Unless you've been living under a rock the last 24 hours, you've no doubt heard the news that several actresses have had photos of themselves in various states of undressed stolen through and iCloud leak or faked to be included in the popularity of those stolen images. The hacking of someone's account, simply because of their fame, is disgusting. It pains me personally, because as silly as it sounds, I feel a kinship to Jennifer Lawrence.
No, I don't know her personally, nor am I a stalker. I am a writer. My third book in my Walkers Ridge romance series is in progress and the heroine is Jessa Waters. In my mind, Jessa Waters is Jennifer Lawrence...or I should say Jennifer Lawrence is Jessa Waters. Having lived with Jessa Waters in my head for a long time, clamoring to have her story told, this feels very personal to me.
When I write, I often pick a person to picture in my mind when I write a specific person. The reason is simple. It helps me keep that character true to one personality. Jennifer Lawrence has a cadence to her voice that creates an image (for me) of the girl next door. A kind, compassionate person who I would be friends with and enjoy hanging around with. Since that's the type of personality I want Jessa Waters to have, it makes sense for me to keep Jennifer Lawrence in mind when I write Jessa Waters.
My heart goes out to all of the women who have had personal and private information stolen from their personal iCloud or faked through image manipulation and released to the public simply because of their careers. It's disgusting to recognize that we really haven't come all that far from the whole caveman dragging a woman around by her hair mentality. The blaming of the women for having images on their private devices has been a common response. I'm not going to address what someone else should or should not do. In my opinion, that's not my business. What I will address is this. Someone hacked into information that does not belong to them and released it publicly with the intent of gaining money and fame, and to shame and embarrass people they do not even know. Why, I wonder, is there no backlash against the one who committed the crime? Really, does the content of what was stolen matter? The theft itself isn't enough? Now we have to justify our own right to have what was stolen? When does the blaming the victims stop? Will it stop?
And speaking of dragging women around by their hair, what in God's name is up with football players and the NFL? Five days ago, Cleveland Brown's receiver Josh Gordon was suspended for a year for smoking marijuana while Baltimore Ravens running back Ray Rice was given a two game suspension and fined an additional game paycheck for beating his wife unconscious and dragging her out of an elevator by her hair. Am I the only person who's totally disgusted by this bizarre and unbalanced punishment of those who break various NFL rules? I mean, come on. A full year for getting high on a substance that's legal in many places and two games and a fine for something so incredibly violent? This seems to be the exact opposite of what it should be.
And while NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell now admits Ray's punishment is not severe enough, he will not increase the penalty, either. That makes it worse for me, somehow. That the man with the power to correct this situation publically acknowledges that he got all wrong but refuses to fix it, anyway. How is that okay and where is the outrage from players and fans? Because I'll tell you the truth, I don't se any outrage.
I had an entire series of books planned around football players but I've scrapped it. The idea is just so distasteful now, that I've scrapped a year's worth of research, notes, outlines, and plans. I'll start over and I'm happy to do so.
The takeaway here? If you smoke pot, you're out for a year but if you beat the crap out of a woman, you get a slap on the hand. Never mind that pot is legal in many states and beating another human being is illegal in all states. Never mind the video showing Rice pulling the unconscious victim out of the elevator by her hair. Never mind that even the
Commissioner himself admits this is wrong. Just ignore all of that. It's the Boys of Fall, after all. Tradition and money and bonfires and money and tailgating and money and booze and money and...you get the idea. If you don't think Ray Rice and the NFL aren't benefiting from all this publicity, I've got some ocean front property in Iowa for sale. We should talk.
So the NFL and the player's union, the NFLPA, have been hard at work trying to hammer out a new agreement to address some of the inconsistencies in current policy. While they all agree there isn't likely to be amnesty for players who have been suspended for marijuana use, they do agree they'll update the policies to include a higher testing cutoff point before players are disciplined. I'm sure that's very reassuring for Josh Gordon, the receiver for the Cleveland Browns. Josh, as I've discussed here before, has been suspended for a year after testing positive for marijuana. 
