most popular laser cutting machines in the field of metal sheet 2020-03-30 21:07:04

Dear Manager:
From your webiste I learned that your company is professional for metal product,I'm writting to introduce our laser cutting machine, to see whether we're able to make some cooperation about our laser cutting machines,at present we have following three different series machines:
•metal sheet laser cutting machine
•metal tube laser cutting machine
•coil fed laser cutting machine
Our machines may help you save the labor and time,and improve the accuracy of cutting the metal tube or metal sheet.
Hope to find a way to cooperate wth you!
E-catalogue will be sent if need,while write my back or call me,Let's talk more in details!
Best Regards
Russell Guo

International Business Manager
Mail:lasercutmachines04@163.com
MP(whatsapp,wechat):+86 13961747372 Skype:Russellguo
Webisite: www.fiberlasercutmachine.com

Note:Maybe you are not in charge of purchasing,but low price and excellent quality may make your product more competitive in the market,please kindly forward this email to the manager of purchase,Or if you would like to,please advise the email of your purchase,thanks a lot!

2020-03-30 21:07:045975F35F585440CCB055B192676B7468pengurusweb.nombor4d@blogger.com2020-03-30 21:07:042020-03-30 21:07:04

The Black Gate: The C.S.I. Effect

The Fellowship has managed to infiltrate Britannia with the closest thing this world has ever had to a church.

        

For a game that gets really good, Ultima VII does not start promising. Particularly disappointing was the character creation process. This is the first Ultima since II not to allow any importing of characters. Character creation had of course reached its peak in Ultima IV, where the gypsy's questions sorted you into one of eight classes and determined your starting attributes. Ultima V and VI lowered the number of classes to functionally three (fighter, bard, and mage, with the "Avatar" class a kind of synthesis of the three) but still let you go through the gypsy exercise, the specifics of which were retconned in VI. You could choose a female Avatar for the first time, and select from about half a dozen portraits whether male or female.

Ultima VII offers the fewest options of any of the games in the series. You can only type your name and select your sex, and there's only one character portrait for each sex. And they're both horrible--although the male Avatar does fit with the canonical portrait ORIGIN has been pushing on players since VI, including the two Worlds of Ultima spin-offs.

I briefly considered playing a female character, which I never do for the Ultima series, but I didn't feel like looking at her portrait for dozens of hours, either. Why did ORIGIN reduce character customization? Was it just a matter of not wanting to spend the programming time to vary the portrait that shows up in dialogue? That's a lazy approach for a company that did such a meticulous job with everything else.

          

The female Avatar has Evil Resting Face.

            

I sighed and chose the male portrait, naming him "Gideon"--my official alter-ego for any character I'm really invested in. 

The opening moments beyond character creation are as chaotic as anything, especially for a new player. We start with a street scene in what turns out to be Trinsic. Two characters, one of them white-haired, are standing outside a stable and trading laments over some horrid event. Suddenly, the red moongate appears and spits the Avatar onto a paved (or at least cobblestoned) street with gas lamps--the first sign that Britannia isn't the same Dark Age kingdom we last saw. 

          

Where were moongates that open inside the city in the last couple of games?!

        

The white-haired, bearded man turns out to be Iolo, who immediately recognizes the Avatar despite not having seen him in--as he quickly reveals--200 years. Iolo and Dupre and Lord British are still alive because they originally came from Earth. No explanation is given for the longevity of the rest of the Avatar's companions. The time jump isn't really necessary at all, except perhaps to explain why Britannia looks more Colonial than Medieval. I don't buy the rapidity at which the Avatar returns to his friendship with people who haven't seen him in two centuries. I had some good friends when I was in my 20s, but I doubt I'd recognize them if I lived to be 220, nor would I attach a lot of significance to our friendship given all the other people I would have met, and all the other things I would have done, in that intervening time.

I soon learn that "something ghastly" has happened in the stables. The other person is introduced as a stablehand named Petre. I am encouraged to go and look in the stables for myself, which sounds fine to me. All I really want to do at this point is turn off the damned music. But I don't have time to do even that, let alone enter the stables, because there's a sudden earthquake. Iolo pipes up and suggests that Lord British might know the reason behind it. The tremor, we later find out, is caused by the events of the Forge of Virtue expansion. But, damn--did it have to happen immediately? This is like modern Elder Scrolls and Fallout games where you buy the expansions and you get 8 pop-up messages the moment the game starts telling you where to go to start the DLC missions. Could they maybe be spaced out a little?

Recovering from that, I'm about to move when suddenly the mayor of Trinsic comes hustling in from stage left. Iolo introduces him as Finnigan. Finnigan is doubtful that I'm the Avatar at first, but he ultimately relents and asks me to solve the murder that has just occurred. At this point, all my Avatar wants is a quite room and an Advil, but he gamely accepts the quest, which immediately prompts a dialogue with Petre. When can I finally turn off the @#$&ing music!? Not only do I find it repetitive and annoying, I suspect it's responsible for the fact that the dialogue keeps freezing.

          

It's a choice, but "no" just gets you trapped in town.

          

It becomes clear that in fact two people have been murdered: someone named Christopher and a gargoyle named Inamo. After some more dialogue that I miss because the game froze and implemented all my clicks when it un-froze, I finally have control. I turn off the music and save the game, and immediately things start to improve. The first thing I notice is that, with the music gone, there are background noises. I'm a big fan of games that use sound effectively to create a sense of immersion, and ambient sounds are a big part of that. We have a couple of different types of birds chirping in the distance and waves crashing on the shore to the east (Trinsic is a coastal city).

As we discussed last time, the interface has gone almost all-mouse, something I find maddening given that Ultima pioneered the efficient use of the keyboard. You right-click and hold to walk, with walking speed increasing the further you get from the Avatar. You left-click to do almost anything else. Single-left-clicking looks; double-left-clicking talks and uses; clicking and dragging moves and picks up.

          

The Avatar's attributes.

         

There are still a couple of useful keyboard shortcuts: "I" to open inventories, "C" to enter and exit combat mode, "S" to save and load, ESC to close windows, and the venerable "Z" to bring up character statistics. It's here that I found my Avatar has 18 in strength, dexterity, and intelligence. There's a "combat" statistics for the first time, and I've started the game at Level 3 with the ability to train 3 attributes. Iolo is also Level 3 and has about the same statistics.

The inventory has been much discussed. You get an image of your character with lines pointing to slots for left and right hands, legs, armor, boots, gauntlets, rings, helm, neck, missile weapon, cape, and backpack. Ultima VII: Part Two will turn this into a proper "paper doll" screen where the character image itself changes to reflect what's equipped. For now, you click and drag things in and out of those slots. The Avatar has started with leather boots, leather leggings, leather armor, a dagger, and a backpack.

         

The Avatar's inventory and pack.

          

It's the backpack where things get crazy. You can stuff a lot of things into it (as well as bags and other containers), and the little icons freely overlap. Finding a small object like a key in a backpack full of torches, reagents, documents, and other objects is at least as hard as it would be to find a real key in a real stuffed backpack. Even though it's been almost 15 years, I remember that the last time I played, I organized items strictly by character--the Avatar has all the quest items; Iolo has all the food, and so forth--so I wouldn't go crazy.

     

So far, it's not so bad. The Avatar has started with a map, three lockpicks, a torch, 10 gold pieces, a cup, an apple, a bottle of wine, and a bread roll. I don't think the cup serves any use at all; although a lot of items can be used together in this game, pouring the wine into the cup doesn't seem to be one of the options.

