Sullivan, the Borden’s maid which is speculation and might be a plausible explanation for the killings but this speculation isn’t grounded in any facts.
  5. Lizzie and Maggie are implicated in another murder. There is no evidence that they were involved.
  6. Murphy’s team doesn’t even try to explain one of the more interesting events of the murder — the hour and half between Abby’s death and Andrew’s death. They even go as far as to have Andrew visiting a whore the night before and just arriving home from his tryst to meet his fate. This is complete fantasy.
  7. Lizzie didn’t met Nance O’Neal until well after Lizzie’s trial so could not have coached Lizzie on how to behave at her trial.
  8. There is absolutely no evidence whatsoever that Lizzie and Maggie were prominent in the suffragette movement.
  9. It is a bit disburbing to paint Lizzie as this feminist icon when her big claim to fame, as portrayed by Murphy, is killing her parents for the sin of being mean to her. Yes that is why Lizzie took an axe to her parent. They were mean to her.

There is too much speculation and fantasy to have any relevance to understand what happened to the Borden family which I would think is the whole point of calling it Monster: Lizzie Borden. Yes, maybe there is some speculation but a show that purports to explain what happened should at least come close to the truth.

Murphy has created an account of a Lizzie Borden like character but not Lizzie Borden.

By on

First, I think the strong positions people are taking before all the facts are know is interesting. The whole point of an investigation is to uncover the facts and come to a conclusion about how best to resolve the manner. This isn’t happening. People are already taking positions based on the accusations made. I am assuming I don’t have all the facts, to take a position is premature.

The woman in the case feels wronged and she has a burden to prove her case. What facts we do have reveal a messy situation. Drugs, alcohol and sex. But this is precisely why a court should intervene. It is messy.

Something happened though and it is worth investigating.

What I find irritating is the tears shed for the men involved. Miranda Devine, in the New York Post, writes: “The young men made bad choices, too, and I would be ashamed to have sons who behaved that way. But they were just as young and just as out of it as she was and don’t deserve to have their lives ruined if the evidence shows they committed no crime. As far as ruining the young men’s lives involved, though, I don’t know what to say.”

If a woman has to be cautious about how she behaves at a Frat Party, then the same applies for the men. Men need to be aware that women may object to these maneuvers to get them into bed and, because times have changed, these grievances may end up in court. This is where we are with the Cornell case.

I would also argue that these are questions worth pursuing and the courts are best place for their resolution.

Why did these men offer an already drunk woman even more intoxicating substances if not to make her more pliable to their sexual advances? By making her even more incapacitated, they were making the woman even less capable of making a reasonable decision. She wasn’t asking for more drugs and drinks, so why were the encouraging her to get even more inebriated? This seems like a line of inquiry worth pursuing.

But men have been doing this for thousands of years, it is all part of the seduction process — a woman has to be aware when given alcohol or drugs. This is hardly a defense of the young men. Making a person so inebriated they will do anything you want, doesn’t sound like a benign seduction maneuver here. They should have to explain their intentions here.

Then there is the message from one of the men to the rest of his fraternity to come join him for free pussy. Two questions here. Did the woman ask him to offer her up for sexual use? If not, why did he think she was offering it up? Again, this doesn’t seem like some benign action from a nice guy. It sounds very much like he was offering her up to be sexually used by the rest of the fraternity without her consultation.

But she put herself in that position. She did.

And the young men put themselves in the position of wanting sex so badly that they behaved badly in order to pursue this end. They now find themselves in a court of law to straighten out the mess they participated in making. Given the numerous ambiguities of the case, there is a good chance that most of them will get off scot-free.

Of course, their parents and friends have learned about their capacity for bad behavior but then, let’s face it, their behavior was bad. Is it really so wrong to learn this? Discovery is the risk a person takes when they do the wrong thing. If their lives are ruined, which I doubt very much in this case, they participated in causing the ruin.

By on

Trump regrets his 3 Supreme Court nominees who now, rarely, but on occasion, vote independently of what Trump wants.

This seems to be a reoccurring problem for the President. He seems to have a problem with selecting good staff. Indeed, I can’t recall a president ever having so much trouble with his own staff.

It must be difficult to find people with tongues long enough to reach the tippy top of his intestinal wall.

By on

This Slate Advice column left me gobsmacked. This woman’s daughter-in-law left her kids at the front gate of her house expecting Grandma to take care of them while she dealt with a work emergency. The daughter-in-law called her before leaving her kids there, got no answer and just assumed she was there. She was not. She, in fact, was out of town. The woman’s neighbor, seeing two children abandoned at the front gate, called Child Protective Services who then got involved.

The son and daughter-in-law are now angry with the woman because she wasn’t at home when they needed her. The woman had gone out of town with her new boyfriend. The daughter-in-law informed her she needs to keep them apprised of her out of town visits. Her son had the nerve to say she was whoring around with wrinkly old men instead of caring for her grandchildren.

So much to say about this:

  1. The daughter-in-law didn’t know where the woman was. The woman hadn’t answered her phone. Why would the daughter-in-law assume she was there? And why would she leave her children at the gate based on this lack of information?
  2. The woman could have been in-town and not at her house. She could have been taking care of a sick friend or shopping at the mall. Does her family expect her to keep them informed of her every move? Do they expect her to give them a daily rundown of her schedule? Is she supposed to sit at her home waiting for their emergencies.
  3. I don’t think implying that your emergency babysitter is a whore is a good way to encourage her to be available at a moment’s notice. Just saying there might have been a more diplomatic approach to the discussion.
  4. The woman sounds like she is afraid that she has ruptured her son and daughter-in-law’s relationship with her. This is truly eye opening. I mean they are going to get bent out of shape with their emergency babysitter. The person who will take their children at the last minute. Talk about cutting your nose off to spite your face. Really, this is what you want to do?
  5. Getting CPS called on them was a bummer. But having their two children sitting outside Grandma’s house without any adult supervision was a mistake. The daughter-in-law made a lot of bad assumptions here and hopefully she has learned her lesson but misdirecting her anger towards her mother-in-law is unfair and unrealistic.

I think the woman should take a long vacation with her new boyfriend and see how her son does with emergency babysitters while she is gone.

By on 2 Comments

I am against capital punishment because I distrust the present judicial system. People are wrong. Systems and processes fail. You can release a person who is wrongfully imprisoned, you can’t revive the dead. I am particularly wary of convicting anyone just on circumstantial evidence. I also realize I am in the minority in the United States and capital punishment is something I have to live with.

I thought I had made my peace with the process but Christa Pike’s botched execution in Tennessee has caused me to reconsider the practice. If the state is going to execute someone, the state should, at least, be able to ensure that it is done right. Particularly worrisome is the number of botched lethal injection executions. By my count, there have been 17 lethal injection executions that have gone wrong since 2000.

And, before someone writes, at least she was treated better than her victim. That is not the point. An execution is a state sponsored action. The state owes it to its citizens to conduct itself in a humane manner. Not because the person deserves such treatment, but because this sentence is being carried out for all of us. We don’t want to engage in torture and mistreatment of any individual.

If we can’t do it right, we shouldn’t be doing it at all.