Category: The Shadow Knows

Escape from the apocalypse

~ susie ~ 1 Comment

strackfamily

This is very sad, isn’t it? To be so fearful (and probably mentally ill) that you kill off all your children:

The deaths of five family members in Utah last year were revealed Tuesday to be a murder-suicide — committed by parents, fueled by drugs and possibly inspired by apocalyptic paranoia.

Five members of the Strack family in Springfield all died of drug toxicity in their family home last September, police said.

Two of the children — Emery, 12, and Zion, 11 — were killed Sept. 27 with toxic levels of diphenhydramine and methadone.

Their parents — Benjamin, 37, and Kristi, 36 — killed themselves with overdoses. Benjamin used heroin, while his wife mixed methadone, dextrorphan, diphenhydramine and doxylamine, the Salt Lake Tribune reports.

The couple’s third child, 14-year-old Benson, also died from diphenhydramine and doxylamine, but police could not determine if he was killed or if he decided to kill himself with his parents.

The family’s oldest child, a boy, was not home at the time.

Family members told police the parents regularly spoke about fearing “evil in the world” and needing to escape the planet’s “impending doom.” Family members also suspected undiagnosed mental illnesses for the parents.

Apocalypse now? No, just another dumb forecast.

~ odd man out ~ 2 Comments
It's the end of the world again!
What John Bolaris reads instead of tea leaves

“What we got here is a failure to communicate,” I told Swamp Rabbit, quoting from an old movie but referring to Philly-based John Bolaris, one of the many talking heads paid by the media machine to make weather forecasts.

Bolaris was on the radio, explaining why the “monster storm” predicted for us barely touched PA and NJ before rolling over New England, where storms in the East usually land. It seems he and his fellow weather swamis on TV had to choose from a number of possible computer-generated storm “models,” meaning scenarios. He and they chose wrong, but better to be safe than sorry, blah blah.

“What a bozo,” I said. “People in the real world get fired for being that wrong.”

The rabbit said I was the one who was wrong, that the local weather guy did great. “His job ain’t to inform people, Odd Man. It’s to scare ’em, like them horror movies do. People like being scared. The more scared they is, the more they watch the TV news show. Ain’t you learned that yet?”

“What a blowhard,” I said. “I spent the whole night worrying that the roof of this shack might cave in from the snow that never came.”

“Well there you go,” the rabbit replied. “The man done his job, didn’t he?”

Footnote: Too bad the mainstream media would rather hype winter snowstorms — they’re so unusual! — than inform people about long-term climate change.

No. 20

~ susie ~ 2 Comments

Beverly Johnson Reveals Her Scary Supermodel Diet From The '70s

It almost feels like there should be a mercy rule. How many times did he do this?

Supermodel Beverly Johnson has joined the ranks of Bill Cosby’s accusers with allegations that the comedian lured her to his home in the mid-1980s and drugged her “with the intention of doing God knows what.”

There was no immediate response from Cosby’s representatives, but he has steadfastly denied sexually assaulting the string of women who have come forward with accusations.

In an essay for Vanity Fair magazine, the fashion icon Johnson said Cosby invited her to audition for a small part on his television show, invited her and her daughter to his New York brownstone, and then asked her to come back and read for the part a few days later. Johnson wrote that Cosby insisted she have a cappuccino from a large espresso machine, and she took a few sips.

“I knew by the second sip of the drink Cosby had given me that I’d been drugged — and drugged good,” she wrote. “My head became woozy, my speech became slurred, and the room began to spin nonstop. Cosby motioned for me to come over to him as though we were really about to act out the scene. He put his hands around my waist, and I managed to put my hand on his shoulder in order to steady myself. As I felt my body go completely limp, my brain switched into automatic-survival mode. That meant making sure Cosby understood that I knew exactly what was happening at that very moment.”

Johnson said she cursed at Cosby and he angrily pulled her out of the house and hustled her into a cab. When she awoke the next day, she said, “I sat in there still stunned by what happened the night before, confused and devastated by the idea that someone I admired so much had tried to take advantage of me, and used drugs to do so.”

