Weekly Whack: The State of the O.J.
The State of the O.J.
February 9, 1997

This past Tuesday was certainly an odd day in the history of television journalism. News stations were forced to choose whether to televise President Clinton's annual State of the Union Address or the highly anticipated verdict in the O.J. Simpson civil trial. What a terrible time to be a television producer. How can you make that choice? On one side of the coin you have the direction that the nation will be going for the next year, and on the other side you have O.J. It seemed like each network handled it differently. Some showed President Clinton, others showed the verdict, and a few even used split-screens to try and show both. The only network that didn't have to worry about it was UPN, which just showed "Homeboys in Outerspace" as usual. So since we here at Feff World always like to keep with the times, it would show a great deal of negligence if this week's Whack wasn't about the two biggest news stories of the week.

Gee, where should I start. Well, I guess since everybody is really getting sick of the whole O.J. thing, I'll get that out of the way first. In the big rematch of the trial of the century, O.J. hit the canvas to the tune of 8.5 million dollars. However, it should be noted that the rules were a bit different this time. The first bout the prosecution had to knock out O.J. by proving their case beyond any reasonable doubt. In the rematch they only had to go the distance with O.J. and prove their case with a preponderance of evidence. So instead of being one hundred percent sure, a juror only had to be fifty-one percent sure to return a guilty verdict. And I'm sure that most jurors had some doubt in their mind. I mean the case wasn't as cut as dry (no pun intended) as most people thought it was. The way I see it, the LAPD started to frame O.J. until they realized that he was actually the one who did it. They framed a guilty guy. So the mixture of the tampered evidence and the real evidence created enough confusion to cause reasonable doubt in the first trial, and result in the not guilty verdict. However, it apparently didn't cause enough doubt in the civil trial, which resulted in the guilty verdict. So it is for this reason that O.J. Simpson is a free man, but he will be buying his shoes at K-Mart from now on.

Anyhow, it wasn't really the verdict that I had a problem with, it was the reaction to the verdict that kind of got to me. I mean if Fred Goldman celebrated anymore, it would have involved someone getting dunked by Gatorade. I just don't think that this something you celebrate too much. You figure his son is dead, his killer still walks the street, there was never any real justice, so what's there to celebrate? The only one who really gets hurt in the whole thing is O.J. and Nicole's children. Sure their father can still buy them ice cream, but minus 8.5 million dollars, I really don't see how he can provide for their futures. And what about the media's reaction to the verdict? I was watching ABC, and when the verdict came out, Peter Jennings was looking for nothing less than an all out riot. He almost seemed disappointed that there wasn't a riot. When talking to a reporter on the scene, he was pretty much like, "Why aren't anybody rioting? Doesn't the black community realize that one of their own was found guilty? They should be burning buildings and stealing VCR's or something. What have they grown soft?" I mean the only reason race was such a big issue in this trial, is because the media made it a big issue. Every newscast I watched showed some poll about how many black people thought O.J. was innocent, and how many white people thought he was guilty. They never showed the opinions of Asians, Hispanics, Native Americans, or any other ethnic group that makes America the vast melting pot it is. The whole time is was simply black and white, and that was solely because of the media.

Well I think now is a good time for some real comic relief, so let's move on to Clinton's State of the Union Address. I'm getting tired of all this talk about building a bridge to the twenty-first century. Clinton is over- dramatizing the thing a bit too much. The only difference between the twentieth century and the twenty-first century is all in semantics. Sure it is significant that Clinton is the last president of the twentieth century (granted he doesn't screw up), but it doesn't make his job any different. It's not like Clinton has to do anything special in order for the twenty-first century to arrive, it just comes. One day it will still be the twentieth century, and then the next day it will be the twenty-first century. See, it's simple. We don't need a bridge or anything. Bush never worried about building a bridge to the year 1992, so Clinton doesn't need to worry about building a bridge to the year 2000. But anyhoo, another major topic of the State of the Union Address was education. It looks like education is going to be Clinton's big crusade of his second term. Hopefully it will fair better than his major crusade of his first term, health care. I don't exactly agree with all his views on education, but I guess attempting every school up to the Internet is a noble endeavor. I mean it is about time that the youth of our nation are exposed to easily accessible pornography. I'm serious about this one. Children from other countries always do much better than American children on tests where you have to identify parts of the human reproductive system, and various sexual positions as well. It's about time we caught up. And I don't think the world is dangerous enough for our children. They are all going to grow up weak. I think it will be good that they will exposed to more forty year old pedophiles posing as twelve year old boys. Actually, in all seriousness, I think hooking all the schools up to the Internet is a great idea. Hopefully it will boost the number of visitors to Feff World. I mean after last week with O.J. and the President's State of the Union Address, I'm convinced that what our children need to develop most, is a good sense of humor.

Well court is adjourned on this Whack, so to conclude for this week, O.J. Simpson will have to start clipping coupons if he expects to feed his family; President Clinton will have to start clipping spending if he expects to balance the budget; and the third winner-take-all O.J. trial will be held in a steel cage.

Now for this week's special feature, Feff's top ten favorite television shows on UPN:

10. Homeboys in Outerspace
9. Star Trek: Voyager
8. The Burning Zone
7. Bounty Hunters
6. Babylon 5
5. Goode Behavior
4. Sparks
3. In the House
2. Malcolm & Eddie
1. Moesha