    

All right. Time to explore dialogue. I double-click on Iolo and get six options: NAME, JOB, TRINSIC, STABLES, LEAVE, and BYE. These still aren't really "dialogue options"; they're just keywords. And I frankly preferred it when I had to type them myself, then watch for the response to see what other keywords I might use. Now, the keywords just spawn automatically in response to the dialogue. When Iolo tells me that his JOB is adventuring with the Avatar, I get AVATAR as an option. Clicking my way through them all, I learn that Shamino has a girlfriend who works at the Royal Theater in Britain and Dupre, who was recently knighted, is probably in Jhelom. (Have I been knighted? If not, why the hell not?!) Britain has grown to encompass Paws and the castle and dominates the east coast. Lord British will probably want to see me. 

             

Dialogue options with Iolo.

             

Petre has wandered off somewhere, so I finally enter the stable. This is accomplished via a "remove the roof" interface that I believe was pioneered by Charles Dougherty in either Questron II or Legacy of the Ancients. (I wonder if ORIGIN licensed the "look and feel" of this game element from Dougherty.) The interesting thing about Ultima VII's approach is that entering one building removes the roofs of all buildings, so you can see items and people inside adjacent structures even when there's realistically no way your characters would see into those locations.

Inside the stables is perhaps the most gruesome scene in any RPG so far in my chronology. (Well, no. I forgot about the two Elvira games.) The aforementioned Christopher is lying spread-eagle on the floor, each limb tied to an unspecified "light source," his body hacked beyond recognition. A nearby bucket is filled with his blood. The gargoyle Inamo is in a back room, pinned to the wall with a pitchfork.

            

It's cool that we've reached the point that such complex scenes can be graphically depicted.

           

Several tools are strewn around the stables, including a rake, a shovel, another pitchfork, and a pair of tongs. A key lies next to Christopher's body, and near Inamo is a sack with some bread, a torch, and a few gold pieces. Footprints are all over the dirt floor and head out the rear door. As my character investigates, I'm conscious of how much authentic role-playing I'm now doing. I mean, I already know basically where the plot is going, but I still take the time to go over everything in the stables. I move objects to makes sure nothing is underneath them. I click on things I'm not sure about to get their names. I investigate, realizing as I do so that this is one of the few RPGs up until this point to offer a level of graphical complexity and object interactivity detailed enough to make such an "investigation" possible. This is the future of role-playing in RPGs, I think. Sure, it's not bad to have dialogue and encounter "options" that let you maintain a consistent characterization or morality, but when the very interface of the game allows you to make decisions consistent with your character, you have something special. Unfortunately, Ultima VII will not only be one of the first games to support this kind of gameplay but also one of the last.

Petre the stablehand wanders in said rear door. He says he's the one who discovered the bodies. Inamo was apparently his assistant, and lived in the little back room. (Wingless gargoyles, I recall, are less intelligent than their winged brethren and used mostly for manual labor.) Christopher was a blacksmith who made shoes for the horses. Petre assumes the murderer was after Christopher (a logical guess given that his body was the one posed) and that Inamo was just in the wrong place at the wrong time.

      

We follow the footsteps out back and around the corner, where we soon come to the city gate. The gate is down and a guard patrols the room with the winch. His name is Johnson, and he says when he arrived for his shift, he found the previous guard, Gilberto, unconscious on the ground. This suggests the murderer made his escape through this gate, knocking out poor Gilberto on the way. I'd like to leave the same way and scout the outskirts, but apparently I need a password to leave the city (the manual alludes to this) and I don't have it. He suggests I ask Finnigan. I do climb up to the city walls and see the docks just beyond the gate. I have to wonder if the murderer didn't flee via boat or ship.

          

No clues this way.

        

Finnigan has taken off, so I settle in for a systematic exploration of Trinsic's streets, starting by heading right out of the stables. I note that double-clicking on the street signs gives me street names, and I'm pleased to find that I can still read the runic writing without a guide. The stable is on Strand. Slightly to the west, we come to (in non-runic writing) the Avenue of the Fellowship and, right in front of us, the Fellowship hall. Might as well get it out of the way. I take a deep breath and enter.

       

I'm a little concerned, on a role-playing level, that the Avatar technically hasn't been exposed to the Book of the Fellowship and thus has no reason to be cautious in his exploration of their hall. This concern is lifted when I find a Book of the Fellowship on a table right in the entryway. I imagine the Avatar reading it, asking Iolo, "What the hell?", and getting a shrug. 

The only person in the hall is a woman named Ellen, who says she runs the branch with her husband, Klog. She goes through the Fellowship philosophy and suggests that I see Batlin at the Fellowship headquarters in Britain to join. She claims to know nothing of the murder, having been home with Klog all night. I resist the urge to ransack the Fellowship hall and move on.

           

Hand-feeding my characters out of the backpack.

          

The Avatar complains about being hungry as we leave, so I feed him some bread. This is one of the legendary annoyances of the game. Characters have to be hand-fed throughout the game even though it's trivially easy to find food--one of several examples of a game element created for want of a true purpose.  

Up the road is the shipwright, Gargan, who offers deeds and sextants, neither of which I can afford. The notepad comes out and the "to do" list begins. Gargan has nothing to offer on the murder.

             

I was going to object to the name of the ship, but apparently some eels have scales.

       

I note that his house is filled with chests and containers. This is going to be true of a lot of houses in the game. Ultima VI was the first game in which the Avatar had an incentive to steal liberally from such containers, but this game is the first with no karma consequences. Instead of waiting until I have 80 gold pieces to buy a sextant, I can just remove one--and a gold bar besides!--from the pack in Gargan's bedroom. You can steal things right in front of the occupants--clean out entire stores while the owners stand mute in the center of the room--with no consequences. Well--almost none. Eventually, Iolo starts making some alarmed remarks.

             

Stop complaining about how hungry you are, and I won't have to steal a roast.

         

Heck, even the damned Guardian has something to say about it:

          

Really? Burglary is where you draw the line?

          

And I think maybe Iolo and your other companions leave you if you steal enough. The neat thing is that there's a real incentive to steal. You start the game broke, and the nature of your mission doesn't leave a lot of time for extensive wealth-gathering. But I'm going to stick to my tradition of taking my role as the Avatar seriously. I'll do it the hard way. The sextant and gold bar stay in Gargan's case.

    

I think you get the idea, so we'll speed things up from here:

            

• A young woman named Caroline is on the streets recruiting for the Fellowship. She says that they have their meetings at 21:00. It turns out that Christopher was a Fellowship member.

• There's a two-story house on the west side of town with a parrot on the first floor. No one tells me that it's Christopher's house, but the key we found with his body opens a locked chest on the second floor. The chest has a Fellowship medallion, 100 gold pieces, and a terse note that says, "Thou hast received payment. Make the delivery tonight." I take the gold and note.

• Markus the trainer runs a store south of Christopher's house. He offers to train in combat skill. I decline, not having enough money, and forgetting how training works in this game. I'll revisit it later.

• A guy named Dell runs an armory in the southwest part of town. We do find a secret lever that opens a back room stuffed with weapons and armor, but again I decline to steal. I spend 50 gold pieces on a sword to replace my dagger.

• In the far southwest part of town, we find the healer. Gilberto is lurking around his shop with a bandage on his head. He didn't see his attacker, but he did note that The Crown Jewel was at the dock at the beginning of his shift and gone when he woke up from his concussion. He believes it was sailing for Britain.

         

Everything seems to be channeling me towards Britain.

         

• The healer has a copy of The Apothecary's Desk Reference, which reminds me of the standard Ultima potion colors. Black is invisibility, blue is sleep, orange awakens, purple conveys magic protection, white is light, yellow heals, green poisons, and red cures poison. I think I already had that memorized.

           

Visitors from the NetHack universe are suspicious.

       

• The pub and inn is called the Honorable Hound. The owner and server, Apollonia, openly flirts with me. I buy a bunch of loaves of bread. The inn's register shows that four people have stayed there recently: Walter of Britain, Jaffe of Yew, Jaana, and Atans of Serpent's Hold. I suppose the murderers probably didn't register, but you never know. We spend a night in the inn at the end of all of this.

