March 31, 2012

Thinking like Tom Wolfe about Trayvon and Zimmerman

So far, all we know of the last phone conversations between Trayvon Martin and his anonymous girlfriend is snatches of dialogue overseen by Martin family lawyer Benjamin Crump (which, by the way, sounds like a name chosen by Tom Wolfe for a Bonfire of the Vanities character as a Dickensian tribute). Unfiltered by Crump and under oath, what might the girlfriend have to say?

Let's try thinking like Tom Wolfe: for maximum discomfiture. Here's a possibility that might come out at, say, a trial of George Zimmerman if Crump dares put the girlfriend on the stand and expose her to cross-examination: It's hardly implausible that Trayvon Martin might have worried that this strange man was following him in the dark for homoerotic purposes, and he might have mentioned that concern to his girlfriend over the phone. 

Of course, if he did, he probably wouldn't have used the term "homoerotic purposes." 

What if Trayvon used the (heavens) "3-letter F-word" to describe Zimmerman? What if he said to her, "I'm going to punch that f__ because I hate f___?"

Chaos in the courtroom ...

Of course, then we would be treated to learned disquisitions on how gaybashing is actually okay as long as the bashee isn't actually gay; or that what Trayvon actually meant was that he wanted to punch that pedophile and pedophile-bashing is A-OK.

67 comments:

Anonymous said...

OT: The pitcher Jamie Moyer made the Colorado Rockies' rotation. He's 49 years old.

http://news.yahoo.com/49-old-moyer-earns-spot-rockies-rotation-033448627--mlb.html

eh said...

learned

ww

AMac said...

Batman versus Spiderman, oh no! Which side should I root for? That would be a stressful choice, so thank goodness for learned disquisitions.

Not to thread-jack, but it bears mentioning that the girlfriend's account of the call came three weeks after the shooting.

Old-school people might think a delay of this magnitude is material. However, Team Trayvon apparently does not. ABC News reporter/cheerleader Matt Gutman failed to note it. As far as I know, it remains unacknowledged in prestige press accounts.

Anonymous said...

This young lady's resemblance with Malia is so striking that we should expect a moving declaration from her father at any time now.

Anonymous said...

From Canada
www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/konrad-yakabuski/trayvons-killing-echoes-an-uglier-time-in-america/article2388021/?service=mobile

Anonymous said...

How could the girl even testify? Isn't that hearsay?

Dr Cattle said...

This is going to end in Riots right?

SD said...

It's actually Trey Von Martin, a German name...

PublicSphere said...

OT:

A NYT op-ed about "Pragmatism on the Prairie." Thesis: socialism works great in North Dakota; why not elsewhere?

Pragmatism on the Prairie

Cuing Steve on Yglesias: They do everything better in Spitzbergen!

One answer is guaranteed not to occur to the author or her readers: that North Dakota is virtually all White Protestants with a high degree of civic virtue and social trust.

If they don't want to talk about race, how about considering whether "prairie socialism" would work in such cradles of Catholic culture as Chicago, Louisiana and New Jersey, perennial toppers of the "most corrupt government" lists?

Anonymous said...


Let's try thinking like Tom Wolfe: for maximum discomfiture. Here's a possibility that might come out at, say, a trial of George Zimmerman if Crump dares put the girlfriend on the stand and expose her to cross-examination:


Are you thinking of a civil trial?

It seems likely that if a criminal trial happens, then the defense will call the girlfriend to the stand as a witness anyway.

Peter said...

Then there's always the theory that Martin thought Zimmerman was a Hispanic gangbanger looking for a fight on his own turf.

Anonymous said...

I do not believe that anything this girl has to say can come in as evidence in any legal case. Pure hearsay. The reason hearsay is not allowed in a court is because the maker of the statement cannot be cross-examined. Here, we have a girlfriend who is quite likely a partisan in the case, who is going to say whatever may be approved by Al Sharpton/Benjamin Crump, "channeling" statements by the late Trayvon Martin.

RKU said...

Well, from what's now come out, Trayvon and Zimmerman seem to have been approximately the same weight, while Trayvon was maybe six inches taller and a football player, while Zimmerman had a desk job as a mortgage analyst. I'm not sure how many towering football players in hoodies wandering around strange neighborhoods at night really suspect that the shortish guy keeping a suspicious eye on them is actually a "pedophile."

