Kitty Genovese: The Murder, the Bystanders, the Crime that Changed America<\/i><\/a>. Very touching, sad, terrible, well-written revealing book about the young woman whose 1964 stabbing death altered many things, from how we summon help to how we view our neighbors.<\/p>\nIt was a New York Times<\/i> article, two weeks after Kitty’s murder, that turned an otherwise obscure crime into a national self-examination. The paper claimed that Kitty was attacked three times while 38 people stood watching from their windows and did nothing. None of that is true. Kitty’s death was horrible enough, and several bystanders behaved damnably. But basically, a nation began beating its breast and examining its own conscience over lazy, manipulative journalism.<\/p>\n
I poked around online after reading the book and found that, even 50 years later, here in this age of relentless reality-checking, the Times’<\/i> lazy lies still appear as “fact” on various crime sites. Disgraceful. <\/p>\n
Yet ironic. If the Times<\/i> hadn’t lied, many good things — from multitudes of psychological studies to Good Samaritan laws to development of the 911 emergency system — either wouldn’t have happened at all or would have happened much more slowly. And nobody beyond her family and friends would remember or care about the lonely death of Kitty Genovese.<\/p>\n
—–<\/p>\n
In my recent work-work I’ve been dealing with more people than I’ve been involved with for many hermit years. <\/p>\n
Some are amazing, astounding, fantastic — the sort who have even my cynical self singing the praises of teamwork. The kind of people who remind me how good, how talented, how funny, and what excellent collaborators creative people can be.<\/p>\n
A couple others are … the opposite. They’re people who believe that nothing good can be accomplished unless they’re stationed on the sidelines shouting orders and criticisms at those who are actually, you know, doing the work<\/i>.<\/p>\n
In the past, bossy bystanders have managed to get me rattled. I get intimidated. Or so upset that I pop off at them. Or I feel the constant urge to explain the situation as I see it in hopes of getting them to lay off and let the doers do<\/i>. <\/p>\n
This time, thanks to some excellent support and the wonders of technology, I’m mostly able to tune them out. I’m aware but don’t have to engage.<\/p>\n
What’s funny is how flapped such folks get over the simple act of being ignored, how helpless and vulnerable they feel. Turns out that not doing anything<\/i> is an amazing tool.<\/p>\n
—–<\/p>\n
I have a friend — a good person — whose adult son is not such a good person. He’s been in and out of jail or prison nearly all his life. Mostly for petty stuff, but it’s always something. <\/p>\n
Over the years, I’ve watched Mom go from, “He really seems to have turned his life around this time,” to, “I love him but I’ve washed my hands of him.”<\/p>\n
After his latest arrest (his biggest offenses to date), she and her other family members were even hoping that he’d get a long prison sentence. Not because they wish him ill, but because he thrives in prison — the one place where all his big life decisions are made by somebody else.<\/p>\n
Instead, it turned out that the most damning evidence was gathered illegally. So he’s in prison, but will be out in a year and will do something stupid and bad again. And again. My friend knows all this about her son. <\/p>\n
The last two times he went to prison, he blamed his then-girlfriends. One “framed” him for burglary. The other “made” him deal meth and “made” him beat her up. <\/p>\n
The story about the girlfriend “making” him deal drugs and get violent is particularly convoluted and implausible.<\/p>\n
My friend believes it 100 percent. In both cases, while my friend says she doesn’t absolve him of responsibility — the women made him do it.<\/p>\n
—–<\/p>\n
Of course, I have my quirks, blind spots, illusions, and annoying traits just like anybody else. I just don’t know what they are.<\/p>\n
That’s the strangest part. Humans. We are bizarre beasties.<\/p>\n
O wad some Pow’r the giftie gie us<\/a>
\nTo see oursels as ithers see us!
\nIt wad frae mony a blunder free us,
\nAn’ foolish notion:<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A ramble through human nature … —– Mack. Smack that man. He had to have known — had to from all his years of experience — that this stupid and apparently completely untrue blat would not only be picked up by every enemy of freedom, but that it would be remembered, and exaggerated, for the next 20 years. (“Oh yeah, the Bundy Ranch militia people. They were the ones who used women and babies as human shields …”) Whatever possessed him? —–<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,30],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17001","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-books-and-movies","category-resistance","ratio-natural","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17001","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17001"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17001\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17001"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17001"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17001"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}