Hasta La Gadget!

The scorecard on Bill Cosby reads like this: A dozen or more women have said with only a slight variation in the time, place and circumstance that Cosby seduced them, propositioned them, promised them favors, put them up, even paid them, then drugged or plied them with alcohol and sexually abused them. One Bill Cosby publicly says the charges are a lie. One man denies the charge. The dozen plus women stick to their stories. Yet a seemingly disgraced but unfazed Cosby took to the stage at King Center for the Performing Arts in Melbourne, Florida for 90 minutes to the wild cheers of a sold-out crowd that bombarded him with shouts of “We love you, Bill Cosby!”

The Cosby audience love fest was not simply an aberration of groupie fan mania. Legions passionately believe Cosby is being wrongly crucified on the cross of raw public opinion by a pack of greedy, publicity-seeking, career-wrecking liars and schemers.

It happens to be Cosby. But the ritual of rape denial is virtually written in stone in much of public opinion and far too many police stations and courts. Days before the alleged Cosby rape victims paraded forth to retell their sordid stories, literally a sea and an ocean apart, two shocking reports came out that cast yet another brutal and ugly glare on the still rampant rape culture. An Amnesty International commissioned report in Britain found that one-third of Britons said a woman rape victim was as much if not more to blame for the rape. This wasn’t all. The overwhelming majority of respondents was absolutely clueless on how widespread rape was in the country, and in nearly all cases sharply downplayed the number of rapes.

A sea and an ocean away, there was the even more appalling finding that New Orleans police didn’t even bother to investigate hundreds of rape cases, or simply classified the reported sexual assaults as “noncriminal” and did no investigation. New Orleans or Britain was no anomaly. Months before the Cosby rape allegations surfaced, the Iowa Law Review, in March, found that rape is routinely underreported in dozens of cities. The rape claims were dismissed out of hand with little or no investigation. The result was there were no report, no statistical count, and no record of an attack. The study zeroed in on the prime reason for this, namely disbelief. It’s that disbelief that shields, many men, especially rich, powerful, Olympian-like celebrity icons such as Cosby from legal harm. They are reflexively believed when they scream foul at their accuser. They lambaste them as liars, cheats, and gold diggers, or ridicule and demean them as sluts. If things get too hot, they toss out a few dollars in hush money settlements and the screams are even louder that it was all a shakedown operation in the first place and the victim is further demonized.

It’s not just the warped and tainted blame-the-victim syndrome. Countless studies of rape victimization have shown that the attacker is not a stereotypical weird, ticking time bomb pervert. He could be anyone from the helpful, adorable boy next door to a wealthy, staid, respectable pillar of the community with a loving family. When they are accused of rape the gasp of disbelief ripple not only through the perpetrator’s family, but friends, associates, law enforcement and the courts.

Cosby is the classic textbook example of how men who are alleged to commit rape routinely get away with it. Contrary to the non-stop slanders of his accusers, some did go to the police, attorneys, and their agents at the time he allegedly victimized them. But they quickly ran up against the wall of suspicion, indifference, and flat-out contempt and blame. Decades later when they again came forth little had changed. They have been hit with the same wall of suspicion, ridicule, snickers, and even wisecracks about their motives and morals.

Despite their claims and the mild scorn heaped on Cosby, he still has his battery of high priced attorneys, agents, and influential entertainment pals who will shill, bully, and subtly play on the sympathy, and his persona and goodwill as America’s perfect dad, a philanthropist, and the consummate all-around “good guy” that he has spent his professional life constructing to hector the critics. Though Cosby has lost TV deals and some concert appearances have dried up or been cancelled at his request, he still has two powerful cards to play. One is time. The decades that have passed since he committed his alleged rapes work for him since he knows that the odds of him being plopped in a criminal court docket are slim, and memories of a fickle public dim fast. The other, is the jaundiced view of so many that some if not all of the women who scream rape against him are selfish, and greedy schemers who are out to bring down one of America’s authentic idols. That’s why so many without a hint of thought or shame about the women’s lives that he damaged by his alleged heinous acts gave a full-throated shout “We love you bill!”

Earl Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political analyst. He is a weekly co-host of the Al Sharpton Show on American Urban Radio Network. He is the author of How Obama Governed: The Year of Crisis and Challenge. He is an associate editor of New America Media. He is host of the weekly Hutchinson Report Newsmaker Hour heard weekly on the nationally network broadcast Hutchinson Newsmaker Network.

The problem with history is twofold: it tends to repeat itself, yet we never learn from it. On Friday, Ukrainians have gathered on Maidan (the Independence Square in the center of Kyiv) to honor the Heavenly Brigade who gave up their lives defending our dignity. On Sunday, we commemorated the greatest tragedy suffered by the Ukrainian people — Holodomor of 1932-1933, a term that can be translated as “extermination by hunger.” A justification offered by Stalin at the time was the need for rapid industrialization at all cost, but what really bothered him about Ukraine was our unbending desire for self-determination. As we hear from Mr. Putin about the “love” of Russians for their Ukrainian “brothers,” we worry.