After all, youths in black neighborhoods seem to get shot all the time for "eyeing" each other, but I've never heard "suspicion of pedophilia" used as a defense in court.

It wouldn't surprise me if Trayvon was casually casing the homes as possible burglary targets, and got angry that some nosy resident seemed to think he looked suspicious, which was why he violently attacked.

greenrivervalleyman said...

Jerry Sandusky: sex with teenage boys; creepy and not one-of-us.
Conclusion: pedophile, not a homosexual.
Next Public Appearance: arraignment

Mayor Sam Adams: sex with a teenage boy, hip and one-of-us.
Conclusion: sex with teenage boys is not pedophilia.
Next Public Appearance: cameo on hit TV series Portlandia

International Jew said...

Is it possible that the real reason Zimmerman hasn't been arrested is that Crump doesn't want the wheels of justice to even start moving toward a criminal trial? Maybe too much bad stuff about Trayvon would come out. Crump's winning strategy may be to just intimidate the homeowners association to settle for a few million, and maybe force the police department to hire more "diversity".

AnotherDad said...

Great thought!

That would be funny and "educational" and i'd love to see the "scrambling".

Unfortunately the chances of getting the truth out of this girl seem to me to be darn near zero. Some groups of people have a very high "natural compulsion" to tell the truth. I doubt this girl is from one of them. And Crump will have her very, very well coached with a story to stick to and things not to say. She may stumble and be incoherent, but i don't think she'll break down Perry Mason like and start telling the truth.

It's odd to me that someone who is basically howling for blood (and money) on the part of the homicide victim actually also has latitude complete control over a witness and can freely coach what she says.

Seems like this can only be the Wolfian educational experience i'd like to see, if the police actually got a statement from her. I.e. that they took Trayvon Martin's cell, and dutifully got the call log from the carrier and then thoroughly interviewed this girl. I haven't heard that this happened. Which does seem like police shoddiness.

Anonymous said...

@Steve

a. Do you really think that being under oath will have an influence on this girl's testimony?

b. Why did the girlfriend tell Martin to put his hood on? (Or Martin told the girl he was going to put his hood on.) Was it in order to intimidate Zimmerman? Was it to conceal his identity?

c. Had Martin paid for his candy and drink at the convenience store?

candid_observer said...

What a weird post.

Speculation on top of supposition on top of dubious inference.

Yeah, it could all play out that way in principle, but what if just about none of it is, or comes, true?

I kinda doubt in any case that the girlfriend would admit to Trayvon's using the current F word even if he had. Memories can turn awfully poor when they are inconvenient -- unless of course she told someone else willing to spill the beans.

BTW, one thing I haven't heard much commentary about (in fact, none) is the courage of the 13 year old kid whose testimony supported Zimmerman's account.

That is one brave dude.

Anonymous said...

As if what she says on the stand will be in any way based on what Trayvon said to her that night.

By the time this comes to trial, she will be coached to the gills, and certainly won't say anything so offensive.

swimming swan said...

These hypothetical meanderings of yours are inane. Where's Sailer?

Also, use Trayvon and George or Martin and Zimmerman instead of one person's first name and the other's last.

Anonymous said...

Slightly OT, but we now have a case where a Hispanic is not white. Seven black kids have been arrested for beating up a white, I mean Hispanic, hid in California. They even got them for using racially derogatory statements.

Anonymous said...

Meet Tyrone Woodfork who looks like Obama's son if he had one.

Tyrone and his pals raped and killed 85 years old woman and put her 90 years old husband into hospital in critical condition. This looks to be news strictly in Oklahoma and UK.

greenrivervalleyman said...

Steve, maybe it's time to cut our losses and make peace with the homosexual lobby. All this white identity politics sectarianism (gays vs. straights, feminists vs. men) is a luxury that can only be afforded when you're 70% or more of the population. Sarah Palin and Michelle Bachmann are the twin darlings of movement conservatives, yet the former can't stop nattering on about the "glass ceilings" she's broken, while the latter had a very Hillary-like meltdown at the debates over supposed condescension towards her by the old boys network. Which is to say, conservatives have had to make some concessions to feminist ideology in order to bring tough, charismatic women like them into the fold.

