I totally agree. And furthermore, the majority of the individuals who are adamantly supporting the Duke players would not do the same for the accused in the reverse scenario and the chances for conviction would also be greater in my humble opinion.

Maybe the $400 each is due to inflation.

I still feel dirty

to Chris Ford #95-
You definitely made some insightful comments as well. Comment #2 is valid but I would say that even though it may be thrown out in the court of law, 47 black men would probably still be rounded up in the same fashion, and being that we’re in Durham, they probably would grab 3 more black guys off Fayetteville St for good measures. The difference is that it wouldn’t take 1 to 2 months after the incidence. 47 black males would be handcuffed and in the line up the next day (I experience something like that before here in Durham).

In the beginning, I was quick to judge the Duke boys as already being guilty. But I revise even before the “publicly view” evidence have been presented. I truly believe that you’re innocent until proven guilty. Granted the “south” and the media has their own warped sense of belief and practice. I pray that the court of law will come through. It sickens me to see all the outside influences (media, high priced lawyers, race, etc) on this case. If the boys are guilty, punish them. If the accuser is lying, punish her.

A little bit of me wants to believe that the DA really isn’t a Dummkopf. I hope that he actually knows what he is doing and that he has an “ace” waiting to be released. I hope that he isn’t using this case for political reasons. But alas so far I don’t see that to be the case.

I told my wife the other day, if the Duke boys are found not guilty, we are staying away from Durham (we long since moved to Raleigh) for fear of riots.

This is also sad.

On a side note, I once paid $900 for three Durham strippers for a bachelor party. Two hours of entertainment. This was in 2004. When I called the “Adult” entertainment service, they did ask me what type of girls (black, white, Hispanic, etc) I want. $400 each seems a bit much for just dancing. By the way the dancers did not show up with a bouncer.

This is called, in the field of social research, “self-identification” and it is a wholely problematic method of gaining information.

Problem #1: people lie. People who are sent into a “voting booth” and have their votes tracked will come out and give exit pollsters the wrong answer when asked: “who did you vote for?” Depending upon the divisiveness of the subject being voted upon, the rate of false reporting can reach 50%.

Problem #2: people answer in ways they believe they should. For example, it is often reported that the US is “84% christian”, based strictly upon self-identity. Yet, when matched up against polling seeking religious participation, around 2/3ds of the self-identified “christians” haven’t been to church in years. Likewise, many “Democrats” and “Republicans” don’t vote. The honest answer is “I’m not really any religion” or “I’m politically neutral” but they believe they ought to be religious or political and answer as if they were.

Closely associated with problem #2 is that some people answer in ways that match their ideological values. I’d strongly suggest that your survey question would fall under this. There are women’s groups devoted to the principle that men are brutal, bestial neanderthals. It doesn’t stretch anyone’s credulity far at all — or shouldn’t — to suppose that some women might answer in favor of an unreported rape to strike a blow for the cause.

Problem #3: people impose their own definitions upon the question. Survey terms mustMustMUST be specific and unequivocable, you cannot get accurate polling data on restaurant chili if everyone has their own recipe for chili, for example. Rape is a legally-defined crime that has specific requirements in order to make it a legitimate accusation. A survey respondent, unless a lawyer [and even many of them], might be superimposing their own terminology over the intentions of the survey.

As far as I know, all estimates on unreported rape are just that: estimates. Any attempt to derive figures using self-identification surveys would be more than useless.

One summer night in 2002, excessive drinking led to charges that the woman stole a car and led officers on a reckless car chase.

The episode started at the Diamond Girls club on Angier Avenue in Durham. According to Larry W. Jones, the owner of Diamond Girls, the woman appeared at the club that night and “tried out,” giving lap dances to a few men.

Jones said the manager at the time did not offer the woman a job because she was “acting funny.”

She started dancing for a taxi driver, whom she asked for a ride, according to a report from the Durham County Sheriff’s Office. While dancing, she took the keys from the driver’s pocket without his knowledge and, minutes later, drove off in his taxi.

The cab driver called 911 and a sheriff’s deputy responded and saw the blue 1992 Chevrolet Caprice heading east on Angier Avenue near Page Road. The headlights were off and the woman was driving on the wrong side of the road, according to the deputy’s report.

The woman sped up to pass the officer, and he began to chase the taxi, which ran a stop sign and veered across the road, weaving across a grass median, onto the shoulder and back. The car sped from Angier Avenue onto U.S. 70, the report said.

