According to ABC 7 Denver unnamed "friends" have dubbed Richard Heene a "Mad Scientist".Oh here we go again! Then this news station reports every bad word someone can say about him, with no independent verification. There are many many stories like this out there, all relying on the reporting of other news outlets often with no independent verification of anything. Most of the "news" out there on this topic is the same way. The meta message of all this that I am getting is "of course he's bad he's interested in science." Another case of the mad scientist stereotype at work.
The news then goes on to report on a 911 hang up and a mark on Heene's wife's face and her red eye. They don't even hedge on their rather overt suggestion that he must have hit her. She said her eye was irritated by a problem with her contact lenses. (I have had that happen. My eye got really red. I have also been punched repeatedly in the eye by an abusive boyfriend. My eye did not turn red, and it was really obvious that I had been punched.) Then they report that a business assistant who was supposedly with him while chasing a tornado in Colorado slugged them. They also report that he was convicted of vandalism in 1997 in LA. They also report that he and his wife met as aspiring actors in Los Angeles.
What the author of that story argues is that because this guy is interested in science he is a dangerous mad man. They did this not even a full year ago in the case of the Late Bruce Ivins. He was a scientist who worked with anthrax. Not a back yard experimenter. The FBI relying on very little information with the media's cooperation painted Ivins as a mad scientist and convicted a dead man of being a terrorist. I did not see one story that was sympathetic to Ivins until oh, a few month's ago. He was tried convicted and sentenced to death by the media. The fact that the FBI even went along with that is a sad commentary on our American society. Apparently scientific interest, analytical talent, and being good at math can be portrayed as, being strange and eccentric, being schemeing and conniving, and being cold and calculating. I have seen this happen in any story that involves a scientist suspected or accused of any kind of wrong doing. Being a scientist or just a science enthusiast can become evidence of guilt....at least to the news media.
Now I don't live in that house. I have no special knowldge on weather there is domestic violence in the Heene house. I do know that there is no actual evidence of anything, just insinuations and steroetypes. If you look at anyone's life you are likely to find someone who does not like them to speak ill, or some legal trouble somewhere. The incorrectly applied stereotype that says an Asian woman like Mayumi heene must be a docile submissive doormat (contradicted by this video). So as the wife of a crazy out of control "mad scientist" she must have been physically and emotionally abused.
Would it really be so hard to get the media to use the word allegedly at least once in these kind of stories?
Richard Heene, Balloon Boy, and the Mad Scientist stereotype. Tabloidification of mainstream media.
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