I knew you'd be astonished Hedda - I feel this is just another example of Satan's Ultimate Weapon Of Mass Destruction (recorded by JK 12 years ago for the Vile Pervert film). It is bizarre - any normal person knew that choir boys were regularly fiddled with by celibate (often closet gay) priests and vicars. It was never approved of but anybody entering a choir was warned and told that a smart kick to the clerical testicles was the best way to deal with any problems. Just like Jimmy Savile and others. I'm thoroughly in favour of society clamping down (ooh Matron) on this kind of kiddy fiddling. Indeed any kind of taking advantage of the innocent. But this retrogressive witch hunt stinks of a devilish mastermind behind it. Let's be honest - many choir boys rather enjoyed the odd erotic fumble; not all were scarred for life by this trivial event. I remember being devastated by being forced to eat calves foot jelly, which I hated; but I've gotten over it (I was once beaten for my refusal). Millions of little under age groupies WANTED to be abused by pop and film stars (as frequently as possible, please, they begged as they pushed their father's socks into their bras and smeared scarlet onto their lips). Marc Bolan specialised in it. Jimi Hendrix, when I confirmed that he had caught VD, moaned "she can't have been a day over 14". For God's sake (and I mean GOD'S) society - grow up. There are serious problems out there. Anyone bothered by a Cardinal fiddling with a passing teenager should go and see CAPERNAUM. Let us, as human beings, sort the real big problems of humanity out. Forget these stupid historical allegations, be they true or false.

It's far worse than that.

For I think, the first time in history?..a man has been accused of abusing someone who themselves said they were not abused.

This opens up a whole new scenario.

This is no longer "recovered memories"..this is memories you don't know you have. The more you deny you were abused the more it's likely you were.

Pell will be unique in all the Catholic Church's history.. a man who abused 2 boys only once in his life..even one who Pell says and who the alleged victim says..he didn't.

Personally I believe this will be overturned on appeal.
Doesn't matter though, I;m surprised Pell lasted this long with his dicky heart.

But the atmosphere in Australia is alarming.

Not only are they gunning for Pell's head..they are after anyone who dared to support him.

And it's not just the plebs..journalists, commentators (all so wise after the fact of course) are attacking anyone who dared support the concept of the Presumption of Innocence.

They are attacking those who paid for his defense (and I mean politicians, named journalists etc are joining this vicious Witch Hunt)..I fully expect his cleaning lady or his dog if has one to be dragged out and lynched any moment now.

www.smh.com.au/national/victoria/the-cas...20190226-p510f6.html

The case for and against: What the jury was told in George Pell's trial

hedda, I gather that the ban on reporting was lifted because the second trial is not proceeding. Do you see this — the dropping of the second case — as a good sign?

Misa wrote:
hedda, I gather that the ban on reporting was lifted because the second trial is not proceeding. Do you see this — the dropping of the second case — as a good sign?

Pell has been accused of so many things which were tossed out as being impossible and ludicrous.

The media have gone to town on Pell for 20 years now accusing him of all & sundry.

things like this: One accusation was that a man claimed he went to Pell and told him he was abused by Priest and Pell dismissed his accusations.
Except it was found that Pell had been living in Rome for a year before and a year after the man made his claim- impossible.

But as each accusation turned out to be false the media moved on like a ravenous beast determined to find something. anything.s

He was accused of being the Bishop of Ballarat and ignoring the admitted crimes of a priest called Gerard Risdale who he shared a house with.,,by a journalist !!

Except..he wasn't a Bishop he was a trainee priest sharing a house with 25 other priests and meanwhile a now highly respected political journalist named Paul Bongiorno shared a room with Ridsdale and says he saw nothing.

But the Media Beast ignored this and moved looking for the next attack.

The vile creep Tim Minchin wrote a vile song accusing Pell in order to raise money to send a Pell victim to Rome to confront Pell.

Except the "victim" was a self-admitted convicted pedophile who abused a 10 year old boy.
His victim finally said how upset he was to see his admitted abuser lauded by the media as they chortled at Michnin's song...Minchin never apologised nor did the media..


So the Media Beast moved on looking for the next accusation..

Pell started the very first compensation scheme in the world for victims with generous compo..$50,000 to $200,000 no questions asked.

The Media Beast claimed one condition was you did not go to the police.

It was a lie..the "Melbourne Solution" as it was called by Pell said you could go to the police and you would be supported but if you did not want to go the police you did not have to and you would be compensated..

So the Media Beast moved on..and on and on until...they got their man.


They got their man in the end.
Persistence pays off.

## I think this is very similar to "The Freak" actress who was convicted of abusing a woman but which was overturned on appeal.

What is scary is the way the Australian media have gone batshit crazy.

