Dear Prudence
As long time readers of my blog now, I get a lot of my news and politically commentary from Slate. I find that it's a good source for fairly intelligent liberal commentary, with the occasional dash of conservative commentary (i.e. Christopher Hitchens). I also enjoy their weekly advice column, "Dear Prudence". But at no time more than today. The first letter will surely go down in history as one of the classics of modern advice columns (assuming that it is not eventually exposed as a hoax). So go forth and read the column, then come back and we'll discuss it.
The first reaction the three people I've pointed it out to have all had was "Holy crap! Is that for real?" There doesn't appear to be any hint of a joke in there. It seems plausible. Obviously Slate thought that it was credible enough to print. So for the moment I'm inclined to suspend disbelief and take the letter at face value. I guess one of the things which makes it a little hard to believe is the fact that the circumstances he described are fairly narrow which leads one to wonder whether someone might put two and two together and figure it out anyway. Of course I guess if he chooses not to reveal his horrible crime he can always deny everything.
Obviously the legal ramifications are also very interesting. I guess since this would at most be manslaughter there may be a statue of limitations depending on the juristiction, but I don't know that there would be one for a civil suit. In any case the day got away from me so I'd better wrap things up and post this.
Dear Foolish
The first reaction the three people I've pointed it out to have all had was "Holy crap! Is that for real?" There doesn't appear to be any hint of a joke in there. It seems plausible. Obviously Slate thought that it was credible enough to print. So for the moment I'm inclined to suspend disbelief and take the letter at face value. I guess one of the things which makes it a little hard to believe is the fact that the circumstances he described are fairly narrow which leads one to wonder whether someone might put two and two together and figure it out anyway. Of course I guess if he chooses not to reveal his horrible crime he can always deny everything.
Obviously the legal ramifications are also very interesting. I guess since this would at most be manslaughter there may be a statue of limitations depending on the juristiction, but I don't know that there would be one for a civil suit. In any case the day got away from me so I'd better wrap things up and post this.
Dear Foolish
posted by DireKobold at 1:21 PM
5 Comments:
I nearly died when we were throuwing snowballs at a snow plow. It was one of those long winters where the only cars visible over the deep banks were the big ton trucks that plow the snow. We were targeting the flashing light (since that is all we could see) late one night. After three or four passes of the plow we were getting to be pretty good shots--which is almost how we died. It is not as bad as it sounds-multi-ton truck crashes through snow bank killing kids-- Rather the driver caught on to where we were throwing from and came out to kick our ...
I find this hard to believe, not only due to the circumstances you have already mentioned, but also because it seems odd that someone who had done something like this so many years ago without getting caught, would then do something to get these details posted to a public (and likely widely viewed) website. I guess ultimately, it seems that he was smart enough at one to time avoid detection, but then he suddenly became stupid. I know that love causes a little bit of tunnel vision (and some say blindness all together), but I doubt he could claim that this great love of his made him "slip up".
~Other Rob
I find this hard to believe, not only due to the circumstances you have already mentioned, but also because it seems odd that someone who had done something like this so many years ago without getting caught, would then do something to get these details posted to a public (and likely widely viewed) website. I guess ultimately, it seems that he was smart enough at one to time avoid detection, but then he suddenly became stupid. I know that love causes a little bit of tunnel vision (and some say blindness all together), but I doubt he could claim that this great love of his made him "slip up".
~Other Rob
If we accept that this is real, the least I would say is that this man would be hunted by his own conscience for a long time after, and it would destroy the relationship. There's also the chance that the relationship is an attempt of his to "make up" for killing her father, which is not a healthy start either.
Sooo... if he will not turn himself in (I doubt he'd get into that much legal trouble, but civil lawsuits are always possible), then I would say he needs to talk to a counselor to help him come to terms with what he did.
I just figured he'd dramatically changed some of the significant details. The father might have been accidentally shot in a hunting incident, for instance. Or maybe it was a brutal bar fight when the LW was older. People with things to hide often fabricate supporting details because they feel that "pleading the 5th" makes them seem more guilty.
-Tyson
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