               

There are so few role-playing moments in which "murder" and "flirt" are equally valid dialogue options.

           

• I find Finnigan at City Hall in the center of town. He relates that he's been mayor for three years. The Rune of Honor, which used to sit on a pedestal in the center of town, was stolen years ago by someone claiming to be the Avatar. It somehow found its way to the Royal Museum in Britain. Finnigan thinks this is symbolic somehow. The most important information from Finnigan is that he was present in Britain four years ago for a ritualistic murder with similar characteristics.

• Finnigan's office is hidden behind a couple of secret doors. I find them but don't find anything incriminating in the office.

        

This game is a bit odd in that it doesn't hide secret areas; it just hides the means to access them.

         

At 21:00, I peek in on the Fellowship meeting. It consists of Klug shouting the elements of the Triad of Inner Strength while the members shout things like "I believe!" and "I am worthy!" In between, Klug runs around lighting candles and occasionally genuflecting to the Fellowship icon behind the lectern.

             

 

Spark is unmoved by the testimony of Fellowship members.

         

The Guardian's face appears to taunt me as I enter Christopher's workshop on the south end of town. A boy named Spark--Christopher's son, which no one bothered to mention--is clutching a sling and running around frantically. He's supposedly fourteen, but his portrait makes him look about six. Spark tell us that his mother died a long time ago, so now he's an orphan. The Fellowship had been harassing his father lately, and a week ago Christopher and Klog had gotten into an argument. Christopher had been making something for the Fellowship--something probably stored somewhere in the smithy. Either Christopher was a bit disorganized, or someone has recently tossed the smithy.

          

Dick.

            

Now that I know Christopher had a son, I feel bad about looting the gold. But Spark offers to give it to me for investigating his father's murder. He says that he woke up from a nightmare the previous night and went looking for his father, and saw a wingless gargoyle (not Inamo) and a man with a hook for a hand hanging around the stables. He begs to join the party, and I agree. He comes with leather armor and a sling. Honestly, how were the first words out of Iolo's or Petre's mouths not, "Christopher has a kid. We'd better go see if he's okay"?

            

I don't know when Iolo started calling me "milord," but I confess I don't hate it.

             

Where Christopher is dead and his son is part of the party, I don't mind taking things from the smithy. We loot about a dozen gold pieces and some clothing items. I try to make a sword by putting a sword blank on the firepit and operating the bellows, but I can't get the sequence right. I think it's possible. I don't find whatever Christopher was making for the Fellowship, unless it was pants or sword blanks.

           

Spark, you must have seen your dad do this before.

         

My time in Trinsic closes with a return visit to Finnigan, who questions me on all I've learned and pays me 100 gold for what I've uncovered so far. He puts me through a copy protection exercise before giving me the password to the gates of Trinsic: BLACKBIRD. All signs point to visiting Britain next. We head outside. I find nothing at the docks except the fact (which I'd forgotten) that the developers managed to animate waves crashing on the shore for the first time in an RPG.

           

Another first for the Ultima series.

           

Continuing a theme started in Ultima V, the developers do a good job making Trinsic feel like a real place. Each resident keeps a schedule, including going to work in the morning, eating or stopping by the Honorable Hound for an evening meal, going to the Fellowship meeting (if a member), and tucking into bed at night. Every NPC has a house with personal belongings. When it gets dark, they light candles in their houses. During the day, they open shutters with comments to themselves like "Too nice a day for these to be closed!" They have brief conversations when they encounter each other. A dog and a cat roam the streets.

This is all admirable, but the problem of course is that this simulation has come so far that we can no longer regard the NPCs and buildings we see as a representative sample of the real number of NPCs in town. They're clearly the entire population. The fabled city of Trinsic houses 10 people. By modeling daily life in such a realistic way, the developers call attention to the lack of realism inherent in population size. We notice the same problem even in modern games.

            

Finnigan won't let me leave town until I relate what I've learned.

          

I'm hard-wired to create typologies out of everything, and this is something that needs a typology. Very few games in the 2000s adopt the "old school" model of towns-as-abstractions, which is most obvious in "menu towns" but also exists in games like Ultima II, where the geography of each city is just the broadest lines with the most important places (e.g., shops but no houses). BioWare has adopted what we might call the "matte background" model where the parts of the game that you can explore are just the most important parts, but the graphics suggest unending blocks of additional houses and buildings in the background. They populate the streets with a dozen generic NPCs to every important NPC, cleverly annotating the difference with sharpness of color and other indicators.

     

Another model for which we need a name is the Assassin's Creed/Grand Theft Auto approach where there is a realistic number of buildings throughout the geography, including houses. You just can't go into most of them; it would take far too much programming time to give them all interiors. The streets are also teeming with generic NPCs with basic AI. It's far more realistic than, say, one of the cities in Skyrim, but also a little disappointing when there are so many doors you can't open.

       

The Elder Scrolls follows the Ultima VII model. The developers' philosophy is that you should not only be able to enter every building that you see but also find clothes in the closets and forks on the table. This comes with Ultima VII's drawbacks. Which model do you prefer, and can you think of a better approach (or one I didn't mention at all)?

Time so far: 3 hours

*****

Potential bad news on Planet's Edge. I'm running into a bug where if I try to beam down to Rana Prime, the game not only freezes but somehow corrupts the files so that I have to fully reinstall the game, start it, create a new save, and then load an old saved game to get my former party back. But then it corrupts again the moment I try to visit Rana Prime. No one else seems to be reporting the same issue, so I'm not sure what to make of it. Rana Prime does seem necessary to finish the game. I'll keep playing with it; ideas appreciated.

AK-046, Tomcat The F-14 Fighter Simulator!

In this episode I cover the only plane flying simulator on the 2600 that I am aware of, Tomcat F-14. It certainly was an adventure! Up next is the CBS Electronics game Mountain King, so if you have thoughts on that game, send it to me at 2600gamebygame@gmail.com by November 17. My Extra Life half marathons are coming up this weekend on the 8th and 9th starting at 6 pm. Thanks to all who have donated so far, I'm still trying to reach my goal! You can donate at the link below, thanks for that and thanks as always for listening.

My Extra Life donation page, thank you!
Tomcat F-14 on Random Terrain
Dan Kitchen's web site
Interview with Dan by Classic Gamer 74
Interview with Dan by ZeroPage Homebrew
No Swear Gamer 374 - Tomcat F-14
No Swear Gamer Tomcat F-14 full mission
Eugenio's PRGE 2019 photo album
Arcade Blogger - Atari Bradley Trainer
Hugues Johnson's Console Timeline

Bill Cosby, Extraodrinary Evidence, And The Art Versus The Artist

Nearly every weeknight of elementary school for me ended with Different Strokes, The Fresh Prince Of Bel-Air, and The Cosby Show. Unlike my own Father, who knew Bill Cosby primarily through his stand-up, I came to know "America's Dad" through that show, and boy, what a show it was. I found it funnier than Different Strokes, but not quite as funny as Fresh Prince. Sure, The Cosby Show was clean, like Full House, but far more humorous and believable. Cosby as Dr. Cliff Huxtable brought such a warm, charismatic presence, who could tell a rousing story or be outright loony with his facial expressions. Of course, there were other strong performances, like that of Phylicia Rashad, Malcolm Jamal-Warner, or the young Raven-Symone. Much like Fresh Prince or Different Strokes, The Cosby Show dealt with growing up, education, childhood, and even celebrated Martin Luther King, Jr. and Ray Charles. It also didn't hurt to see a black family portrayed with dignity and humanity. Indeed, The Cosby Show reruns will remain a treasured part of a childhood memories, but they may be a part that I will now always fear to revisit.