When one evokes the word “genocide” in the context of the Second World War, one thinks of the massacres committed by Hitler. In his book Bloodlands, Timothy Snyder reminds us that among the 14 million, who “were all victims of a Soviet or Nazi killing policy… a quarter were killed before the WWII even began.” Who were those people and why did they have to die? A vast majority were Ukrainian peasants, women and children, who were starved to death by Stalin’s deliberate policy, as he felt threatened by the willpower of the Ukrainians, their desire for independence, and their proclivity for self-governance. What crimes did they commit? They were told to hand over their land in favor of collective farms, and they did not want to comply. The peasants were asked to abandon their church in favor of atheism, and they resisted. Hardworking Ukrainian farmers wanted a chance at prosperity, and they were told to give up everything they had, and were starved to death.

Kremlin is still denying Holodomor. Many Russians influenced by the propaganda pedaled by the state-run TV stations genuinely believe that Ukraine is not an independent state, that breakup of the Soviet Union is a mistake and Putin is the one to correct it, that Ukrainian is not a language but rather a dialect of Russian and that dreams of Ukrainians therefore deserve no attention. They fail to acknowledge the vast evidence documenting just how Stalin’s policies of forced starvation were specifically targeting Ukrainians. The Soviet empire of those days was prepared to stop at nothing to suppress any resistance to Moscow’s rule. No words can describe the horrors Ukrainian villages have lived through in the 1932-1933. Seeing images of children with distended bellies is something that can’t be erased from one’s memory. The vicious nature of Stalin’s policies and the ability of the Soviet state to execute them, are unthinkable.

A year ago, our Revolution of Dignity has begun with the Euromaidan protests, and the Ukrainian nation has arisen to show its will for freedom, the desire to shake off Russia’s dominance, proving the ability to chart its own course. The Kremlin, once again, feels threatened. Just like 82 years ago, having a strong sense of national identify is punishable by death. We want to live in prosperity, while Moscow is doing everything to undermine Ukrainian economy.

Putin is using the methods perfected by Stalin: disinformation at home, and the strategy of “divide and conquer” abroad. Thousands of people have died in Ukraine this year. Our borders were violated as Crimea was illegally annexed. Eastern regions are almost destroyed and lost their remaining economic viability. People of Donbas are left without water, electricity and food. And yet, we read reports of the army movements and witness Kremlin’s continued support of the separatists.

To avoid more bloodshed, the world must continue to act with the sense of urgency: help prop up Ukraine’s economy, stop skirting reality, and wishing for the problem to go away. Ukraine has been invaded by Russia, and is fighting an undeclared war. Let’s call a spade a spade. Let the world show unity in the face of blatant disregard for international law. Let the European nations reply in unison to the energy blackmail by Gazprom. Let’s not succumb to the 24-hour news cycle and lose focus while Kremlin is pursuing its deadly policies. It is not just the sanctions Putin is afraid of: it is the, clarity, consistency, and strength of response by the community of nations that he fears most. A message of unanimity was sent at the G-20, but the summit is now over. The war in Ukraine, however, is not.

It’s high time we break the vicious cycle by learning from history, instead of letting it repeat itself, again.

Lorde may not be a princess cut from marble, but her American Music Awards performance of “Yellow Flicker Beat” was really solid. She started inside a red cube, which was lifted above her. She revealed herself to the audience and performed her signature dance moves — frenetic and passionate — around stoic people dressed in white. As the lights went down, she dragged her fist across her mouth, smearing her dark lipstick on her cheek.

Sunday night marked the first time Lorde performed the track live. “Yellow Flicker Beat” is the lead single from the soundtrack for “The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 1” that Lorde herself curated. “Thank you for so much love on one of the scariest, most exciting things I’ve done,” Lorde tweeted on Monday, the day the soundtrack was released. “Listen to it; buy it. ENJOY.” Way ahead of you on that one, Ella.

(Oh, and Taylor Swift sang along the whole time.)

After bringing some pop to the CMA Awards at the beginning of November, Ariana Grande broke out a three-song medley at the American Music Awards on Sunday night, including her hits “Problem,” “Break Free,” and “Love Me Harder.” During “Love Me Harder,” she brought out The Weeknd. Dressed in a black, sheer gown, Grande owned the stage.

Grande also performed at the 2013 American Music Awards, where her performance of “Tattooed Heart” earned a standing ovation from Lady Gaga. Grande was also the recipient of the 2013 New Artist of the Year Award.

“The book was soooo much better” is a phrase that screams to me “let’s not be friends.” It is almost a given at this point, that whenever one thing is adapted from another thing, the original thing is always vastly superior—except when it’s not.

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