So why not do the same with gays? Republicans do about 5x better with the gay vote than the black vote, despite actively demonizing homosexuals while kissing Sharpton's ring and promoting incompetent backstabbers like Michael Steele. Gays must intuitively realize that the sort of lifestyle they desire (fashion, theater, fine urban living) is only possible in a well-run, prosperous, non-NAM society. Even black homosexuals, who seem more refined and intelligent than even the white norm* (I've encountered a lot of them on my wife's Bravo reality shows) must surely grasp this.

So why not an alliance with civilization-upholding homosexuals? Gays are quickly rising to the top of the oppressed minority pyramid, and so will have the authority to criticize blacks. What's more, through their outsized influence in media, fashion, and entertainment, they will be able to undermine that main bulwark of political correctness- i.e. nice, idealistic white women. Once thousands of gay best friends start spreading the word that the bottom 1/2 (3/4?) of black America is not all soulful "angels of Harlem" like Trayvon Martin, but icky, bottom-feeding orklings like Tyrone Woodfork (battered to death AND sexually assaulted a 90 year old woman!) support for affirmative action, Section 8 housing, etc. will crumble.

Plus Steve Sailer, editor-in-chief of the new, Chris Hughes-run, HDB-influenced New Republic- has a nice ring to it.

Prunella Whitcomb said...

Sailer may be right- liberals would "spin" the gay thing to maintain a certain narrative, but then if Trayvon used the 'F' word, it could be a plus with some conservatives because: (a) it riles up the gay liberals and 'log cabin' right wingers, (b) Trayon's putative punch thrown at impending attack would certainly be in the "stand your ground" tradition. Matter of fact if Trayvon did turn around to confront a stranger following him in the gloom, he is to be commended for "standing his ground."

In addition, the gay thing would allow conservatives to present a "teachable moment" to liberals, highlighting the importance of higher white culture, especially since pedophilia and homosexuality has an honored place in advanced European culture. The Greeks are a case in point - they relished pederasty, and ranked man-boy action as among their highest expressions of love. Nor were such practices confined to mere mortals. Mighty Zeus was no shirker at the rear- kidnapping and having sex with the human male Ganymede for example. Zeus generously gave Ganymede’s father a golden grapevine and/or a pair of horses in exchange for his son. The man got paid as they say. It is thus no surprise that the longest conversation in Plato the Greek's Symposium is about the nature of homosexual love. As on scholar puts it:

"It was not unusual for men to comment on the attractiveness of other men, or for them to express affection for one another. At least part of the reason for this fascination with physical attractiveness and sex is that the Greeks had developed into a culture that had a great deal of leisure time. They were not required to work constantly in order to survive. Blumenfeld and Raymond wrote: “Similarly, the Greek attitude toward sex was, for the most part, value-neutral..

[homosexuality] was widely tolerated both for older men who had children and for younger men prior to marriage.” (Blumenfeld and Raymond 1988, 155).. Greek society only negatively defined homosexual activity when it was exclusive or related to prostitution by a citizen. In nearly every other instance, homosexual conduct was considered acceptable and practical. "

--(Looking at gay and lesbian life, 1988, by Blumenfeld and Raymond: pg 153-179)

and


"Aspects of Spartan society conduced less to heterosexuality than to homosexuality. In his Laws, Plato wrote that homosexuality resulted from the (male) dining groups and from male nudity in gymnasia. Records of Sparta from the classical period seem to refer to homosexual boyfriends at least as often as to wives. particularly revealing, are some assertions by Xenophon on this subject."


Conservatives could use the above to contradict liberal attempts to bash advanced white European culture.

Camlost said...

By now she's certainly been coached out of repeating any "fag" references that Trayvon may have made. Sharpton knows better than that.

Power Child said...

It's much simpler than that: gay bashing is okay if a black person (or any racial minority?) does it. Or at least, we'll look the other way.

beowulf said...

Ha ha, you have a twisted mind Sailer. On the other hand, I was the one who suggested the Matt Yglesias was attacked was because the assailants thought he was gay, so yeah its quite possible.

At any rate, this sounds like manslaughter charge (the junior varsity murder charge, he'll be out in less than 5). You'll see this for bar fights where the guy exercising self-defense is the same guy who started the fight.

Luke Lea said...

Far fetched.

Played With Eichelberger said...

