No Closure

I intended to post this yesterday but as I was writing, the power went out and I wasn’t able to.

I have written a lot of stuff about the whole mess surrounding the O.J. Simpson “If I Did It” book fiasco. If you are interested in my multitude of opinions, you can look here, here, here, and here.

When I last visited this sordid subject, the object of my ire was Fred Goldman as I had heard that he was seeking the rights to the book and planning to publish it. Here is what I said at the conclusion of that post.

My hope is that they (the Brown family) sue Goldman and stop this insanity. That would be a sad day also because, one would hope that the two families would be able form common front, in the interest of their loved ones memories.

Goldman is going to publish the book. This quote is taken from an East Valley Tribune video interview.

“We’re pursuing a judgment. I don’t have to justify anything we’re doing,” Goldman said in an interview with the Tribune. “I don’t apologize to anybody.”

I watched the complete video and Goldman seems sincere, or rather that he has convinced himself that this is the right thing to do. I really feel for the guy. He strikes me as a true fighter and that going after this judgment is his only recourse. I could buy that if, it stopped short of publishing this book. His case is that it exposes the personality traits of a sociopath and could be useful as some kind of educational device. I’m paraphrasing but that’s the gist.

Meanwhile the Tribune also interviewed Denise Brown. You can find an article and audio file here that contains this quote from her.

“He is a hypocrite,” said Brown during a phone interview. “The morally right thing to do is not publish this book. The morally wrong thing to do is to publish the book and then Fred Goldman will be true to his last name — a man out for gold.”

I have to agree with her. Denise Brown is a fighter as well. She has started a petition, at her website denisebrown.com, to stop Goldman from publishing the book. Goldman did a similar thing last year in an effort to stop Simpson.

I find it sad that Ms. Brown has to put a petition in to motion. It is, evidently unrealistic, to hope that the two families could somehow be a united front. Furthermore, all of this unpleasantness after the fact, hammers home the reality that in a case like this; there is no such thing as “closure”.