Old rape allegations against Bill Cosby have resurfaced this year, thanks to Hannibal Buress and the power of viral media. Women are telling their stories, and America is listening. I have listened and reflected. It seems so clear, regrettably clear to me, that Bill Cosby, a man I once admired, is with little doubt in my mind, a serial rapist.


Extraordinary Claims, Extraordinary Evidence

The old maxim of rationality I've heard used by Richard Dawkins and Carl Sagan, is that "extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence." If you want to claim something, like aliens control the White House, then you need to show equally extraordinary evidence. However, to claim that one has been raped, unfortunately, isn't an extraordinary, but dreadfully, quite common. So it shouldn't take much to convince us of such a claim. There are those who say that we should "err in favor of the victim", and while this is a justified belief, statistically anyways, I'd rather treat rape like any other crime, in the sense that we should maintain a neutral position until persuaded otherwise, or "guilty beyond a reasonable doubt". After all, weeding out liars from truthers isn't always as clear cut as it may seem, even when said liars are in low supply. In cases like these where there will usually be no trial, I would often argue for the slightly lower standard of a "clear and convincing evidence", in which, according to Cornell's Legal Information Institute, "a party must prove that it is substantially more likely than not that it is true," ("Clear and Convincing Evidence"). This seems a far more reasonable assertion to make than the "preponderance of evidence" standard, in which one only prove that it is more likely than not that something occurred. This seems to me a petty standard with which to damnably brand someone a criminal, let alone a rapist. We can do better than that. No doubt, it is useful in probing crimes, but not quite in condemning. That standard seems to me not much better than a guess or a coin toss, and leaves far too much ambiguity, as far as damning anyone is concerned, anyways. However, the Cosby situation is an incredible outlier, in which we can safely discard the "clear and convincing evidence" standard, or even the exceedingly low "preponderance of evidence" standard and argue that it is "unreasonable" to doubt that Cosby is a rapist. The burden of proof is on the one making the claim. We should not discard this maxim, even in cases of rape. Yet, rape, notwithstanding, can be reasonably proved within these standards if all the right questions are asked. Here, I make that argument. Just keep in mind that I'm no lawyer, so none of these are bona fide legal arguments. I am simply making educated guesses based on these incredible situations, while also trying to bring them to their most reasonable conclusions.

I first came across the allegations long before Hannibal Buress spoke up. I read them in Katie McDonough's article for Salon, "A nation ruled by creeps: Woody, Cosby, and James Taranto's demented "balance."" From there, I read Tom Scocca's article in Gawker "Who Wants to Remember Bill Cosby's Multiple Sex-Assault Accusations?", and Amanda Hess's similarly titled "Why Doesn't Anyone Care About the Sexual Assault Allegations Against Bill Cosby?" for Slate. I'll admit, when I first read these words, it reminded me of the time that I uncovered one of my Christmas presents early, and figured out that Santa Claus didn't exist (I still played along for awhile, though). I had looked into the Ark of the Covenant and seen something I clearly wished I hadn't. Ignorance is bliss. That an entire generation was raised on Bill Cosby without knowing a smidgen about these damning allegations is frightening. Heck, Cosby's biographer Mark Whittaker, tried to erase them from history in his book. A move he later apologized for doing. I wasn't completely sure at the time if they were true, but the accusations seemed credible, almost damning. At the time, it seemed more likely than not that Cosby did something wrong. What I hoped for was an investigation from the media for better clarification, but I wouldn't get one until Hannibal Buress went viral.

You should all know the basic story at this point. Comedian Hannibal Buress slammed Cosby briefly in a comedy routine that caught the eye of the Internet, a transcript of the bit is here,

"Thirteen? And it's even worse because Bill Cosby has the fucking smuggest old black man public persona that I hate. Pull your pants up, black people. I was on TV in the '80s. I can talk down to you because I had a successful sitcom. Yeah, but you raped women, Bill Cosby. So, brings you down a couple notches. I don't curse on stage. Well, yeah, you're a rapist, so, I'll take you sayin' lots of motherfuckers on Bill Cosby: Himself if you weren't a rapist. …I want to just at least make it weird for you to watch Cosby Show reruns. …I've done this bit on stage, and people don't believe. People think I'm making it up. …That shit is upsetting. If you didn't know about it, trust me. You leave here and Google 'Bill Cosby rape.' It's not funny. That shit has more results than Hannibal Buress." (YouTube.)

Since then, there has been great discussion on social media and in the news about the allegations. When I first heard of the bit, I knew exactly what Buress was talking about. Then, the women started coming forward about Bill Cosby.

So many women, in fact, have come out to accuse Cosby, that it's hard to keep track of them all. Thankfully, Filipa Ioannou, Elliott Hannon, and Ben-Mathis Liley have a complete list of all women who have publicly accused the comedian of sexual misconduct on Slate:

1. Lachele Covington---An actress who alleged that Cosby put her hand near his penis on January 25, 2000 and filed a police report. The authorities decided that no crime was committed.

2. Andrea Constand---A woman who worked at Temple University, Cosby's alma mater, claimed in 2005 that when she went to Cosby's home seeking advice, he gave her herbal pills for "anxiety" and Cosby then proceeded to sexually assault her. While a Pennsylvania prosecutor could not find enough evidence to charge, he found Constand "credible" and Cosby "evasive." Constand opted to sue Cosby in a civil suit for $150 million, which cited, the now famous, 13 Jane Does who had personal testimonies with Cosby. The Jane Does never got a chance to testify, because Constand settled for an undisclosed amount.

3. Shawn Brown---The National Enquirer reported in 2005 that Brown, who was in a consensual relationship with Cosby, was drugged and raped by him in 1973.

4. Tamara Green---A retired trial attorney and one of the Jane Does cited earlier, Green took to the Today Show in 2005 to claim that Cosby drugged and assaulted her in the 1970's.

5. Beth Ferrier---A model who had previously been in a consensual relationship with Cosby, told the Philadelphia Daily News in 2005, that Cosby drugged her coffee and sexually assaulted her. She was also a Jane Doe set to testify.

6. Barbara Bowman---An aspiring actress and model, Bowman told Philadelphia Magazine that she was one of the Jane Does set to testify in the Constand case. In 2014, after Buress went viral, she told her story to the Daily Mail and The Washington Post alleging that Cosby drugged and raped her multiple times.

7. Joan Tarshis---Also in 2014, after Bowman retold her story, Tarshis, a music industry publicist and journalist told Hollywood Elsewhere that Cosby drugged and raped her twice in 1969.

8. Linda Joy Traitz---A former waitress at Cosby owned restaurant, Traitz alleged this year that Cosby tried to force her to take pills which would help her relax and when she refused, unsuccessfully tried to rape her.

9. Janice Dickinson---Probably the most famous of the accused, TV personality and model, Dickinson told Entertainment Tonight this year that Cosby drugged and raped her in 1982. (Notice a pattern here?)

10. Therese Serignese---A Florida nurse who told The Huffington Post this year that in 1976, Cosby drugged and raped her when she was only 19.

11. Carla Ferrigno---Actress and wife of The Incredible Hulk's Lou Ferrigno, told Rumorflix this year that in 1967, Cosby forced a kiss on her while his wife, Camille, was in another room.

12. Louisa Moritz---A lawyer and actress from One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest, Moritz told TMZ this year that Cosby forced oral sex on her in 1971 during The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson.

13. Renita Chaney Hill---A woman from Pittsburgh who alleged on CBS that Cosby drugged and raped her after their relationship started when she was 15.

14. Michelle Hurd---An actress from Law and Order: SVU and Gossip Girl, wrote on her Facebook page that Cosby touched her inappropriately, and implied that Cosby drugged and raped another actress she knew.

15. Angela Leslie---Another actress-model who told the New York Daily News that Cosby forced her to masturbate his hand at Las Vegas in 1992.