JK2006 wrote:
I knew you'd be astonished Hedda - I feel this is just another example of Satan's Ultimate Weapon Of Mass Destruction (recorded by JK 12 years ago for the Vile Pervert film). It is bizarre - any normal person knew that choir boys were regularly fiddled with by celibate (often closet gay) priests and vicars. It was never approved of but anybody entering a choir was warned and told that a smart kick to the clerical testicles was the best way to deal with any problems. Just like Jimmy Savile and others. I'm thoroughly in favour of society clamping down (ooh Matron) on this kind of kiddy fiddling. Indeed any kind of taking advantage of the innocent. But this retrogressive witch hunt stinks of a devilish mastermind behind it. Let's be honest - many choir boys rather enjoyed the odd erotic fumble; not all were scarred for life by this trivial event. I remember being devastated by being forced to eat calves foot jelly, which I hated; but I've gotten over it (I was once beaten for my refusal). Millions of little under age groupies WANTED to be abused by pop and film stars (as frequently as possible, please, they begged as they pushed their father's socks into their bras and smeared scarlet onto their lips). Marc Bolan specialised in it. Jimi Hendrix, when I confirmed that he had caught VD, moaned "she can't have been a day over 14". For God's sake (and I mean GOD'S) society - grow up. There are serious problems out there. Anyone bothered by a Cardinal fiddling with a passing teenager should go and see CAPERNAUM. Let us, as human beings, sort the real big problems of humanity out. Forget these stupid historical allegations, be they true or false.

As it happens, I have doubts about the allegations against Pell, and I think that there have been many false convcitions, but your post here betrays a dangerous mindset which society, in mind view rightly, rejected a long time ago.

To what "dangerous mindset" do you refer tdf? Please expand. If, as I suspect, your opinion is that behaviour from 50 years ago, agreed now considered wrong (as I considered it at the time - you should have heard me telling off Jimi that time) should be penalised today - fair enough. We agree to disagree. I believe there can rarely be proof and without that there should be no trials and no convictions.

I do actually agree that there should be a statute of limitations on most if not all types of allegations of sex crime, perhaps only with the exception of violent rape causing long term harm. We may not be all that far apart in our thinking.

the dangerous mindset has been in a concerted media campaign to "Get Pell".

It's been relentless and conducted by serious "left leaning" journalists.

Pell is not a very lovable personality. He is extremly Conservative.

His friends & supporters have been very Conservative like former Prime Minster Tony Abbott and a number of conservative Murdoch writers.

One particular favourite Murdoch writer Andrew Bolt has written an article in all News Corp papers basically saying he believes Pell was railroaded

The media now is almost demanding the heads of Bolt etc because..they mostly demanded that the Presumption of Innocence be respected.

It's really quite bizarre and I've seen top journalists become almost insane in their actions.

Most of these left leaners attacked Pell viciously claiming he was a coward because he was too sick to front a Royal Commission..he gave evidence by a TYV link-up..they implied his Italian doctors lied.

"The Coward" they couresed.."he'll never come back to Australia.."

When police announced they would charge Pell with serious crimes (10 year jail sentence)..while Pell could have claimed sanctuary for life in The Vatican (no-one, not even The Pope could stop him)..he immediately returned to Australia to be charged.

Silence from his detractors...deadly silence.

Whatever the truth about Cardinal Pell ( I'm no fan) this has been an education ..mass hysteria in the media has taken place.

This isn't UK type gutter tabloids as in Jimmy Savile ( "Now Then, Now Then")..it's been serious commentators.. so weird.

JK, I too have a gripe with your comment, though from another angle.It is bizarre - any normal person knew that choir boys were regularly fiddled with by celibate (often closet gay) priests and vicars. It was never approved of but anybody entering a choir was warned and told that a smart kick to the clerical testicles was the best way to deal with any problems.This seems to be one of a number of widely accepted truths.

Similarly accepted truths include:Public schools were hotbeds of homosexuality and if the older boys didn't use you for their own pleasure, masters, who obviously took sadistic/sexual pleasure in administering corporal punishment, almost certainly would.

Going to prison was likely to involve anal rape in the showers. Careful you don't drop the soap, etc.These are all things that 'any normal person knew'. Funny thing is that I've met (shock, horror) people who have been in all of these situations, and each says, in effect, I never saw anything like that, but I suppose it must happen.Of course, when I say everyone knew, I mean that young people used to share this knowledge (i.e. gossip) amongst themselves, and older, wiser people used to tut at such suggestions. Sadly, it seems that the older, wiser people have all gone (hedda aside).

None of which is to say that not one of these things has ever happened. But repeating the suggestion that any of them was regular, frequent, or widespread, wihout further evidence or qualification, seems, to me, lazy or incautious.