Steve, that wouldn't be Wolfian because Wolfe does his research, and when it comes to gays blacks don't act like that. First, you'll never hear a black person say "fag." The full version, yes, but they don't shorten it. Secondly, even really horny gays don't follow you to make an approach. They like to shine their love eyes at you, which means coming from the front, and black guys know this. Third, black really don't get that discomfited by gay men. They just go, "Naw, I'm not like that." Take it from a guy who's spent his whole life in Frisco and Berkeley.

Hail said...

New angle:
Grand Dragon George Zimmerman should be executed for pedophilia and murder.

To ensure that GZ's horrendous White Racism is crushed, he should be drawn and quartered. His bones should be ceremonially smashed by teams of heroic anti-racists with sledgehammers, while wearing "hoodies" to protest Racism, of course.

TM's date of death shall be made a national holiday, by decree of his postmoretmly-adoptive father, Barack Hussein Obama.

Hotdogs are Yummy said...

That's splendid! I assume the lawyer will coach her to never say such a thing. If she does, gay-bashing itself will recast as yet another product of White Privilege™. So, a Mexican guy kills a black guy, partly caused by the black guy hating gays – naturally White people's fault.

Anonymous said...

"It's much simpler than that: gay bashing is okay if a black person (or any racial minority?) does it. Or at least, we'll look the other way."

Didn't Steve himself point out that gay is the new black? Gay identity politics simply trumps racial identity politics. See, e.g., Prop 8, where the Wicked, Evil Obama Supporters who voted against SSM were subject to bald threats from the gay community. And this was all OK, because, after all, the Obama Supporters had offended the true power in California.

Glaivester said...

What if Trayvon used the (heavens) "3-letter F-word" to describe Zimmerman? What if he said to her, "I'm going to punch that f__ because I hate f___?"

I think it's more like, "I'm going to punch that m______f__ing f__ because I hate m_____f__ing f___s, and that m______f__ing f_____ is probably gonna b____f____ me up the m____f____ing a___h___!"

TontoBubbaGoldstein said...

Please, Steve, get with the narrative. Trayvon probably rightly suspected exactly who Zimmerman was. ( You know, a "white" cop or rentacop or neighborhood watch captain targeting a brotha...). Of course, my feeling is that George probably, correctly assessed what Martin was up to, also. Gangsta wannabe just didn't realize cop wannabe was packing. (Feel free to make your own joke, here.)

Julius said...

C'mon, Sailer. Get with the times. "Punk" is the black underclass' preferred nomenclature for a homosexual.

Anonymous said...

Re: Hearsay commenters

There are a lot of exceptions to hearsay, something like 26 in the federal rules of evidence.

But, to begin with, whatever Trav said to his girlfriend is only hearsay if offered for the truth of what he was saying. So if he said, "why are you following me?" it's only hearsay if you are using it to prove that he was being followed.

On the other hand, if you are using it to show the state of mind of Trav, then it's not hearsay.

Also, big exceptions here are excited utterances and dead man's words. If Trav screams, "that white and Hispanic guy is about to shoot me for being black!" it is an excited utterance that the jury will hear.

Plus, find me a jury in Fl that doesn't know about this call.

Off topic, but Obama's supposition that if he had a son, he'd look like Trav is I guess hinged on the premise that he has that son with Michelle. If he had the son by a white mother, the boy would not look much like Trav at all. Shouldn't he have said, if Michelle and I had a son, or if a mostly black woman and I had a son, he would have looked like Trav?

Harry Baldwin said...

Anonymous International Jew said...
Is it possible that the real reason Zimmerman hasn't been arrested is that Crump doesn't want the wheels of justice to even start moving toward a criminal trial?


What would Crumpa have to say about whether or not Zimmerman is arrested? In a murder case, no one has to press charges, the state does.

Mr. Anon said...

"Anonymous said...

Didn't Steve himself point out that gay is the new black? Gay identity politics simply trumps racial identity politics. See, e.g., Prop 8, where the Wicked, Evil Obama Supporters who voted against SSM were subject to bald threats from the gay community. And this was all OK, because, after all, the Obama Supporters had offended the true power in California."

That's not what happened - at least not as I remembered it. It's true that a majority of blacks voted for Prop. 8. But the homosexual lobby didn't retaliate against blacks, they retaliated against mormons.

Anonymous said...

Would you mind thinking about why 3/4s of the Final Four coaches are Italian-American like Steve Sailer instead?

much too YT said...

