One thing for sure I do know.
Netflix and NBC have tough decisions to make about Bill Cosby. Allegations against the comedy icon -- that he sexually assaulted a number of women earlier in his career -- have resurfaced with a vengeance in recent days.
Cosby has refused to comment on the allegations, which his attorney called "decade-old" and "discredited" in a statement on Sunday.
But the charges seem likely to follow Cosby wherever he goes, at least for the time being.
And the next place Cosby is going, virtually, is Netflix. The streaming service is scheduled to debut a Cosby stand-up comedy special on the day after Thanksgiving.
"I thank @Netflix for this opportunity to show my talent all around the internet," Cosby wrote in an August tweet when the special was announced.
It's titled "Bill Cosby 77" because it was recorded on his 77th birthday in July.
Netflix has declined to comment in the wake of Barbara Bowman's Washington Post op-ed and CNN interviews accusing Cosby of drugging and raping her in the 1980s.
NBC has also declined to comment. This year the network has been developing a new sitcom with Cosby. But it is not yet in the pilot stage, which means the network could walk away from the project relatively easily.
In an interview on CNN's "Reliable Sources," televised on Sunday, Bowman said she believes it is "a little bit on the irresponsible side" for NBC to be developing a new show with Cosby.
Separately on Sunday, another woman, Joan Tarshis, wrote an essay alleging that Cosby raped her in 1969.
Bowman and Tarshis first shared their accounts of Cosby's sexual abuse years ago.
"It seemed the scandal had been put to rest," a story in Monday's Washington Post stated. "But as the past few weeks have shown, it's become more difficult to bury a story for good -- especially a story like this one, which has many of the components for going viral: a famous name, a shareable video, lurid personal accounts. "
Some of Cosby's fans resent the sudden media attention -- but that's not going to make it go away.
The Hollywood news site Deadline.com called it a "P.R. nightmare" and said NBC faces a "conundrum" about what to do.
Cosby declined to answer questions about the accusations when he was interviewed by NPR. The interview was broadcast on Saturday; Cosby's attorney John P. Schmitt said Sunday that "Mr. Cosby does not intend to dignify these allegations with any comment."
One interesting quirk of human nature I've observed in my ever growing pile of years is it turns out that the expression "looking for the good in people" , despite what we would like to believe about ourselves, isn't necessarily an unconditional virtue.
Because deep down in that place where we keep those things that we keep deep down, it turns out that more often than we might like to admit, we tend to look for the good in the people we feel good about in the first place.
And, of course, tend, then, to look for the bad in the people we don't care for much.
I suspect it has something to do with our primal need for validation mixed in a "peanut butter in the chocolaty" style with our wish to think of ourselves as compassionate, caring types.
There's a certain "a-HA! I KNEW it!" that attaches itself to pretty much any outcome, depending on our original intuition and/or opinion about it.
Simply put, if we like and respect folks, we assume them to be worthy of our like and respect even when faced with reports, rumors and/or evidence to the contrary..
And if we dislike and have no respect for folks, we assume them to be worthy of our dislike and lack of respect even when faced with, etc. etc.
If, for example, I found out that Kim Kardashian really, in fact, did have an IQ hovering somewhere around the number enjoyed by the average bag of rocks, I would be neither surprised or disappointed.
"a-HA!"
The brain twister comes along when the reality and our perceptions are in conflict.
If, for example, I found out that Kim Kardashian actually, in fact, had a very high IQ and that her whole presentation was just a very clever, and beautifully performed, caricature that she had invented for the purposes of entertainment and profit, I would find my synaptic functioning shorting out like Dish TV every time two or more rain drops fall from the sky.
Similarly, this whole slimy business with Bill Cosby is a poser for me.
Because I like and respect the guy.
I respect him for the things that he has accomplished in his life and career. I like him because he is personable.
And, yes, my objectivity is invalid because I did a pretty lengthy phone interview with him some years ago which was engaging, energetic and, in the course of our discourse, he paid me a very high, and completely unsolicited, compliment about my work.
Now, in the year 2014, Bill Cosby, at the age of 77, finds himself facing, if not any actual legal challenges, what looks like the very beginnings of a very public, and potentially harmful, stoning.
Because he is being accused of some pretty serious behavior.
This ain't cooking the books on some TV or movie contract he signed.
This is sexual assault on women.
A crime with no justification, rationalization, reason, excuse or defense.
This dilemma has some pretty serious horns.
One horn, in particular, hangs me up pretty good as I watch and wait to see how this plays out.
And it has nothing to do with hotel rooms or, even, bedrooms.
It has to do with basements.
Basements in big cities and small towns across the width and breadth of America, basements occupied by individuals whose time in this life is largely spent in front of one type of computer screen or another, firing off, with cogent thought, or lack of it, reasoned insight, or lack of it, fair and balanced opinion, or lack of it, their respective two cents about every thing and anything that is happening at any given moment of any given day, convinced of their convictions, satisfied, if not smug, that they are serving the public good with their opines, no matter how inaccurate, non-cogent, unreasonable, unfair and/or unbalanced their points of view, or even they, are.
The slang term is "trolls".
As in "trolling" the Internet, sailing around offering the aforementioned opinions and/or declarations and/or "absolute truths" while sitting safely in the shadows of their media center lairs, in their well worn padded chairs, amidst the scattered remnants of old pizza boxes, Cheetos crumbs and/or the ashes of an endless stream of Marlboro Lights.
With nary a hint of Fabreeze or common sense to be found anywhere in their air.
Trolls whose primary reason for getting out of Pringles crumbed beds in the morning to return to their Cheetos crumbed nerd rooms/news rooms is to resume play in a nationwide game of the children's classic "Telegraph"....
One voice whispering something into the ear of the person next to them and around the circle it goes, evolving, or mutating, as the case may be, by the time it arrives back at the original place in the circle to a something so very unlike it's original content so as to be rendered unrecognizable.
Or, even worse, something so egregiously unfair, unlikely and/or untrue, that by the time it arrives back at the original place in the circle, it has mutated into something seemingly fair....likely...and true.
Whether, in fact, it is.....
...or it isn't.
By then, though, two other quirks of human nature have been activated.
A lie repeated often enough by enough people can, in fact, take on the appearance of truth.
And perception is reality.
Mr. Cosby certainly faces some rough water ahead churned up by the accusations made by the women involved.
And if, in fact, these accusations are true then those of us who like and respect the man have a little choppy water of our own to navigate.
But there is one thing, for sure, that I don't know.
I don't know if Bill Cosby sexually assaulted anyone.
So I won't be offering any attempts at cogent thought, reasoned insight, fair and balanced opinion or two cents worth of theory.
Let alone two bit versions.
Because there is one thing, for sure, that I do know.
Our system of justice is predicated on the assumption that one is innocent until proven guilty. And should it become necessary for Mr. Cosby to answer for these charges within that system that he could very easily find himself being judged by a jury.
The Sixth Amendment both insures, and insists upon, that methodology.
It says absolutely nothing about......
....being accused, tried, judged and/or convicted by twelve or more individuals whose time in this life is largely spent in front of one type of computer screen or another, firing off, with cogent thought, or lack of it, reasoned insight, or lack of it, fair and balanced opinion, or lack of it, their respective two cents about every thing and anything that is happening at any given moment of any given day, convinced of their convictions, satisfied, if not smug, that they are serving the public good with their opines, no matter how inaccurate, non-cogent, unreasonable, unfair and/or unbalanced their points of view, or even they, are.
If Bill Cosby finds himself being judged.....
....it should be by a jury of his peers.
Not a gnarly little mob of trolls.
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