For the first time ever I am hanging out in a coffee shop using the Internet! I know, y'all didn't know I was so clever and technologically advanced. And you are surprised that I sprang for a laptop. Wrong on that one. They gave me one at work. Yay! I accidentally stopped in a Starbucks to get out of the rain once shortly after I got my new laptop. So, I was like, this is it! Finally I will join the proud tradition of Hemingway and Satre and write something (erm...email) in a...cafe! So I got out the laptop and was disappointed to find that you had to pay for the Internet. :( So today I looked on the Internet to find a place with a free connection and here I am! It is a gay/lesbian coffee shop, I think. I fit right in with my hair. I bet that are many a pushing 40 lesbian gal that thinks I look lik quite a propect! Hehehehehe. Well, I guess I shouldn't get crazy...

Anyway, yesterday my friend of 20 years said words I never expected to hear... Hey, you were right and really saw this coming. I should listen to your more often. Maybe she shouldn't rush into this. After all, she might have to wait quite awhile for more payback.

Anyway, we were just talking and she told me about a horrid crime in Knoxville. Four or five men carjacked, kidnapped, raped, and murdered a UT student and her boyfriend. I don't know if he was a student. You might be thinking, "Well, who cares whether he was a student..." I am coming to that. I said like, "What? When? Why haven't I read about this on CourtTV? Then it became clear. The victims were white and the perpetrators were black. She asked me why I though I should have heard about the crime. Didn't things happen like this all the time? I told her this is yet another media bias in crime reporting based on race of victims and perpetrators. I said the lack of reporting on the crime will eventually become national news and indeed it did... I saw a story about it on MSNBC yesterday.

Naturally, the bias in news reporting is generally to ignore non-white victims of crime. This is perhaps most obvious in cases of kidnapping/murder of young girls and women. Chandra, Lacy, Natalee, the runaway bride, and now that English child that was kidnapped at some foreign resort... (It is rather strange that violence against women and girls is usually considered completely unimportant and boring with these few exceptions.) This obsession with missing white girls/women is commonly noted in the press. I almost felt that the media was pretending to be interested when they focused for awhile on two missing black sisters. Anyway, the reason for this media blindspot is clear. Our society doesn't value non-white people. They are not quite "like us" and therefore do not merit the same attention from the media, police, or criminal justice system (unless it is to arrest them.) It is not really a conspiracy because each media outlet rightly decides that their readers are not interested. If you read the CourtTV news on a given day you will get the impression that only white people are the victim of crimes. I mean, I should really stop reading this racially discriminatory reporting but...I am one of those weirdos who really likes to follow the crime news. I have an especially unhealthy interest in missing persons. I always wonder...where are they??

There are several aspects to this crime that make it CourtTV worthy regardless of the racial/ethnic background of the victims or perpetrators...

1. The crime involved a COLLEGE student. I guess this is one of the good children that the public cares about.
2. Multiple victims.
3. Multiple perpetrators. (A woman was one of the perps, too!)
4. Sexual abuse of both victims (i.e. a man which is way more interesting than yet another woman).
5. The length of time of torture between kidnapping and death.
6. The possibility it could be a hate crime (i.e. victims of different races).
7. Murder of a couple.

Believe, you make it big on CourtTV with a WHOLE lot less...