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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: longnshort who wrote (731948)	8/9/2013 2:56:59 PM
From: joseffy	Respond to of 1577280

DEEP THINKER Danielle C. Belton tells it like it is ..................................................................... Danielle C. Belton Zimmerman is stuck in infamy Friday, Aug. 09, 2013 By Danielle C. Belton Last week George Zimmerman — found innocent of murder, but still the killer of teen Trayvon Martin — was pulled over for speeding by a police officer in Forney, east of Dallas. Nothing happened. In fact, the only detail of note was that Zimmerman was packing heat in the glove compartment (which he disclosed to the officer) and was going “nowhere in particular.” The officer’s dashboard camera captured the non-incident, and the officer himself got away with snapping a cellphone picture of Zimmerman’s drivers license. Perhaps the officer couldn’t help himself, since George Zimmerman is “famous.” Not the kind of famous where you ask to be in a cellphone picture with him, but the infamous kind, where you sneak a picture that you can show your disbelieving friends later in a ghoulish conversation about celebrity, death and the continued life of George Zimmerman. While, for many folks, the story of dead Florida teen Trayvon Martin and the man who killed him was one that people chose sides over and were passionate about, for many others it was another narrative played out in the media like reality TV. Even the court case was televised. There was a spectacle about all of it. A story. And stories end. A Hollywood ending would have meant that Zimmerman went to prison, never to be thought of again. But there was no Hollywood ending. He was found not guilty, and so now Zimmerman is famous — or, rather, infamous. But no one has any idea what to do with him. Fame is typically good currency if you know what to do with it. Look at Republican Tom DeLay going from smiling mug-shot crook to Dancing With the Stars. Or Sydney Leathers, who’s turned some “sexts” between herself and New York mayoral candidate Anthony Weiner into a semi-lucrative porn-adjacent career. Maybe she'll go on Dancing With the Stars next. But what do you do with infamy, that cousin of fame that has no real currency to cash in? When you are renowned, not by happy accident or from a Shakespearean downfall after reaching near-Caesar heights, but because you’re a killer? Not a convicted murderer, but someone who killed someone, and everyone knows who you are and what you did, and all hold a judgment? It’s hard to drum up pity for the infamous. George Zimmerman caused this nightmare scenario. He helped create a world in which it would be hard for him to find work, to find a place to live, to drive down a highway and have it not turn into national news. And each reference to how Zimmerman lives — from apparently saving people in an overturned vehicle in Florida to driving around Texas — is an ominous reminder of who does not live. Zimmerman is not alone in this. He has lots of company to look to in order to get an idea of what the rest of his life will look like. Will he be a Casey Anthony or an O.J. Simpson? Both insisted that they were innocent but were convicted in the court of public opinion. Anthony has spent the time since her trial largely in hiding, only emerging on YouTube to lament her new life and talk about new body piercings. Simpson spent his time golfing, dating various women and being a tabloid mainstay until he decided to star in an armed robbery of his own memorabilia. He’s still in prison. Anthony has avoided the limelight, while Simpson couldn’t give it up. So will Zimmerman travel this great land racking up police stops and saving strangers? Will he try to live his life with an awareness that he took someone else’s life? Will he retreat to the recesses of our society, only to be heard of in whispers? Or will he choose to live boldly, reveling in his found innocence and arguing that he shouldn’t have to live his life as a monk when the legal system came out on his side? No matter which path he chooses, it’s likely that we'll know all about it because Zimmerman is infamous. Whatever he does — no matter how ordinary or extraordinary — will be news. He'll never stop being a bold-faced name. All Zimmerman stories fit the narrative of “Trayvon Martin is dead, but George Zimmerman lives.” George Zimmerman drives. George Zimmerman carries a gun. George Zimmerman exists despite the lack of a prison sentence to keep him away from our prying eyes. Because, let’s face it, the media like to tell a nice, tight story with a real ending, and prison would have been a period on the end of a sentence. Only, there is no real conclusion — other than this theater of the absurd in which we pretend that Zimmerman getting a speeding ticket is news because an infamous killer was there. Danielle C. Belton is a freelance journalist and TV writer, founder of the blog blacksnob.com and editor-at-large of “Clutch” magazine. Read more here: star-telegram.com