16. Kristina Ruehli---Another Jane Doe in the Constand case who previously worked as a secretary for Cosby's talent agency told Philadelphia Magazine that in 1965, Cosby drugged her and when she woke up, he was forcing her to do an oral sex act on him.

17. Victoria Valentino---A former Playboy Playmate told the Washington Post that in 1970, Cosby gave them her and another actress, Meg Foster, red pills. She recalled trying to pull Cosby off of Foster as he attempted to rape her, and Cosby later coerced her into an oral sex act.

18. Joyce Emmons---A former comedy club manager who told TMZ that in the 1970s, Cosby gave her a drug for a migraine and she later woke up nude next to a friend of Cosby's she had rejected earlier. When she confronted Cosby, he laughed it off, saying it was "just a Quaalude."

19. Jewel Allison---A former model who told the New York Daily News that in the late 1980's Cosby drugged her wine and raped her.

20. Donna Motsinger---A Jane Doe who told The New York Post that Cosby drugged and raped her while she was a waitress at a California jazz club in 1971. ("A Complete List of the Women Who Have Accused Bill Cosby of Sexual Assault.")

Reuters reports that Cosby was additionally accused by two new women, along with Ferrier in a news conference with lawyer Gloria Allred. One woman, Chelan, said that Cosby assaulted her when she was 17 in 1986. Another, Helen Hayes, said that Cosby groped her breast in 1973. Allred, seeking an end to the situation, asks that Cosby either end the statute of limitations, which would open him up for a lawsuit, or create a $100 million fund for his victims. Along with that, Judy Huth is suing Cosby of sexually assaulting her in 1973 when she was 15 years old (Sinha-Roy; Kesley). So 23 women have all accused Cosby of some sexual wrongdoing. Of these, only five were among the 13 Jane Does, which leaves 8 other unknowns to accuse Cosby, totaling at 32 women to accuse Cosby of sexual misconduct, and Lord knows how many more. It's his word against all of theirs. I hope that these women get their day in court and I hope that Bill Cosby rots in a prison cell.

Of course, there are still those who insist that these women could be lying or exaggerating, or that they need more evidence. Indeed, false allegations of rape do happen, as we saw with Tawana Bawley, the Duke Lacrosse scandal, and more recently, Caleb Warner, but it is a pernicious myth to say that they are a common occurrence, especially on this scale. I know it sounds trivial to explain false rape allegations at this point, but please bear with me.

For evidence, I point to the 2010 study, "False Allegations of Sexual Assault: An Analysis of Ten Years of Reported Cases" from the journal Violence Against Women, which concluded that, "Of the 136 cases of sexual assault reported over the 10-year period, 8 (5.9%) are coded as false allegations. These results, taken in the context of an examination of previous research, indicate the prevalence of false allegations is between 2% and 10%" (Lisak, et.al). Yes, I realize that this study is a small one, but considering that real rapes are highly under-reported, I see this statistic as our best rule of thumb. Even Emily Bazelon and Rachael Larimore of Slate, wrote that while the preponderance of false rape allegations are hard to calculate, they nevertheless stated that upon reading Phillip Rumney's reviews of false rape statistics that, 

"Rumney's smart debunkings leave us with a group of American, British, Canadian, and New Zealand studies that converge around a rate of 8 percent to 10 percent for false reports of rape. Not all of these studies are flawless, but together they're better than the rest of the lot." ("How Often Do Women Falsely Cry Rape?")

Regardless if these statistics are exact or not, just keep in mind, if you can, that the preponderance of false rape allegations is very low. So the chances that these women, who have nothing in common, and apparently nothing to gain, are all lying about being raped by Bill Cosby, of all people, seems rather odd to me.

Indeed, in her video "Extraordinary Claims Require Extraordinary Evidence--Except In Rape Claims?", feminist blogger and skeptic Rebecca Watson has said, (emphasis mine),

"For instance, "extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence" is a phrase that skeptics love to throw around. What this means is that if something has a very small likelihood of happening, you need a proportionally large amount of evidence to convince you that it may be so. The odds that John Edward is actually talking to the dead are incredibly low, so in order to believe it we ask that he provide a proportionally impressive demonstration to convince us.

But because we're talking about rape and not psychics, suddenly many skeptics abandon their belief that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, and instead demand that no claims be considered extraordinary based upon their odds of happening." (Skepchick.org)

This sentiment is also echoed by another feminist blogger within the skeptic community, Greta Christina. On the Freethought Blogs, when she indicates that being able to point out a serial rapist or sexual harasser shouldn't be too difficult, because there are clear warning signs that tell us so. These include, "Multiple similar claims made against the same person from different people. Especially when these claims show a similar pattern of behavior," and "Other people corroborating behavior that falls short of harassment/assault, but is consistent with it." ("Harassment, Rape, and the Difference Between Skepticism and Denialism.") Well, at least 30 women have accused Cosby of sexual harassment, and not all of them say they were raped, but abused in some manner consistent with the various other testimonies.

I ask of you, what seems more extraordinary, Cosby's innocence or his accusers allegations?

The burden of proof is on the one making the claim. I believe that I have sufficiently done so, thus far. However, I would argue that the onus switches from the claimant, once they have sufficiently made an argument worth refuting. The testimonies of these women are so consistent, credible, and in such sheer number, that they overwhelmingly warrant a response from Cosby. If one weighs the arguments for and against Cosby, it is clear that one just makes more sense than the other. In the words of Charles Ramsay, its a "dead giveaway." Ta-Nehisi Coates bears this out clearly in his article for The Atlantic,

"A defense of Cosby requires that one believe that several women have decided to publicly accuse one of the most powerful men in recent Hollywood history of a crime they have no hope of seeing prosecuted, and for which they are seeking no damages. The alternative is to see one of the most celebrated public fathers of our time, and one of the great public scourges of black morality, revealed as a serial rapist" ("The Cosby Show").

If the words of these women aren't enough, then the smoking gun is in two interviews Cosby did for the most prestigious non-partisan news organizations in the country: National Public Radio and the Associated Press.

For a "Weekend Edition" interview on NPR with Scott Simon, Bill Cosby was asked about his loaning of 62 pieces of art to the Smithsonian National Museum of African Art in Washington D.C. The display of this art was called "Conversations: African and African-American Artworks In Dialogue." One such painting was "The Thankful Poor" painted by Henry Ossawa Tanner in 1894. It features an old man and a little boy in prayer at a dinner table. Their meal is modest. Not long after talking about this collection, Simon brings up the allegations.

"This question gives me no pleasure, Mr. Cosby, but there have been serious allegations raised about you in recent days. You're shaking your head no. I'm in the news business. I have to ask the question - do you have any response to those charges? Shaking your head no - there are people who love you who might like to hear from you about this. I want to give you the chance. All right..." ("Cosbys Start A 'Conversation' With African-American Art.")

Usually, if one is innocent of an accusation, especially one as repulsive as rape, they would deny it loudly like there's no tomorrow, or at least, I would. So Cosby's silence, in my mind, betrays in him. By saying nothing, he gave more validation to the allegations than if he responded, even briefly. His silence implies that, perhaps, there's something to these claims.

I've also thought about "The Thankful Poor" by Henry Ossawa Tanner, as well as Cosby's tendency to berate the black middle-class in America. Since this essay is primarily about rape, I won't spend too much time on Cosby and race, but seeing that it's relevant, I'll address it briefly.