If the call happened, won't there be a computer record with service provider(s) that shows time and who called whom, along with texts before the call? Why no videos of Trayvon in the store yet?

Kiwiguy said...

Reinstate Stephanie Eisner! She was fired from the University of Texas student newspaper for her cartoon mocking the biased media coverage of the Zimmerman/Martin affair.

http://www.change.org/petitions/daily-texan-newspaper-reinstate-stephanie-eisner

Anonymous said...

"That's not what happened - at least not as I remembered it."

Well, you missed it.

Anonymous said...

An interesting anecdote regarding urban standards of truthfulness as witnesses:

In Muskegon, MI, in 2009, Julius Johnson was shot to death by a local police officer named Charles Anderson (coincidentally, another Julius Johnson was shot fatally by a cyclist he was beating in Reading, PA earlier this year, which is how I found out about Michigan Julius Johnson).

Though it was the cop's eventual testimony (and that of horrific injuries that hospitalized him for months), that Johnson had ambushed him while the officer was pursuing him on foot after he fled a traffic stop, and commenced to beating him with a length of 4 x 4. Anderson fired blindly several times through a haze of blood, and fell unconscious, killing Johnson in the process.

Johnson's sister, Tunisia Phillips, who happened to be very close to the terminal scene, was the only witness to the final events who was not dead or unconscious in the ICU.

So, perhaps thinking Anderson would die, she immediately told police that Anderson, who fell unconscious from massive head trauma seconds later until backup arrived within minutes, had just before that overcome his injuries long enough to subdue Johnson (who was unmarked other than the fatal shot) as he pleaded for his life and murdered him in cold blood.

She had no clue what the physical evidence might reveal, but decided to go all in by accusing the unresponsive Anderson of CAPITAL MURDER.

Suffice it to say, some things had occurred outside her sight which were in evidence to contradict her smear, and Anderson was racist enough to recover with an intact memory of Johnson's last moments.

Anyway, Phillips was being advised by race hustlers from early on, but still managed to get caught without ever getting to cross in a courtroom.

In the end, the only person tried in the whole, sordid affair was Phillips and she was convicted of giving false testimony or some such. A felony, but with a short prison sentence. Black community sentiment, as gauged by me from reading news story comments and watching local TV news interviews, was that "Her brother got killed, we have to try to understand her mental state."

Whatever her mental state, she clearly had no talent for lying, and I'm guessing Deedee doesn't either.

We know they are pretty good at assuming the role of victim with gusto, but are blacks really any good at lying? I don't think they are.

Anonymous said...

Two questions about the girlfriend, one: why didn't she attempt to call back if the call was disconnected? and two: barring the above, why not call the cops?

Anonymous said...

Quick follow on: I can think of several ways the average intelligence of groups of defendants might effect outcomes in the criminal justice system.

Anonymous said...

Two answers:

1) Maybe she did try to call back.

2) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oJ-ldcnhsLY

Anonymous said...

but are blacks really any good at lying? I don't think they are.

Blacks lie like 7 yo children. They say things like, "a friend gave it to me" or "the gun went off" (a perennial favorite).

There is a great willingness to lie, but the lies tend to be elementary, look at Al Sharpton. Truth be told, they tend to believe their lies, which is why when the lies are not believed, riots erupt.

Big Bill said...

The key thing is to keep the girlfriend talking. If she is ghetto trash, she will likely make the stories bigger and more grandiose as she goes along, inflating her role more and more until there are so many different flavors that her testimony is worthless. If only some third party would offer her a few bucks (say $1000 or so) to "get the bruthaman's side of the story out there" and let her run her mouth on and on, you could basically destroy her value as a witness. Particularly if it was some cute 20-something bruthaman you picked to get her to talk.

Anonymous said...

OT: The pitcher Jamie Moyer made the Colorado Rockies' rotation. He's 49 years old.

If Steve feels like getting off of this [depressing] crime beat, and back onto the sports beat, then here's a thread he could start: How the Scots-Irish who run the NBA draft on POTENTIAL rather than on ACCOMPLISHMENT.

And here's a prime example: At North Carolina, they already know that they're losing their top 4 players [the senior Tyler Zeller, plus three early entrants - Jon Henson, Harrison Barnes, and Kendall Marshall].

