A Dingo Really Did Take Her Baby, Political Correctness, Motherhood and the Media

This is how things happen in The Hard Way land.  I watched a great program on PBS called Australia: First 4 Billion Years, which was a terrific show about the beginnings of our planet, its atmosphere, and its life forms.  Right up my alley.  I've always wondered why creationists oppose evolution, but not the fact that the universe is 6 billion years old, but that's a different subject.  Towards the end of the first segment, the host visited "one of Australia's most famous rocks", to which I responded, "Ayers Rock".  But, no, the host said "Uluru Rocks".  So I asked my husband to look up Ayer's rock and whether it had been renamed.  He didn't oblige, so I took to my computer, and indeed, it was renamed, first in 1993 to "Ayers Rock / Uluru",  an Aboriginal word specific to the rock, and again in 2004 to "Uluru / Ayers Rock".  So, I learned something.  But my searching didn't stop there.

I was curious about the scale of Ayers Rock, sorry, Uluru rock.  One of the pictures was entitled "area where matinee jacket found".  I had stumbled upon a crucial piece of evidence that had exonerated Lindy Chamberlain, of "A dingo took my baby" fame, the mother of Azaria, the unfortunate nine week old baby who died almost 33 years ago.  That led me to an interview with this amazing woman who finally secured legal documentation that, indeed, a dingo did take her baby.

See where curiosity will get you?  All over
the map, actually. 

Now, I was too young at the time to form an opinion about this case as it unfolded, but from the things that I've read, the media played up all sorts of unsavory ideas about the Chamberlains, and Lindy was sentenced to life in prison.  I started to think about the cases that I have formed opinions about, though.  Mainly, Trayvon Martin.  I have very, very clear ideas about what I think happened that night, that I won't share with you, because that is not the focus of this blog.  I will say, however, that case has grown strangely silent lately; and I have theories about why that is so, also, of course.  Most cases that have struck chords with the American public I have not formed opinions on, though, as I tend to detest sensationalism.  Specifically, Casey Anthony.  She is a mother.  Lindy Chamberlain is a mother.  I am a mother.  Could a mother kill her own baby?  I don't know.  I wish I could say for a fact that it would never be possible.  I wish it were never possible.  I do know in my heart of hearts that Lindy Chamberlain did not kill her baby, and I am pleased that she now, very belatedly, has legal proof that this is so.  My own insider view of a murder and the coverage of it has shown me that the media doesn't just get things wrong, it gets things very, very wrong.  That case did not see justice at all.  I have not had the same faith in media since that episode.  But, as Lindy says in her interview, those people are not dead yet, and you can't speak the truth until a person is dead.  That is sad, isn't it?  She's right.  Unless that person is Margaret Thatcher! 

Oh my goodness, I should see lots of comments on this one.