Please forgive me if I misquoted you (it's hard to keep the Compose window in view while also seeing the letter (or more often, article) you're writing about).

(Except for what I misattributed to you, my main point still stands. Yes, I know some people have gone through hell for innocent photos, thanks to insanely overzealous law enforcement. I referred to some of them in my post. I suspect that for every innocent photo or video that leads to a bogus prosecution, there are 10 million that aren't. Which in no way excuses those who prosecute overzealously.)

One of several reasons for this problem is that no matter how the legal definition of child porn is worded, the zone between what's child porn and what isn't is never going to be what lawyers (at least on Law & Order) call a "bright line".

And so where the author writes:

She doesn't remember the May 22, 1999, accident that landed her here, broke her neck (resulting in the partial paralysis of her right arm) and took the life of 20-year-old Ryan Brewer, the son of an Oklahoma City police captain.

she is shooting from the hip. Only the person whose memory is at issue knows what they can remember. The only valid statement anyone else can make about this issue is what was claimed, not whether that is or is not accurate.

No one knows what's really going on inside another's head. and so legitimate journalists should not pretend to.

(Journalistic standards? Salon don't need no steenkin' standards.)

Clarification: I would definitely guess that the woman in prison in fact does not recall the incident in question, just as the author asserts.

But this is not relevant to my point.

I certainly agree with you that it looks very likely from the story like Dowdy was drugged and later railroaded, even putting "Dowdy says" all the places it belong.

But the journalistic obligation to attribute statements to their source rather than assert them without attribution is a very important one and not very onerous at all.

It is very important because there is no remotely acceptable way to define when "this allegation sounds truthy enough to assume is true". Thus ignoring attribution when a statement is the sole evidence for its own truth is a dangerous slippery slope.

And Gardella could easily have prefaced Dowdy's account with "Here's how Dowdy describes what happened" just once, and there would be no problem with the story at all.

I have a lot of sympathy for Dowdy, since I believe as you do that Gardella's account is true. But whether or not it is in fact true is entirely beside the point when it comes to how the article should have been written.

I sympathize with the letter-writer, but her biggest concern in general seems to be that she doesn't want to feel that her staying away from gatherings thrown by the ex merely because of the nastiness of the ex, since that would mean the ex is "dictating" her behavior.

I think this is a self-defeating attitude: How you act vis-a-vis a certain person is surely dependent on your relationship with that person, so why shouldn't you let your decision as to whether to attend the ex's gatherings depend on how she acts towards you?

Maybe the answer is that these are major social events in your circle and you don't want to miss them.

In which case the answer is to hold your own parties and invite only those people you feel comfortable with.

By the way, I do *not* subscribe to Mr. Tennis's suggestion to say "Fuck you!" to her. This does not seem likely to me to resolve anything, but only to escalate the level of nastiness.

I do, however, think you should first make at least one attempt to communicate directly to the ex what is bothering you and give her at least one chance to stop her nastiness toward you. If she doesn't, then, well, she'll understand why she's not getting invited to your getherings.

I doubt that Dowdy deserved to be sentenced at all.

But 40 years? Consider that then-Governor WIlliam Janklow of South Dakota also killed a motorcyclist while driving drunk (after going through an intersection he should have stopped at) -- and his sentence was a mere 100 days in jail.

40 years is more than 146 times as long as 100 days.

One-hundred forty-six times as long!!!

And it is very hard to see why even if Dowdy were guilty -- which is very unlikely -- her crime would be any worse than Janklow's in any way, shape, or form.

First off, I strongly agree that all employers should provide a facility for women who wish to breast-feed their children

(and maybe another facility for those in danger of swooning should their delicate sensibilities be harmed by the sight of breast-feeding).

And I don't know what Starbucks would say about this issue; good journalism would dictate that they should have been asked about their rationale before such an article as this is published.

But in my opinion, just as no one should carry a baby while feeding untethered crocodiles . . . no one should carry a baby anywhere close to serious peril -- and that includes extremely hot liquids such as are slung about in the barista profession.

This may sound like a coffeeist or reptilist prejudice. But in fact it applies indiscriminately to firefighters, lumberjacks & -jills, steelworkers, airplane mechanics, police, construction workers, and those who are shot out of a cannon for a living.

This article could've been poignant.

But the author's never once expressing any curiosity about the why the longtime friend dropped her -- nor taking any steps to look into the reason -- is perplexing. For me removes most of the appeal from the article.

I also have little idea of why the bra-removal incident at the old friend's wedding was even mentioned. If it had anything to do with the reason for her being dropped, I missed the connection.