Cosby's racial views are best expressed through his famous "pound cake" speech, for the NAACP that commemorated the 50th anniversary of Brown v Board of Education at Washington D.C. in May of 2004. Cosby took the event to criticize the black-middle class for their own failures. The "pound cake" part is here,

"Looking at the incarcerated, these are not political criminals. These are people going around stealing Coca Cola. People getting shot in the back of the head over a piece of pound cake! Then we all run out and are outraged, "The cops shouldn't have shot him" What the hell was he doing with the pound cake in his hand? (laughter and clapping). I wanted a piece of pound cake just as bad as anybody else (laughter) And I looked at it and I had no money. And something called parenting said if get caught with it you're going to embarrass your mother. Not you're going to get your butt kicked. No. You're going to embarrass your mother. You're going to embarrass your family." (Rutgers.edu)

Here's another segment referring to his now infamous "pull your pants up" rhetoric,

"Are you not paying attention, people with their hat on backwards, pants down around the crack. Isn't that a sign of something, or are you waiting for Jesus to pull his pants up (laughter and clapping ). Isn't it a sign of something when she's got her dress all the way up to the crack…and got all kinds of needles and things going through her body. What part of Africa did this come from? (laughter). We are not Africans. Those people are not Africans, they don't know a damned thing about Africa. With names like Shaniqua, Shaligua, Mohammed and all that crap and all of them are in jail. (When we give these kinds names to our children, we give them the strength and inspiration in the meaning of those names. What's the point of giving them strong names if there is not parenting and values backing it up)." (Rutgers University)

An interesting segment where he mocks black slang,

"Brown Versus the Board of Education is no longer the white person's problem. We've got to take the neighborhood back (clapping). We've got to go in there. Just forget telling your child to go to the Peace Corps. It's right around the corner. (laughter) It's standing on the corner. It can't speak English. It doesn't want to speak English. I can't even talk the way these people talk. "Why you ain't where you is go, ra," I don't know who these people are. And I blamed the kid until I heard the mother talk (laughter). Then I heard the father talk. This is all in the house. You used to talk a certain way on the corner and you got into the house and switched to English. Everybody knows it's important to speak English except these knuckleheads. You can't land a plane with "why you ain't…" You can't be a doctor with that kind of crap coming out of your mouth. There is no Bible that has that kind of language. Where did these people get the idea that they're moving ahead on this. Well, they know they're not, they're just hanging out in the same place, five or six generations sitting in the projects when you're just supposed to stay there long enough to get a job and move out." (Rutgers University).

Now, are there problems in the black community? Yes, of course. Every community, black, white, yellow, etc, probably has its own issues they need to confront, but one glaring omission Cosby makes is that he refuses to acknowledge the socioeconomic impact that institutional racism has had and still does have on black communities. He ignores that the justice system is disproportionate in its targeting of blacks, which may explain why you have so many in prison, and with often longer sentences. Simply because America has made progress (and it has) doesn't mean that we're living in a "Rainbow Nation" of Mandelian heights. Cosby also makes some rather rude assumptions about these blacks simply because of the way they look and talk. Yeah, Tupac Shakur may have looked like a "thug", but he was one of the most well-read and most poetic musicians of the 90s. Every subculture, from hippies to goths, have been judged by their clothes more than by their ideas. If Cosby can't see the poetry or the rhythm in slang, then he is intellectually poorer for it. Cosby would benefit from a discussion on language with John McWhorter. Where would we be without "Huckleberry Finn", "Catcher In The Rye", and "On The Road" which used slang to drive a more relatable narrative, or the transcendent lyricism of Nujabes and Lauryn Hill, which embodied the urban, black experience? By the way, most of the people who work to fix issues in the black community are, in fact, black. Had Cosby not heard the song "Self-Destruction", or of the good work done against urban crime by "Cure Violence"?

Jabari Asim makes a good response to Cosby's remarks in The Washington Post,

"That same element can be found in Cosby's remarks. It is true that some blacks continue to engage in conduct that contradicts and undermines the aims of the civil rights movement. He has every right to take them to task. It is far less amusing that Cosby, a multimillionaire, chose to criticize "the lower economic people" when evidence of the habits he condemned -- misplaced priorities, negligent child-rearing, deteriorating morality -- can be found at every level of American society. Why single out poor people, who are least able to defend themselves?" ("Did Cosby Cross The Line?")

Now, onto "The Thankful Poor", it is painting that I think is quite poignant now. I say this for two reasons. One, it depicts, what I interpret to be, a father and son. Two, they are poor. For many people, including myself, Cosby was a father figure, but in the end, that's all he was, a figure. To me, the old man in the painting represents how we saw Cosby, and what we expected of him. In mythological terms, he was our Merlin, our Gandalf, our Obi-Wan Kenobi. Yet that old man is stuck in the painting, an ideal. Moving on to the poverty aspect of "The Thankful Poor", Cosby, apparently, has little empathy for the poor black middle class (and women while we're at it). That he can enshrine a painting examining poverty in America, and yet fail to properly engage in it in real life, shows his empathy deficit. Yes, Cosby has done philanthropy, but philanthropy is easy, and by itself won't save the poor. Cosby can appreciate this painting. He just can't understand it. Does he not know that the poor, the black poor today, still try to be grateful and still suffer?

In his Associated Press interview, Cosby verbally bullies the AP like a Mafia gangster who "has friends in high places." Here, we saw him naked, the real "Bill Cosby", a far more disgusting and vile creature than we were led to believe, a drooling Jabba The Hut, thriving in rot. Shortly after being asked about the allegations, to which his response was, well, no response, Cosby, thinking that he was off camera, began to coerce.

Cosby: "Now can I get something from you?"

AP Reporter: "What's that?"

Cosby: "That none of that will be shown?"

AP Reporter: "I can't promise that, myself, but you didn't say anything..."

Cosby: "I know I didn't say anything, but I'm asking your integrity that since I didn't want to say anything, but I did answer you in terms of 'I don't want to say anything, of what value will it have?'"

AP Reporter: "I don't think it will have..."

Cosby: (Speaking to off-camera publicist) "Mam? What'd you say?"

AP Reporter: "Sorry?"

Cosby: "What did you say?"

Off-camera publicist: "I don't think it has any value either."

Cosby: "And I would appreciate it if it was scuttled."

AP Reporter: "I hear you. I will tell that to my editors and I think that they will understand..."

Cosby: "I think if you want to consider yourself to be serious that it will not appear anywhere."

AP Reporter: "OK. I appreciate what you've asked."

Cosby: "Thank you. And we thought, by the way, because it was AP, that it wouldn't be necessary to go over that question with you."

AP Reporter: "I know. And we haven't written about this at all in the past two months, but they want, my bosses wanted me to ask..."

Cosby: "If you will just tell your boss the reason why we didn't say that upfront was because we thought that AP had the integrity to not ask."

Off camera publicist: "One other point on that: One of the three major TV writers for the AP in Los Angeles called me up and asked me - Lynn Elber - and I said we're not addressing it. So she said fine and she just closed it off."

AP Reporter: "OK."

Cosby: (to publicist) "And I think you need to get on the phone with his person immediately."

Off camera publicist: "I will, OK."

Cosby: "OK, thank you." (My FOX Austin)

This is the moment, for me, when the loving "Cliff Huxtable" truly died, and the decaying, greedy, self-centered low-life known as "Bill Cosby", reared his ugly head. Not only did Cosby again refuse to respond to serious allegations, but he also wanted to cover up this dialogue from the world. Get your heads out of the sand, Gamergate, this is what real corruption in journalism looks like!

Look closely during the interview, far behind Cosby, and you can see "The Thankful Poor." What a contradictory scene!

For Inside Edition, body language expert Dr. Lillian Glass studied Cosby's body language in the video and observed that, (emphasis mine),

"This shows a man who is used to having a lot of power, and who is used to using his power to get whatever he wants. You see him very protective in a V position over his private parts, and this is what is being discussed in essence, his cheating behavior, or the allegations. So, when you look at what's going on with their hands you can tell a great deal about his vulnerability." ("Explosive Video: Bill Cosby Pressures AP Reporter to 'Scuttle' Interview")

And they say that rape is about power, don't they?

