Roman Polanski

Roman Polanski has been arrested. Apparently, all parents of 13 year old girls can sleep easy.

At least, that is what the L.A. District Attorney's office would apparently have us believe.

Polanski was arrested for drugging and raping a 13-year old girl. It was a crime. One to which he pleaded guilty. And spent time in jail undergoing psychiatric evaluation for.

He had been able to arrange a plea bargain with the state to avoid major jail time. I don't know the circumstances of this agreement, but apparently Polanski had found out that the judge in the case was planning to refuse it.

So Polanski did what anyone else with the means and the opportunity to do so would do: he fled.

He spent the better part of the next 40 years living abroad, never able to come home again. In the years since, Polanski has made dozens of films and won Oscars that he has not been able to accept. Meanwhile, his victim has gotten on with her life, is married and a mother, and had probably hoped that this particular part of her life would never be dredged up again.

But it has happened.

Some ambitious L.A. DA, hoping no doubt for bigger and better things in the future, arranged for Polanski to be arrested while in Switzerland. And the whole can of worms pops open again.

So, Roman Polanski will now spend months in jail fighting extradition. His victim, who thought this was behind her, is dragged into it again. And the news organizations of the world focus their attention on this story.

And they ignore the stories about other 13 year old girls being raped, or worse.

THAT, my friends, is the real tragedy of this story. Today, now, even as I write this, there are crimes being committed against young girls all over the world that are tens or hundred times worse than what happened to Polanski's victim. A good portion of those crimes are probably happening right here in the good old U.S. of A.

Nobody will care about these, of course, because the perpetrators and victims of these crimes are not famous. Not worth reporting about.

Not worth caring about.