After Michael Jackson died, all the usual suspects came out of the woodwork to inflame, speculate, accuse, defend, and memorialize.  Media vultures like Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, and Gloria Allred took their well-worn places, along with ex-attorneys, autopsy specialists, and professional pundits. Hundreds of thousands of Jackson’s fans filled the internet with glowing praise and [...]

A great deal of media attention has been paid to Nadya Suleman, the recent mother of octuplets by IVF.  The general consensus is that there’s something wrong with an unemployed mother of six choosing to have eight more children.  News pundits, psychologists, and the public have speculated about Suleman’s mental health, her motives, and [...]

This is one of the men who raped me when I was a teenager.  He was 19 then, he’s 51 now, and he is still a rapist.  I look at him and see a life gone wrong, but I feel no pity.  I imagine that at one time he was a little boy who liked [...]

INTRODUCTION
We live in a world of instant everything. Every human situation, it seems, comes attached with cliches, platitudes, bromides, stereotypes and parodies. There is, conceivably, a box to place every person in, and a label to slap them with. There are also socially created barriers that inform perception, determine response, and decide [...]

I feel like I should give some disclaimer to this piece, some explanation of why, not only because the topic is tough, but also because it’s become a cliche.  Writers, film makers, and students alike have been steered away from the topic of child abuse — it’s been done, the subject is stale, and every [...]

I recently had cause to remember The Year that Blew My Mind. It wasn’t mind-blowing in a good way – the oyster of the world didn’t open up and reveal any grand pearls of wisdom – instead, my gray matter was challenged to find reason for the unreasonable, and causes for the inexcusable. [...]