The Simpson Post That O.J. Simpson is still considered relevant on the national landscape escapes me. When I worked in the battered women's shelter in Nashville more than 18 years ago long before the murder of his wife and a waiter, he was on what I will call the "celebrity watch list." This basically means we continued to hear rumors that he was violent toward his wife. Then the murder occurred and the media circus began. I sat the afternoon of the infamous Bronco Watch at the radio station where I worked as news director eyeballing the AP wire, reading little blurbs as O.J. rode through the streets of Los Angeles. Now, we have a book where O.J. writes how have committed the murder if he had indeed committed it. He was acquitted of the crime in 1995 and a 33 million dollar judgement against him in a civil case which still is unpaid. I guess the question I have is how classless this whole thing is. Let's forget about O.J. for a minute and take into account how something this trashy, as John H. notes quite well in a post, will be given two hours on Fox and the fact that his publisher says she considers this book a confession. Families have lost loved ones and this is being treated as a pop culture joke? Please. Did O.J. kill his wife, Nicole, and Ron Goldman? I wasn't there, I don't know but his behavior over the years, long before the murder of his wife and then revealing photos and 911 calls do point that he was a batterer. It almost seems to me he is mocking the survivors of this terrible homicide, and I think that is absolutely horrible. Working with battered women over the years, I have seen women dragged behind cars with the heels of their feet destroyed leaving bloody messes. I've seen scars on women who were beat with hot curling irons. I have seen things you don't want to see. I have seen women escape their batterers by moving to new cities only to be caught again by their partners and beaten after thinking they had started a new life. I've been pushed around standing in front of batterers trying to get to their wives, who stood frightened behind me. I have seen women go back to their batterers because schools had released their children to them due to legal loopholes because of threats that their children would be hurt if she didn't return. The threats against some of the children were so heinous, and much more common than you can imagine, it would make your toes curl. So, this isn't a joke. And O.J. Simpson, who vowed he would find his estranged wife's killer and has done nothing, sickens me. I feel he is mocking not only the mother of his children, but a young man that was returning her glasses. And it's wrong. I will not watch this horrendous display which is all about money.  ¶ 11/16/2006 07:54:00 AM