Given all of these factors, it would seem very implausible to deny Cosby's crimes, but still, there are those that do. Aside from the longtime fans, too starstruck for the truth, you have those who are simply hesitant to point the finger at Cosby, despite how glaringly obvious it all is. They act as if the truth is unknowable, as if all rape cases should be weighed in the exact same way. This is ridiculous. The Cosby situation is vastly different from the sexual assault allegations against Woody Allen, Julian Assange, or even the late Michael Jackson. I won't go into the details of these difficult, but serious cases, however, it seems fairly reasonable to me, that cohesive arguments could be made by either side of those issues. Believe what you will, but I think that in those cases, agnosticism isn't an unreasonable position. However, the degrees of which you hold that agnosticism can differ. It may seem more probable to some that Woody Allen is guilty of wrongdoing that Julian Assange, and vice-versa, but there still remains uncertainty significant enough to refrain from labeling the accused as "rapists."At the same time, the media should be more responsible in investigating these various claims. I would like to see a re-examination of the Michael Jackson case, myself, given the new accusations against him by Wade Robeson and James Safechuck, and while I don't think that Bill Clinton raped Juanita Broaddrick, that issue could certainly benefit from a another look.

If all this still sounds shocking, even if it makes sense to you, that's fine, it's supposed to be. That Bill Cosby and Cliff Huxtable are two different people is a scam that fooled all of America. Jim Goad of Taki's Magazine, I feel, conveys our shock well,

"It wasn't surprising, nor especially depressing, to hear that Mike Tyson was convicted of rape in 1992. After all, Tyson was known for little more than being a mentally challenged Brooklyn street thug who nearly murdered people with his fists in the ring. We expect these things from people such as Mike Tyson. But not of America's Dad." ("America's Rapist Dad")

So if you are to accept my argument that Bill Cosby is a serial rapist, then what can be done about The Cosby Show? Is it ethical to watch, or to even laugh at?



 
The Art Versus The Artist

I enjoy the art of many artists whose moral values I find, well, lacking, to say the least. Ender's Game is one of the finest science-fiction books I've ever read, but its author, Orson Scott Card, is a raging homophobe. Rosemary's Baby and The Pianist are excellent films, but their director, Roman Polanski, is, like Cosby, a rapist. Ezra Pound was a magnificent poet, but also a fascist supporter of Mussolini. All three of these talented people produced controversies that forced this conflict of art versus artist on the public.

When filmed adaptation of Ender's Game up for release in 2013, clearly among the first to capitalize on the young adult dystopian craze started by the Hunger Games, many saw reason to boycott it. I even know friends of mine who did. Regardless of how good the film was, they didn't want to contribute a cent to Orson Scott Card. Let's recall that once wrote an article in Deseret News lambasting the legality of same-sex marriage and even its acceptance as normal, he has these lovely gems to his name, (emphasis mine),

"The first and greatest threat from court decisions in California and Massachusetts, giving legal recognition to "gay marriage," is that it marks the end of democracy in America.

"Already in several states, there are textbooks for children in the earliest grades that show "gay marriages" as normal. How long do you think it will be before such textbooks become mandatory — and parents have no way to opt out of having their children taught from them?

"No matter how sexually attracted a man might be toward other men, or a woman toward other women, and no matter how close the bonds of affection and friendship might be within same-sex couples, there is no act of court or Congress that can make these relationships the same as the coupling between a man and a woman.

How long before married people answer the dictators thus: Regardless of law, marriage has only one definition, and any government that attempts to change it is my mortal enemy. I will act to destroy that government and bring it down, so it can be replaced with a government that will respect and support marriage, and help me raise my children in a society where they will expect to marry in their turn." ("State job is not to redefine marriage.")

Pretty stupid stuff, right? A shame that Card didn't actually attempt to destroy the government. That would've been pretty funny. Gay marriage ain't so bad, eh, Card? Well, as soon as Lionsgate adapted the film for release, LGBT activists saw boycotting the Ender's Game film as a way to damage Card. The movie opened to mixed reviews and a mediocre box office return. This may, in fact, have to do with the negative reception around Card, but there were those who suggested that boycotting was the wrong move. One such person was Mack Rawden of CinemaBlend. He seemed to say that it was unfair to condemn the entire cast and crew of Ender's Game, since not a cent of the money earned would return to Card. He also argued in favor of separating art from artist,

"Movies have to be judged by their content, not by who created them. Your average film is organized and executed by hundreds of people of different races and genders who boast different sexual orientations, different religions and different political leanings. The only thing they have in common is their shared desire to make the final product as brilliant and moving as possible, and if you separate the group and start looking at each one of these creators individually and their perceived motivations, you're almost always going to find some horrific and unseemly things beneath the surface. Why? Because a high percentage of us suck." ("Why Boycotting Ender's Game Doesn't Make Sense.")

I agree with much of what Rawden says here. It's only inevitable that our cherished works of art will have contributions from idiots, but art should stand on its own, regardless of its creators. Yet, it's very easy to say that when the creator isn't an intimate player in their work. After all, Card was very detached from Ender's Game, in the story he doesn't appear. For those who subscribe to "Death of the Author" Card doesn't even exist. Yet bigotry is not as awful as rape. Enter Roman Polanski.

Polanski, as we all know, raped Samantha Geimer by use of drugs when she was 13 years old in 1977. For that crime, he has not been able to return to the United States, should he be jailed. In 2009, when going to Switzerland for the Zurich Film Festival, he was jailed over his arrest warrant at the pressure of American officials. Whoopi Goldberg defended Polanski's actions as not "rape-rape", and Hollywood followed suit. They signed a petition calling for Polanski's release, and according to TV Guide, the signatories included Woody Allen and Martin Scorsese along with 100 other filmmakers and actors. (Bryant). Here, art was not separated from artist. Is not possible to celebrate The Pianist, Chinatown, and Rosemary's Baby, while holding Polanski accountable for his crimes against women? I would think so. Like Card, Polanski doesn't exist within the universes of these films. He is detached. While both Chinatown and The Pianist came from intimate places in Polanski's lifetime, the death of Sharon Tate and escaping the Holocaust, none of them advocate rape. Besides, films are collaborative efforts. Why should Polanski get all the honor for them? Hollywood made the mistake of assuming a director is as good as his films. They left the rape victims behind.

By the way, this dilemma is not a new phenomenon. A Little Treasury In Modern Poetry records a moment when Ezra Pound won the Bollingen Prize of $1000 for his Pisan Cantos in 1949. The poetry was controversial because it reflected Pound's admiration for Mussolini's Italy, as well as his own antisemitism. The jury that awarded him was not unanimous and included W.H. Auden, T.S. Eliot, Karl Shapiro, Robert Lowell, Conrad Aiken, and Robert Penn Warren, among others. In response to the controversy, the jury released this statement:

"The fellows are aware that objections may be made to awarding a prize to a man situated as is Mr. Pound. In their view, however, the possibility of such objection did not alter the responsibility assumed by the Jury of Selection. This was to make a choice for the award among eligible books, provided anyone merited such recognition, according to the stated terms of the Bollingen Prize. To permit other considerations than that of poetic achievement to sway the decision would destroy the significance of the award and would in principle deny the validity of that objective perception of value on which civilized society must rest," (879-880)

The responses among poets, and indeed, those of that jury, were decidedly mixed. One of voted for Pound, Robert Lowell, said in his defense that,

"I thought it was the very simple problem of voting for the best book of the year; and it seemed to me that Pound's was. I thought the Pisan Cantos was the best writing Pound had ever done, though it included some of his worst. It is a very mixed book: that was the question. But the consequences of not giving the best book of the year a prize for extraneous reasons, even terrible ones in a sense---I think that's the death of art," (880).