According to the report, the woman drove down the center of the highway, a 55 mph zone, at 70 mph, heading into Raleigh. She kept speeding, drove the wrong way down Brier Creek Parkway and turned into a dead end, where she tried to drive the taxi through a fence.

The sheriff’s deputy said he got out of his car and told the woman to turn off the car. She laughed, backed up the car, then drove forward again and nearly hit the deputy, the report said.

The taxi slammed into the deputy’s car and kept going, turning back onto Brier Creek Parkway into oncoming traffic, the report said. Another deputy continued to chase her until the taxi got a flat tire. Officers boxed in the car, pulled the woman out and arrested her.

Her blood alcohol level was 0.19, according to court records, more than twice the legal limit to drive in North Carolina.

The woman was charged with driving while impaired, driving with a revoked license, felony speeding to elude arrest, felony assault with a deadly weapon on a government official, and felony larceny of a motor vehicle. Court documents and her criminal and driving records show that her driver’s license had been revoked before the incident, but they do not indicate why.

Under a deal with prosecutors, she pleaded guilty to four misdemeanors in the car chase: larceny, speeding to elude arrest, assault on a government official and DWI, according to court records. She was required to serve three consecutive weekends in jail and was placed on two years’ probation. She paid restitution and court costs, and completed her probation.
So, here you have some circumstances relating to the woman’s behavior while she was drunk and giving a lap dance that might be relevant to the present case where she was supposed to be performing a sexual dance and is characterized as being drunk. Might it not be relevant that she has a history of bizarre and criminal behavior in those circumstances? And does it strike anyone else that she got a pretty light sentence for what she was charged with including a felonious assault on a law enforcement officer?

Blood was drawn in her exam. It will show if GHB or anything else was present in her blood. That will be a giant step toward making this case go away, or continue.

OTOH, it doesn’t make the case against these particular boys any stronger. By going with, and publisizing, the womans 100% positive identification with boys that have pretty good alibies, he may have doomed the prosecution already.

If all the above is correct, then it would tend to show that the victim in this case was not administered a date-rape drug (although I stand to be corrected)

Here’s an open thread dedicated to the Duke Lacrosse case. Newsweek has a very detailed 8 page recap of events in the Duke Lacrosse players alleged rape case. If you don’t have time to read the whole thing, here…

Boy, this one is a doozie …

My wife looks at me with a pained expression every time I search the blogs for more on the Duke lacrosse scandal. I’m a big believer in writing comments using my own name on the ‘Net, but I can’t. And for damn sure I can’t be the slightest bit impartial about this case. Then why would we bother listening to your “analysis?”

My daughter was raped at a college in Virginia, in somewhat similar circumstances. She was invited to an off-campus party by a new “friend.” The house was owned by an unrecognized fraternity that largely consisted of the lacrosse team. A drink laced with a “date rape” drug, and…well, you can guess the rest. I empathize, but other than an off-campus house and a lacrosse team — both of which seem superfluous to the factual issues of the allegations — what part of your daughter’s case is similar? Did she have business with the perpetrator? Did she get into an altercation with him? Did she and her friend have a reputation with the police?

So when this case broke, I was glued to it–and so filled with rage (and so willing to see these punks hang) that my wife was more than a little rattled. Now that the story appears to have changed, perhaps I’m not quite so enraged. Who was it who said, “When the facts change, I change my opinion; what do you do?”

But I’m not going to even pretend to any impartiality–these punks may turn out to not be guilty of rape, but it’s probably more a matter of poor execution than lack of intent. Or so you hope, it seems. You’ve decided these guys are close enough matches to the one who raped your daughter, so regardless of the facts, they need to go down.

Have you read the Newsweek article? (Say what you want about the MSM–it’s extraordinarily good coverage of the subject.) How good can it cover this story when there are so few facts about what happened? There are a couple of points that a lot of bloggers (and the MSM) have missed:

First, despite a federal law requiring colleges to publish statistics about crime committed on- and off-campus, colleges bend over backwards to keep their “numbers” looking good. Tell the college counseling service that you’ve been raped–they’ll tell you that unless you file a police complaint, publicly accusing your rapist, it doesn’t count. The college (via the counselor) knows of the rape–but does not publish that the crime occurred. Well, no, it doesn’t know of the rape. It knows of the accusation of rape. Do you really expect a school, government, or business to publish statistics on “crimes” when they are actually including uninvestigated and uncorroborated allegations? It’s hard to go around accusing people of murder when there’s no body to be found, but accusing people of rape is a completely different story.