A rape on campus

~ susie ~ 2 Comments

I’m glad I didn’t have girls, and I’m glad neither of my sons would have dreamed of joining a frat. Because this shit has always gone on, and people have always punished the women who report it. Rolling Stone:

Sipping from a plastic cup, Jackie grimaced, then discreetly spilled her spiked punch onto the sludgy fraternity-house floor. The University of Virginia freshman wasn’t a drinker, but she didn’t want to seem like a goody-goody at her very first frat party – and she especially wanted to impress her date, the handsome Phi Kappa Psi brother who’d brought her here. Jackie was sober but giddy with discovery as she looked around the room crammed with rowdy strangers guzzling beer and dancing to loud music. She smiled at her date, whom we’ll call Drew, a good-looking junior – or in UVA parlance, a third-year – and he smiled enticingly back.

“Want to go upstairs, where it’s quieter?” Drew shouted into her ear, and Jackie’s heart quickened. She took his hand as he threaded them out of the crowded room and up a staircase.

Four weeks into UVA’s 2012 school year, 18-year-old Jackie was crushing it at college. A chatty, straight-A achiever from a rural Virginia town, she’d initially been intimidated by UVA’s aura of preppy success, where throngs of toned, tanned and overwhelmingly blond students fanned across a landscape of neoclassical brick buildings, hurrying to classes, clubs, sports, internships, part-time jobs, volunteer work and parties; Jackie’s orientation leader had warned her that UVA students’ schedules were so packed that “no one has time to date – people just hook up.” But despite her reservations, Jackie had flung herself into campus life, attending events, joining clubs, making friends and, now, being asked on an actual date. She and Drew had met while working lifeguard shifts together at the university pool, and Jackie had been floored by Drew’s invitation to dinner, followed by a “date function” at his fraternity, Phi Kappa Psi. The “upper tier” frat had a reputation of tremendous wealth, and its imposingly large house overlooked a vast manicured field, giving “Phi Psi” the undisputed best real estate along UVA’s fraternity row known as Rugby Road.

Jackie had taken three hours getting ready, straightening her long, dark, wavy hair. She’d congratulated herself on her choice of a tasteful red dress with a high neckline. Now, climbing the frat-house stairs with Drew, Jackie felt excited. Drew ushered Jackie into a bedroom, shutting the door behind them. The room was pitch-black inside. Jackie blindly turned toward Drew, uttering his name. At that same moment, she says, she detected movement in the room – and felt someone bump into her. Jackie began to scream.
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Cop arrested for directing child sex abuse

~ susie

Do you suppose that the ability to do whatever they want without accountability has anything to do with cops pursuing even more anti-social thrills? I have to think it’s a factor:

Back in February 2013, NYPD Sergeant Alberto Randazzo was charged with use of a child in a sexual performance, promoting sexual performance by a child, and possessing a sexual performance by a child. Then, a year later, while he was out on bail for those charges, he was caughtdownloading 30 clips of child pornography to his computer. This guy is a complete monster, huh?

Now the Daily News reports that cops have located and charged the Colorado woman Randazzo was originally accused of plotting with over Skype to molest her then-1-year-old child. Keira Norton, unable to come up with the $100,000 bail, is being held at Rikers.

According to the News:

The videos show Norton carrying out verbal instructions from Randazzo to perform sex acts on the baby, NYPD Internal Affairs Bureau Sgt. Christopher Sharpe states in the complaint.

Cleaning up?

~ susie ~ 1 Comment

Happy to see this happening:

The Vatican said on Tuesday that it had placed under house arrest and opened criminal proceedings against one of its former ambassadors, Archbishop Jozef Wesolowski, who has been accused of sexually abusing boys he met on the street while serving in the Dominican Republic.

It is the first time the Vatican will hold a criminal trial on charges of child sexual abuse, and it comes as Pope Francis has been trying to set a new tone of rigorous attention in the long-running abuse scandal.

The case has received widespread attention in the Dominican Republic and in Mr. Wesolowski’s native Poland, and officials in both nations have sought to have him tried in their courts.

Mr. Wesolowski is being held “in a location within the Vatican City State,” according to a statement issued by the Rev. Federico Lombardi, the Vatican spokesman. He added that Mr. Wesolowski had presented documentation attesting to a medical condition, and was confined to house arrest after a preliminary hearing on Tuesday.