Which is bad enough for UNC, but what's absolutely killing the Tar Heel fans now is that they have a freshman, James Michael McAdoo [a distant relative of the Hall-of-Famer, Bob McAdoo], who had a horribly disappointing season - he looked like a deer in the headlights for the vast majority of the season - but for whom "the lightbulb went off" about two or three games before the end of the season, and who therefore had a couple of good games on national television, and who got the attention of commentator [and former player] Charles Barkley, who said on national television that McAdoo was UNC's best player.

The kid had season stats of 6.1 PPG & 3.9 RPG with negligible everything else, but because it's "obvious" to everyone that he has an NBA body, with what they call NBA "hops", he's now being touted as a top-5 pick in this year's NBA Draft.

Anyway, I thought that this was about as good an example of Scots-Irish hypocrisy on HBD-Theory and "obvious" innate potential as you're ever going to find: Nobody in the NBA gives a damn what you've actually accomplished as an amateur in the NCAA - all they care about is the "potential" which is burned into your DNA.

F*cking hypocrites.

Anonymous said...

One answer is guaranteed not to occur to the author or her readers: that North Dakota is virtually all White Protestants with a high degree of civic virtue and social trust.

You left out "and an oil industry which would make 1900's Texas green with envy, but which demands only high-IQ workers on account of the technical sophistication of fracking hardware & fracking software - dummies need not apply".

Anonymous said...

Even Social Games companies are pushing the Narrative

Anonymous said...

Why do so few people understand what paedophilia is? It is an attraction to small infants, not to six foot plus adolescents.

Anonymous said...

"Youth" ants in Africa.

NOTA said...

Steve:

This is off-topic, but related to a discussion you were having a couple months ago, about speaking fees for politicians. This article discusses journalists taking speaking fees.

Anonymous said...

"Take it from a guy who's spent his whole life in Frisco and Berkeley."

Yeah! Only people from Frisco know that it's secret code name is Frisco!

Mr. Anon said...

"Anonymous said...

"That's not what happened - at least not as I remembered it."

Well, you missed it."

Can you supply a link or quote which illustrates your point?

formerly no name said...

Dixie's blacks and whites celebrate their common culture:
South Carolina

Matthew C Smallwood said...

If it did go to trial, the trial should be compared to John Adams' defense of the British troops who fired on the rioting mob during the Boston Massacres. It could make someone's career.

sane_voter said...

After seeing Benjamin Crump being interviewed on the O'Reilly Factor, I can safely say he is no Johnny Cochran. So if he is coaching the girfriend, she is probably at high risk of a perjury charge.

Svigor said...

So, a Mexican guy kills a black guy, partly caused by the black guy hating gays – naturally White people's fault.

He's a White Peruvian Indian, not a Mexican you RACIST!!!

Anonymous said...

Shouldn't that be Trayvon and George?

On another topic: Is this the first sign of enlightenment

TontoBubbaGoldstein said...

" Wha had happen was...."

beowulf said...

OT: The pitcher Jamie Moyer made the Colorado Rockies' rotation...

Batman versus Spiderman, oh no! Which side should I root for...

This young lady's resemblance with Malia is so striking...


Yeah, maybe Steve should put up an open thread once in a while to drain the OT comments (and certainly I do it all the time too).

beowulf said...

"Yeah! Only people from Frisco know that it's secret code name is Frisco!"

Ha, of course people who live there hate "Frisco". Just as aborigines in every language call themselves "the People", Bay city rollers (to coin a phrase) call their hometown "the City" and they expect restaurants to know what "Joe's Special" is (which is quite good).
http://www.cooksrecipes.com/gmeat/joes-special-recipe.html

Camlost said...

And Jamie Moyer has 7 kids !!

Of course, he's also trying to adopt the obligatory 3rd-world child from SE Asia.

Mr. Anon said...

"Anonymous said...

On another topic: Is this the first sign of enlightenment?"

No. Those Ace-of-Spades fan-boys remain unenlightened. Try telling them some of the things you might say here, and they'll shout you down as a racist and a nazi.

NOTA said...

Anon 9:12:

On the other hand, stories where cops shoot someone tend to be determined to be the other guy's fault, even if surveillance tapes and cellphone recordings of the incident have to be accidentally deleted. So while I imagine it went down like you said, I automatically start out with an extra level of skepticism in this kind of case.