Don’t believe me? Here’s a research experiment for you. Take a look at the http://www.securityoncampus.org, and at the U.S. Dept. of Education’s web site of campus crime statistics. Look at the Duke statistics for forcible sexual assault on- and off-campus: a total of 24 crimes committed over the past three years. Given the number of undergraduate and graduate students, the size of the campus, and that the report makes a point of emphasizing that it covers all of campus, including Duke’s medical campus and facilities, and it seems like a low number. The campus looks remarkably safe.

Then note that Duke has a Sexual Assault Support Services unit, and goes so far as to hold programs for incoming first-year women that they are most likely to be raped in the first six weeks of their freshman year. Kind of makes you wonder if their statistics are completely accurate, doesn’t it? Duke isn’t saying that new freshmen girls are likely to be raped, they’re saying that IF they get raped while at Duke, it will most likely be during their first six weeks. There’s a HUGE difference.

The predators on campus get the message: rape a girl.Huh? How on Earth do they get that message? The school is on your side–particularly if you’re a highly-recruited athlete.Exactly how do you get to this point? How many rapes have been committed by Duke basketball players (perhaps the most highly recruited athletes in the nation)? Not only is this not the message being sent by the university, there are no statistics to support your assertion.

Which brings us to the lacrosse team, and the Newsweek article. Note that Kim Roberts (the “second stripper”) states that she and the accuser were given mixed drinks. Note that Kim Roberts claims the accuser was sober when she arrived–but drank half of her “mixed drink”, and all of Roberts’s. And, a few minutes later, could barely stand.Note that Kim Roberts has changed her story, attempted to profit off the media attention, is contradicted by the photos of the stripper leaving the house smiling, and has received preferential treatment by the DA for her other police entanglements since giving her AP interview.

In other words, the mixed drinks were laced with date rape drugs. In other words, you’re making a huge leap to a conclusion based on an incredible “witness.”

Why? Why would such upstanding young men, the cream of New York society, well-bred, well-fed, millionaire young gents who can have anything they want–WHY would they lace mixed drinks with date rape drugs? Because they intended to rape somebody. Ah, first, your cartoon drawing of the players is a bit hard to stomach unless you have some facts. Second, if they could have anything they wanted, why would they have to drug a stripper to get sex. Given your portrayal of them as have-it-all guys, I imagine this stripper was not their best option for the night.

Now–it may well turn out that no rape occurred. It may well turn out that these two kids that have been charged will be royally screwed over by a system that seems to be driven more by politics than by a commitment to justice. Well, it’s not the system that’s screwing them so much as an anonymous stripper and her opportunistic friend.

But nobody–NOBODY–should get lose sight of the fact that these punks went way, way, way beyond any reasonable sense of decency. Renting strippers is not unheard of. In fact, that’s why you can find them in the Yellow Pages.

“Boys will be boys” is a bogus argument–and most boys don’t hire strippers and feed them date rape drugs. Assumption has become fact, in your mind.

We tend, as a society, to expect crime and violence from poor people Really? My family was poor, but no one ever had trouble with the law, except for some speeding tickets.

–we tend to excuse bad behavior by rich kids with phrases like, “oh, he’s a good kid–he just made a mistake.” Really? Some of the most notorious cases in American crime are ones that happened among the rich and famous.

If the public gains nothing else from the bright light shown on these cockroaches, That is, the boys who resemble the guy who raped my daughter and thus should pay for that crime even though they had nothing to do with it.

it is this: they may not–possibly–be guilty of rape (at least of this woman). Because, since they resemble the guy who raped my daughter, they must have raped someone sometime.

But–unquestionably–they are not good kids. Because they have been accused of being bad, and because they resemble the guy who raped my daughter.

They are not “quality young men.” Because they have been accused of being bad, and because they resemble the guy who raped my daughter.

They are not any of the fawning things that family members and public officials from their home towns have been saying. But, somehow, the accusor, who has stolen property and assaulted officers and works in the sex industry is an angel because her ex-husband says she is. What, exactly, is your standard? Is there one?

If you’re a quality young man, do you stay at a party when it becomes apparent that strippers have been hired? Like I said, they can be found in the Yellow Pages. This isn’t an Amish community.

