You know, sometimes these blogs just write themselves. Like tonight. My old friend Mike Voorheis, a damn fine tennis opponent and Boggle player back when I lived in Wilmington, N.C., alerted me to a lovely tale of a North Myrtle Beach, S.C. public safety director who has some newfangled ideas of combating domestic violence.
Yep, Maj. Walt Floyd has all kinds of wonderful ideas and thoughts. For example, when deciding whether a 17-year-old boy should be charged for having sex with his 14-year-old girlfriend, he replied (according to a tape recording made by another office), “Damn if I wouldn’t have screwed her if I was that young.”
But the real class statement comes a little later in the tape, according to this story in the Myrtle Beach Sun-News. A police lieutenant named Don Repec and Maj. Floyd are discussing the rise in domestic violence cases reported.
“All these criminal domestic violences in here, can the victim advocate start enrolling people in, some of these women, in obedience school so they don’t have all these problems with their men,”” Repec said on the recording.
“We probably need to,” Floyd said on the recording, in response to Repec’s repeated request to enroll the victims in obedience school.
Could these two be any more disgusting, backward, or offensive? Not sure. Maybe there are more tape recordings where they advocate children prevent abuse from parents by running away from home. Or where they blame rape victims for being so darn alluring that night at the bar.
I know it’s South Carolina, the state that has given us Mark Sanford and Strom Thurmond, but if these two have their jobs for more than another week, it’s an enormous slap in the face to women, and to the citizens of that town. (UPDATE: They’ve been placed on administrative leave pending an investigation. What, exactly needs to be investigated here?)
It’s 2010, for God’s sakes. How much longer does moronic, backward thinking get allowed from those entrusted to lead and protect the public?
**And now, a few more words about “The Big Bang Theory.” What another outstanding episode Monday night. Can’t remember the last show that consistently brought the funny every week. Don’t give me “The Office,” because I never got into it. Maybe “Seinfeld?” Or “Cheers” before that?
They’ve clearly moved the show around Sheldon, which is smart because he’s the best character. But everyone else plays their role so perfectly on that show. The scene with the ball pit Monday night had me in stitches, partly because I remember how damn difficult it is to get out of those things. And Sheldon as a busboy? Genius.
How this show hasn’t won an Emmy yet blows me away.
Wide World of Stuff 