Conversely, Karl Shapiro, who voted against Pound, did so for more personal reasons,

"I voted against Pound in the balloting for the Bollingen Prize. My first and more crucial reason was that I am a Jew and cannot honor antisemites. My second reason, I stated in a report which was circulated among the Fellows: "I voted against Pound in the belief that the poet's political and moral philosophy ultimately vitiates his poetry and lowers its standards as literary work," (880). 

At moments, I feel just stuck in the middle of these two sides in the whole "art versus artist" debate. One the one hand, I don't believe that whether or not the creator of an art was morally righteous should sink or swim its value. Yet on the other hand, it can be damaging. Joseph Conrad's apparent racism in Heart of Darkness was unhelpful to its portrayal of the Congolese. Yes, Heart of Darkness is a great novel, but racism damaged its effectiveness as art, at least, as far as Chinua Achebe was concerned.

You could argue that since the Bill Cosby persona is different than Cosby himself, that it's okay to laugh at his jokes, but is it really? Woody Allen has also insisted that his persona on film is different than who he is in real life (take that for what you will). Unlike Polanski or Card, Allen, like Cosby, does exist within his works. I suppose I feel more comfortable watching Woody Allen films, because the case against him is decidedly less definitive than against Cosby. So it's admittedly easier for me to disassociate his character from the allegations. Yet any time I want to watch The Cosby Show, I feel as if I'd be laughing at a serial rapist, giving him credit. It's a shame too, because so many other talented people contributed to that show, and now, their legacies have been sullied, obstructed even.

As much as I would like to, I can't erase Cosby's impact from history. Heck, one of his stand-up albums was preserved by the National Recording Registry. Not to mention that The Cosby Show itself was an important show for the visibility of blacks in America. Yes, the show may not have dealt with race as often as Fresh Prince, but I for one, thought it was nice to see blacks portrayed as living regular lives like whites, instead of often being shown in race polemics. Not that that's a bad thing, or anything, on the contrary, it's desperately needed, but I believe that there should also be a spectrum of black portrayals. That much being said, I think that those unfamiliar with Cosby, especially younger ones, should understand what he meant to us, and to America. They deserve to know that much, but if it's too painful for them, I get it.

By the end of the day, I don't know what the right answer is. You'll have to decide this for yourself. I really don't think I'll be able to watch or hear anything of Cosby's for a very long time. Rape is just so ugly. I guess I can live without Cosby, though. There are other comedians, like Carlin, Hicks, and Chappelle. There are also other good memories to revisit, The Goonies, Harry Potter, and Looney Tunes. Still, I'll miss Cliff Huxtable. I hardly knew ya.

Let me end by saying that the Cosby case is both extraordinary and ordinary. I say this because it is absolutely extraordinary to have such a grand number of women all accuse a rapist of the same or similar crimes, even Jian Ghomeshi had fewer. It also ordinary, however, in the sense that most rapists are serial rapists, and as such, they have a long list of victims that they've hurt. This is why we have such a great number of women who have been raped, and yet a low number of men who are rapists. Feminist blogger Jessica Valenti said provocatively in The Nation that "Rape is as American as apple pie---until we own that, nothing will change." ("America's Rape Problem: We Refuse to Admit That There Is One"). At the time, I felt that the statement was a little obtuse, but now, I admit, I was wrong. Rape has infected our schools, our military, our clergy, our prisons, our sports teams, and now, our televisions. When even "America's Dad", of all people, is a rapist, that tells us that rape is undoubtedly a part of the American experience. To deny this is to deny reality.


Bibliography

Asim, Jabari. "Did Cosby Cross The Line?" The Washington Post. May 24, 2004. Web. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A51273-2004May24.html

Bazelon, Emily; Larimore, Rachael. "How Often Do Women Falsely Cry Rape?" Slate. October 1, 2009. Web. http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/jurisprudence/2009/10/how_often_do_women_falsely_cry_rape.html

Bryant, Adam. "Fellow Filmmakers Call for Roman Polanski's Release." TV Guide. September 30, 2009. Web. http://www.tvguide.com/News/Scorsese-Defends-Polanski-1010320.aspx?rss=breakingnews&partnerid=imdb&profileid=01

Buress, Hannibal. "Hannibal Buress Called Bill Cosby a Rapist During a Stand Up." YouTube. October 29, 2014. Web. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dzB8dTVALQI

Card, Orson Scott. "State job is not to redefine marriage." Deseret News. July 24, 2008. Web. http://www.deseretnews.com/article/700245157/State-job-is-not-to-redefine-marriage.html

"Clear and Convincing Evidence." Legal Information Institute. Web. http://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/clear_and_convincing_evidence

Christina, Greta. "Harassment, Rape, and the Difference Between Skepticism and Denialism." Freethought Blogs. August 12, 2013. Web. http://freethoughtblogs.com/greta/2013/08/12/harassment-rape-skepticism-denialism/

Coates, Ta-Nehisi. "The Cosby Show." The Atlantic. November 19, 2014. Web. http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2014/11/the-cosby-show/382891/

Cosby, Bill. "Dr Bill Cosby Speaks." Rutgers University. May 2004. Web. http://www.rci.rutgers.edu/~schochet/101/Cosby_Speech.htm

"Explosive Video: Bill Cosby Pressures AP Reporter To 'Scuttle' Interview." Inside Edition. November 20, 2014. Web. http://www.insideedition.com/entertainment/9302-explosive-video-bill-cosby-pressures-ap-reporter-to-scuttle-interview

Goad, Jim. "America's Rapist Dad." Taki's Magazine. November 17, 2014. Web. http://takimag.com/article/americas_rapist_dad_jim_goad/page_2#axzz3K3DfoERX

Hannon, Elliot; Ioannou, Filipa; Mathis-Liley, Ben. "A Complete List of the Women Who Have Accused Bill Cosby of Sexual Assault." Slate. November 21, 2014. Web. http://www.slate.com/blogs/browbeat/2014/11/21/bill_cosby_accusers_list_sexual_assault_rape_drugs_feature_in_women_s_stories.html

Lisak, David; Gardinier, Lori; Nicksa, Sarah C.; Cote, Ashley M. "False Allegations Of Sexual Assault: An Analysis of Ten Years of Reported Cases." Violence Against Women. 2010. 16. Web. http://vaw.sagepub.com/content/16/12/1318.full.pdf+html

Rawden, Mark. "Why Boycotting Ender's Game Doesn't Make Sense." CinemaBlend. October 31, 2013. Web. http://www.cinemablend.com/new/Why-Boycotting-Ender-Game-Doesn-t-Make-Sense-40101.html

Simon, Scott. "Cosbys Start A 'Conversation' With African-American Art." NPR. November 15, 2014. Web. http://www.npr.org/2014/11/15/364289549/cosbys-start-a-conversation-with-african-american-art

Sinha-Roy, Piya; Kelsey, Eric. "More women detail sex abuse claims against Cosby." Reuters. December 3, 2014. Web. http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/12/04/us-people-cosby-idUSKCN0JH2KV20141204

Valenti, Jessica. "America's Rape Problem: We Refuse to Admit That There Is One." The Nation. January 4, 2013. Web. http://www.thenation.com/blog/172024/americas-rape-problem-we-refuse-admit-there-one#

"Video and transcript of Bill Cosby AP Interview." My FOX Austin. November 20, 2014. Web. http://www.myfoxaustin.com/story/27442190/video-and-transcript-of-bill-cosby-ap-interview

Watson, Rebecca. "Extraordinary Claims Require Extraordinary Evidence--Except In Rape Claims?" Skepchick.org. August 23, 2014. Web. http://skepchick.org/2014/08/extraordinary-claims-require-extraordinary-evidence-except-in-rape-claims/

Williams, Oscar, ed. A Little Treasury of Modern Poetry. 3rd ed. 879-880. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1970. Print.