In the racially-charged atmosphere of Durham, It’s not racially charged. That’s the plot line the MSM has laid down, and you’ve bought it.

do you stay when it turns out the strippers hired for your all-white party are black? You’re supposed to leave because the strippers were Black? how racist is that?

Do you stay–let alone intervene–when one of your “brothers” suggests sodomizing a stripper with a broom handle? Do you stand by when another “quality young man” says “thank your grandfather for my cotton shirt,” while other of your teammates yell “nigger”? If that’s what happened (see “Kim” above). Nonetheless, everyone left within a few minutes by this time, no? I looks to me like things blew up pretty quickly and everyone left pretty pissed off.

Which of those “quality” young men said, “enough.” Which of those “quality” young men said, “I’ll take you home.”
Which of those “quality” young men said, “this is wrong.” Which of those “quality” young men has stepped forward to admit culpability for the monumental indecency of this event–and the disgrace that it has brought upon his team, upon Duke, and upon the game of lacrosse? Er, if that is what happened. For all you know, (a) none of these things happened, and (b) if it did, some of the guys actually did try to calm things down and mitigate the situation. You’ve let the void of their silence get filled with the demons of your mind. You simply have no idea what happened, and you’re projecting all this crap onto a mere skeleton of a story. If you’re going to be a sucker for every accusation made against anyone who slightly resembles the guy who raped your daughter, you’ve got a long, confusing life ahead of you.

As I wrote above, I’m way more than biased. But “I’m biased, but you need to listen to me.” ?? What is your point?
check out Sports Illustrated’s article on the impact of this scandal on Duke’s team, and next year’s season: Duke has released their players from their commitments, and many are trying to transfer to other schools. SI quotes the coach at Johns Hopkins (the perennial powerhouse of college lacrosse) as saying he’s received seven or eight transfer applications. He won’t take any–because he’s worried about the effect they would have on his program’s, and his school’s, reputation. Um, well, of course this is going to have an effect. When you’ve got terrible accusations and an administration that will jump to the defense of a Black woman in order to establish their PC bona fides, then you’re going to have a program and its participants left to hang. Of course, the effects of some accusations on a program has simply no bearing on the facts of the case, and it doesn’t make the players rapists.

This case may not establish that they’re rapists. So, we know in our hearts that they’re rapists, but this case may not be the public proof we need? And why do we know they’re rapists? Oh yeah, because they resemble the guy who raped my daughter, I forgot.

But it clearly establishes that they’re punk trash. And why are these two boys trash when nothing other than the fact that they were drinking with a stripper has been established? Oh yeah … because they resemble the guy … you know the drill.

Duke should expel them all. This may be the one thing the school not only has a right to do, but also an obligation, given its rules and efforts to create a certain campus life. But then why shouldn’t NCCU expel the accusor? It seems to me that it’s rather insulting in all this that NCCU’s reputation is never discussed, and no one seems to think it’s tarnished by having a drunk stripper in the student body. Hmmmm … the racism of low expectations?

For the commenters that get worked up over the racial aspects of this transaction. See my call about the Dukies above.

There is plenty of cool interracial stuff going on in the country. It just never makes news cause violence crowds it out.

It is tough then to form intelligent opionions based on the news. I don’t really understand this Rich preppy angst and poor white or black trash angst that people seem to think are polarizing forces. I’ve never met a rich preppy in my life. Maybe that is cause I live on the west coast.

Maybe if Duke is really class consicous then they should start pulling their freshmen from the local population and stop pulling from preppy schools.

I am particularly struck by those who are extra exercised because the strippers are black and the team members are white. Would they bother to post if the strippers were white as well or if the team members were black as well?

This is a spectacular exposition of racism as identified by the mind of the beholder.

God help those who are so inane that they dare represent the views of the Lord.

It is especially unnerving to see how far the uninitiated can take unsubstantiated news fodder and race to certain judgment.

My view: if the rich, white boys raped the woman: fry them. If the black stripper is trying to scam the rich, white boys: lock her up. But in truth, I do not see what race has to do with it other than the fact that it is the sign of our times. It sure looks like many blacks are ready for this la crosse team to pay in full for the injustice done to the Scottsboro Boys. (You can Google it up.)

My daughter was raped at a college in Virginia, in somewhat similar circumstances. She was invited to an off-campus party by a new “friend.” The house was owned by an unrecognized fraternity that largely consisted of the lacrosse team. A drink laced with a “date rape” drug, and…well, you can guess the rest.

