Hollywood’s Groundhog Day?

This week, Prof. Taylor shines light on the criminal shenanigans of celebrities. If the read feels all too familiar, well … insert worn-out history adages here.

Taylor’s column first appeared in the Gainesville Times, June 14, 1988. Try to keep that in mind when you cross a sentence that, by today’s standard’s, might be fingered as homophobic. I’ll nip that right now by the following insight. Being that my father was a sociology and deviant behavior professor, dinnertime discussions involving societal folkways, mores, taboos, etc, would inevitably occur. Homosexuality rarely made the table, but his scientific views on it were often repeated. Although unpopular, especially in the part of the country where we resided, Dad knew homosexuality was not a choice, attributing it to a certain part of the brain exhibiting a different proportion than heteros.
“Born that way,” in the popular verbiage.

One more item that bears mention is Fatty Arbuckle’s media treatment during the rape scandal that essentially ruined his career. William Randolf Hurst’s questionable campaigns are the stuff of legend and lampooning, yet “yellow journalism” continues to plague the industry to this day. (Untimely choice of words?) As luck would have it, Dad called while I was typing this (Two weeks in a row? I think he has my schedule. Hmm …)(Two parentheticals in the same paragraph. Optics … optics! Wait, this is three … gah!). Anyway, in discussion, he mentioned all the recent #MeToo scandals, Assange, Madoff, and the college admissions bribery dragnet, among several others. He hasn’t seen Tiger King yet, but I’m sure it will be worthy of a two-hour lecture when he does.
The more things change … Oops, that belongs at the top.

Criminal minds … he shoulda copyrighted that one.