What seems to connect our 'knowledge' about these three kinds of insitution – the church, public schools, and prisons – is a vague homophobia (i.e. fear of homosexuals, or should that be fear of men?), and a conviction that we are all, in essence, beasts, utterly powerless before our own (or others) sexual drives.

No doubt this was key to Satan's recent successes.

Yes Misa - and as a Public/Boarding school pupil myself, there was very little actual sexual contact between masters or staff and pupils - the most rumoured was "favourites". My brother was a "favourite" of one master who we all suspected was gay and he swears, now in his 70s, that nothing sexual or even physical occurred. I can also vouchsafe there was, however, an enormous amount of sexual contact between pupils - as far as I'm aware,and certainly in my case, normally after we reached puberty around 16. But yes, there was gossip - anyone even slightly handsome was immediately branded "a tart" - poor souls (it never applied to me; I was far too ordinary looking). Likewise I agree with you, the rumours around vicars/priests/choir boys were very much extreme gossip and I suspect very rarely true. Celibacy was far more common in the church than sex.

Thanks, JK. I do think we tend to buy into these ideas without necessarily stopping to consider whether they really fit with our own experience (i.e. real knowledge). It's easy to repeat and, so, reinforce them. This all then forms part of the background of our 'general knowledge' and so-called 'common sense'. As we've seen, the Savile case has consistently been used in the UK to prove that pretty outrageous – virtually unimaginable – behaviour is perfectly plausible.

Over the last couple of years I've caught up with quite a lot of Brit and US TV drama from the past decade or so. It seems that, if there isn't a paedo-killer on the loose, the protagonsist's usually haunted by dark memories of childhood abuse. If our writers can imagine nothing else, it's perhaps not surprising that we as a society are so quick to accept that a) childhood sexual abuse is exremely widespread, b) it's always hugely damaging, c) we must do something!

One thing you (or readers) might just be able to help with. When did 'hiding in plain sight' become an established trope? It cropped up in Breaking Bad – Gus, of the fast-food restaurant/drug business was "hiding in plain sight". Do you know whether the expression has a history much before then?

Hiding in plain sight is one of those silly expressions like Grooming and Closure which has always annoyed me. Brexit means Brexit. Yes Prime Minister.

Misa wrote:
Thanks, JK. I do think we tend to buy into these ideas without necessarily stopping to consider whether they really fit with our own experience (i.e. real knowledge). It's easy to repeat and, so, reinforce them. This all then forms part of the background of our 'general knowledge' and so-called 'common sense'. As we've seen, the Savile case has consistently been used in the UK to prove that pretty outrageous – virtually unimaginable – behaviour is perfectly plausible.

Over the last couple of years I've caught up with quite a lot of Brit and US TV drama from the past decade or so. It seems that, if there isn't a paedo-killer on the loose, the protagonsist's usually haunted by dark memories of childhood abuse. If our writers can imagine nothing else, it's perhaps not surprising that we as a society are so quick to accept that a) childhood sexual abuse is exremely widespread, b) it's always hugely damaging, c) we must do something!

One thing you (or readers) might just be able to help with. When did 'hiding in plain sight' become an established trope? It cropped up in Breaking Bad – Gus, of the fast-food restaurant/drug business was "hiding in plain sight". Do you know whether the expression has a history much before then?

We used to use it to describe the phenomenon of being blind to things you dont expect to see, like when you cant find your socks and they turn up on top of the piano, even though you have been looking at it and couldn't see them.

It is a bit of a stretch that hordes of people could look into a room where a priest was wrestling children into indecency and not notice though.

"Hiding in plain sight" is a pretty clever trick to discredit people who saw nothing untoward because nothing untoward was happening.

honey!oh sugar sugar. wrote:
hordes of people could look into a room where a priest was wrestling children into indecency and not notice though


You know this how?

Media comments from across the world.


Yes, a bit of a stretch...

honey!oh, I don't think I've ever heard it used to refer to an inanimate object, but it makes perfect sense. I guess we would have said, 'It was right in front of your nose," in the same situation.

A quick google comes up with a short story, by Edgar Allan Poe, called The Purloined Letter in which, "the Minister had deposited the letter immediately beneath the nose of the whole world, by way of best preventing any portion of that world from perceiving it."

The story's epigram is Nil sapientiae odiosius acumine nimio. (Nothing is more hateful to wisdom than excessive cleverness.)
"Hiding in plain sight" is a pretty clever trick to discredit people who saw nothing untoward because nothing untoward was happening. And from there it's only a small step to convicting someone of a crime which even the supposed victim insisted never happened.

Heaven help us.