Regardless, I have a hard time getting worked up about Mel Gibson. It is not like we didn’t already know he was bad news. There were clues. The 7 children with his first wife, the anti-Semitism and sexism displayed in the 2006 drunken rant, and The Passion of the Christ — all consequential indicators of zealous incongruity.

I was angry when Whoopi defended Polanski in the infamous Whoopi says it’s not rape rape incident because the topic as it applied to the story was relevant to the issue of at hand — rape. This Mel Gibson thing, while pertinent, is immaterial to the real the issues of race, misogyny, sexism. It’s relevant to Mel Gibson, his career, his lovers his haters, Radar Online’s pocketbook and so on. In the scheme of things — not so significant.

If anyone wants to discuss something directly related to the matters at hand, why not discuss the new political correctness requiring everyone who will run for office, or is in office and up for reelection during the next decade, to parrot that old “the tea party is not racist, just inclusive of few people who express racist views” slant.

–

My original post was about the song So In Love. I was distracted. I still want to post the song, if only because a blogger should always provide relief from the storm of their rants. That, and I’m recently obsessed with this song and it’s various incarnations — from Ella Fitzgerald to K.D. Lang.

Written originally for the musical Kiss Me Kate, there are hundreds of versions and styles of this Cole Porter song. I like most of them. This the Lara Fabian & Mario Frangoulis version as it is performed in the play Kiss Me Kate, in the film De-Lovely.

Peace

Wonderland or Not.

Found dead on the military base in Balad, Iraq in July, 2005, a short time after she began serving there, the United States Army ruled 19 year old Pfc. Lavena Johnson’s death as a suicide resulting from a self-inflicted M-16 rifle shot wound, and sent her home in a box. This ruling despite the fact she was found with a broken nose, black eye, loose teeth, acid burns on her genitals (which some suggest were to eliminate DNA evidence of rape), a trail of blood leading away from her tent, and a bullet hole in her head . Five years later I m hard pressed to find any mention of Lavena Johnson, save a rare OMG — WTF post from someone who has only recently discovered the case. There was some coverage in Australia last year, as the story suddenly popped up there as if it hadn’t been heard before.

I wrote of it in The New Yorker, Obama, and Real Tragedy, only a couple of years ago — the first of several posts I wrote on her case. Though the incident occurred in the summer of 2005, that summer of 2008 was the first I had come across it. The coverage at it’s peak was found most often in a few progressive newspapers and blogs. Despite a petition with 50,000 signatures instigated by Color of Change, and in the summer of 2008 an oversight hearing on sexual assault (by the Subcommittee on National Security and Foreign Affairs) — to address sexual abuse in the military, the hope that Lavena’s case could be presented were shattered. Lavena’s case was not addressed, the case remains a suicide we all know never occurred.

Time passes, I understand. Obama gets elected, banks fail, we lose a our money, tea baggers go nuts, oil gets spilled, Lindsey Lohan gets drunk, Michael Jackson dies, someone is dancing with the stars, and insurance companies win. For all our losses we are preoccupied, and a murdered young solider and the subsequent cover-up, no matter how horrific, slip our mind.

That Lavena Johnson is not the first, and will not be the last, bear keeping in mind, on this memorial day.

Lavena Johnson: The Silent Truth

Link Collection:

Lavena Johnson

LaVena L. Johnson
Lavena Johnson
Press release from Color of Change.org(50,000 sign petition)
Female Buyers Beware of Obama’s Call to Service
Who Murdered Army Pvt Lavena Johnson?
The Cover-Up of a Soldiers’ Death
The tragic story of LaVena Johnson
Defense Dept. Uncooperative in Sexual Assault Hearings
LaVena Johnson’s Update:Oversight Hearing on Sexual Assault in the Military This Morning at 10:00 EST
Color of Change Launches Campaign to Get hearings for LaVena JohnsonTracey Barnett: Women GIs in fear of the enemy in their army
Suicide or Murder? Three Years After the Death of Pfc. LaVena Johnson in Iraq, Her Parents Continue Their Call for a Congressional InvestigationU.S. Army Private LaVena Lynn Johnson, RIP
The Next Pat Tillman-Style Cover-Up?
LaVena Johnson: Raped and Murdered on a Military Base in Iraq
LaVena L. JohnsonLaVena Johnson: Murdered By Her Colleagues, Ignored By The Army
Justice for Pfc. LaVena Johnson

Wonderland or Not.

Posing Half Naked on Magazine Covers — In

Could the message be any more clear?

Wonderland or Not.