So when this case broke, I was glued to it–and so filled with rage (and so willing to see these punks hang) that my wife was more than a little rattled. Now that the story appears to have changed, perhaps I’m not quite so enraged. But I’m not going to even pretend to any impartiality–these punks may turn out to not be guilty of rape, but it’s probably more a matter of poor execution than lack of intent.

Have you read the Newsweek article? (Say what you want about the MSM–it’s extraordinarily good coverage of the subject.) There are a couple of points that a lot of bloggers (and the MSM) have missed:

First, despite a federal law requiring colleges to publish statistics about crime committed on- and off-campus, colleges bend over backwards to keep their “numbers” looking good. Tell the college counseling service that you’ve been raped–they’ll tell you that unless you file a police complaint, publicly accusing your rapist, it doesn’t count. The college (via the counselor) knows of the rape–but does not publish that the crime occurred.

Don’t believe me? Here’s a research experiment for you. Take a look at the http://www.securityoncampus.org, and at the U.S. Dept. of Education’s web site of campus crime statistics. Look at the Duke statistics for forcible sexual assault on- and off-campus: a total of 24 crimes committed over the past three years. Given the number of undergraduate and graduate students, the size of the campus, and that the report makes a point of emphasizing that it covers all of campus, including Duke’s medical campus and facilities, and it seems like a low number. The campus looks remarkably safe.

Then note that Duke has a Sexual Assault Support Services unit, and goes so far as to hold programs for incoming first-year women that they are most likely to be raped in the first six weeks of their freshman year. Kind of makes you wonder if their statistics are completely accurate, doesn’t it?

The predators on campus get the message: rape a girl. The school is on your side–particularly if you’re a highly-recruited athlete.

Which brings us to the lacrosse team, and the Newsweek article. Note that Kim Roberts (the “second stripper”) states that she and the accuser were given mixed drinks. Note that Kim Roberts claims the accuser was sober when she arrived–but drank half of her “mixed drink”, and all of Roberts’s. And, a few minutes later, could barely stand.

In other words, the mixed drinks were laced with date rape drugs.

Why? Why would such upstanding young men, the cream of New York society, well-bred, well-fed, millionaire young gents who can have anything they want–WHY would they lace mixed drinks with date rape drugs? Because they intended to rape somebody.

Now–it may well turn out that no rape occurred. It may well turn out that these two kids that have been charged will be royally screwed over by a system that seems to be driven more by politics than by a commitment to justice. But nobody–NOBODY–should get lose sight of the fact that these punks went way, way, way beyond any reasonable sense of decency. “Boys will be boys” is a bogus argument–and most boys don’t hire strippers and feed them date rape drugs. We tend, as a society, to expect crime and violence from poor people–we tend to excuse bad behavior by rich kids with phrases like, “oh, he’s a good kid–he just made a mistake.” If the public gains nothing else from the bright light shown on these cockroaches, it is this: they may not–possibly–be guilty of rape (at least of this woman). But–unquestionably–they are not good kids. They are not “quality young men.” They are not any of the fawning things that family members and public officials from their home towns have been saying.

If you’re a quality young man, do you stay at a party when it becomes apparent that strippers have been hired? In the racially-charged atmosphere of Durham, do you stay when it turns out the strippers hired for your all-white party are black? Do you stay–let alone intervene–when one of your “brothers” suggests sodomizing a stripper with a broom handle? Do you stand by when another “quality young man” says “thank your grandfather for my cotton shirt,” while other of your teammates yell “nigger”?

Which of those “quality” young men said, “enough.” Which of those “quality” young men said, “I’ll take you home.” Which of those “quality” young men said, “this is wrong.” Which of those “quality” young men has stepped forward to admit culpability for the monumental indecency of this event–and the disgrace that it has brought upon his team, upon Duke, and upon the game of lacrosse?

As I wrote above, I’m way more than biased. But check out Sports Illustrated’s article on the impact of this scandal on Duke’s team, and next year’s season: Duke has released their players from their commitments, and many are trying to transfer to other schools. SI quotes the coach at Johns Hopkins (the perennial powerhouse of college lacrosse) as saying he’s received seven or eight transfer applications. He won’t take any–because he’s worried about the effect they would have on his program’s, and his school’s, reputation.

This case may not establish that they’re rapists. But it clearly establishes that they’re punk trash. Duke should expel them all.

and

If the accused made up this whole thing…

I presume you intended to write “the accuser?” Good work, LaShawn.

Thanks. – Admin