Sometimes a thing will happen and you just don't know what to do with it. Interpretively speaking. Sometimes a thing will happen that is so striking and singular that it seems, paradoxically, to spread an illuminating light over an entire social landscape, hitherto darkened and obscure. And yet the thing's very singularity makes it impossible to draw such large conclusions. This type of thing is a godsend to a cultural critic, and it is also a cultural critic's worst nightmare.
Specifically, I am talking about Donald Thompson, a former Oklahoma judge. Thompson, who retired from the bench in 2004, was just convicted of using a penis pump to masturbate while presiding over several trials between 2001 and 2003. He was sentenced to four years in prison, and ordered to pay a $40,000 fine.
Let me repeat that. Thompson, who retired from the bench in 2004, was just convicted of using a penis pump to masturbate while presiding over several trials. When, as a boy, I dreamed of being a published writer, I never thought I would write a sentence like that in a non-fictional format. I've been thinking about Thompson's case for days, ever since I read about his conviction. It's not that I don't have finer and more important things to reflect on. It's not that there aren't more urgent or significant events going on in the world. I just can't make sense of Thompson's odyssey on any level.
I am now brought back to one of my standard hobby horses: Why do we know about this story? Yes, it is amusing and disturbing. But a judge wheeling it in Oklahoma really ought not to qualfy as news. It does not signal something about which we can be worried (is it a trend?). It is hardly a human interest story, though it is interestingly prurient. Hell, the crime is not even that egregious (don't get me wrong -- punish the guy, but let's have some sense of proportion).
At the same time, I am outraged that the Jon Benet Ramsey story is back in the news, so I may just be a crank. My cantankerousness notwithstanding, the tragic story of that dead little girl should never have been in the news the first time around. Children die all the time. Why is this one so singularly important? The answer is that she was not, but the media tend to be full of shallow dunderheads who make news as much as report it.
1 comment:
Yup. You it it on the head. It's such a bizarre ordering of priorities. No rationale for it, no justification, no excuse. And yet outside of the Daily Show, who calls thewm on it? I blame television "journalism" more than I do the print press, for what it's worth.
dcat
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