connecting*the*dots

These guys — Reade Seligmann and Collin Finnerty — have been walking around, free as a bird, for the past 36 days.

Whether they’re guilty or not, I’m having a hard time understanding how these Duke Lacrosse players avoided charges for rape and kidnapping for so long. They’re on a friggin’ roster with pictures, names, vital statistics, goals scored, etc. all available for victim identification.

From today’s NYTimes:

“This kid is just an honorable kid, never done anything wrong in his life,” said Kirk Osborn, a lawyer for Mr. Seligmann. “He is absolutely innocent and we intend to show that sooner rather than later.”

Oh, okay. So this is sooner?

William J. Cotter, the lawyer representing Mr. Finnerty, said this morning, “The grand jury, as you know, has indicted him. They hear one side of the story. They almost always indict. The next jury will hear the entire story, which includes our evidence. We’re confident that these young men will be found to be innocent. “We’re surprised that anyone got indicted, quite frankly.”

Hm…

The woman told the police she was blocked in a bathroom, held, hit, kicked and strangled while she was sexually assaulted for about 30 minutes. She said she had been separated from another dancer, who had also been hired to perform.

Police initially thought the accuser was intoxicated but later took her to the Duke University Hospital emergency room. She had “signs, symptoms, and injuries consistent with being raped and sexually assaulted vaginally and anally,” according to a district attorney’s affidavit.

Defense lawyers have told reporters that the second dancer at the party has contradicted the accuser. But that woman spoke with a local television station over the weekend, under conditions set by her lawyer that she could not be asked about specifics at the party, and she did not contradict the accuser.

Nice.

Seriously though, picture a bizarro version of this event involving two black football players. Or two white gas station attendants. Or two illegal immigrants.

If any of these people could’ve been fingered as easily as the Duke players, the emergency room report alone — whether it was considered airtight proof or not — would’ve had their asses in the slammer within hours.

Mr. Brodhead, the Duke president, said today he hoped that the case would have “a speedy resolution and that the truth of the events is fully clarified,” and said the university and the city needed to work to restore “the bonds this episode has strained.”

What a bunch of mumbo jumbo bullshit, but I guess he can’t say much more than that.

Click to view current proposal

Lex and I have been chatting about the N&R’s Citizen Journalism program over the last few weeks, focusing on exploring possibilities to improve both the quality and quantity of incoming stories by Greensboro residents (and articles about Greensboro itself).

I’m a huge proponent of editorial groups diving directly into the information mechanisms of the web — actively participating by monitoring concept feeds, reviewing authentic media, commenting on blogs in the community, basically, engaging potential news & entertainment sources in a smart and authentic manner.

Quite simply, if the press wants to be considered authentic with their interest in citizen media (read: people), they can’t just launch editorialized blogs; they need to become a part of the conversation itself.

Along these lines, mainstream news organizations must also develop additional revenue sharing programs for citizens that contribute to their bottom lines.

Sites like flickr and YouTube provide free bandwidth to store media clips (which, based on Moore’s Law, will be an obsolete model as well in the next 5 to 10 years), but news sites can’t offer that value proposition in a trade for content.

If sites like the N&R don’t develop fair revenue sharing programs, legacy-free aggregators will… and already have.

Along these lines, Lex asked me to expound on my previous ideas for how N&R editorial could leverage citizen tagging in their daily editorial processes. Here’s what I’ve come up with so far…

Look, I’m pro-choice, yet I completely understand the opposition to abortion (the act). Everyone does. It’s safe to say that no woman has ever approached an abortion with a gleam in her eye.

This moral commonality — distinctly human — is what makes the debate between the pro-choice and anti-choice crowds so emotionally charged.

The question I pose to you is the following: If you are anti-choice, is the above discourse an example of the type of response that you want your Congresspersonto engage in?

If so, then where do our moral standards come into play? And if elected, how would Robinson’s tone affect his relationships with the rest of Congress and us — the constituents — across various topical issues?

(via Jay Ovittore)

Original coverage: Vernon Robinson: Not In My House

What a fun and truth-laced animation this is from Iain Anderson (all made from airport iconography). Man, I wish I had more free time…

Fox News knows that body armor wouldn’t have helped. The enemy is far too deadly.

(via neatorama)