Calvin Trillin on Roman Polanski

As regular LLG readers will know, I, and several blog friends, including the always brilliant Miss Whistle and her friend film maker Allison Anders, had a massive sense of humour failure over the film world's support of Roman Polanski.

This poem by Calvin Trillin was published in The Nation this week

A youthful error? Yes, perhaps.
But he's been punished for this lapse--
For decades exiled from LA
He knows, as he wakes up each day,
He'll miss the movers and the shakers.
He'll never get to see the Lakers.
For just one old and small mischance,
He has to live in Paris, France.
He's suffered slurs and other stuff.
Has he not suffered quite enough?
How can these people get so riled?
He only raped a single child.

Why make him into some Darth Vader
For sodomizing one eighth grader?
This man is brilliant, that's for sure--
Authentically, a film auteur.
He gets awards that are his due.
He knows important people, too--
Important people just like us.
And we know how to make a fuss.
Celebrities would just be fools
To play by little people's rules.
So Roman's banner we unfurl.
He only raped one little girl.

Condensed from The Nation:
Calvin Trillin was born in Kansas City, Missouri, on December 5, 1935, and has been a Staff writer for The New Yorker since 1963. From 1967 to 1982, did a series for The New Yorker called "U.S. Journal"--a 3,000-word article from somewhere in the United States every three weeks. Since 1984, has done a series of longer narrative pieces under the heading "American Chronicles." His syndicated column, "Uncivil Liberties," is distributed weekly to newspapers. He is the contributor of a weekly comic verse to The Nation.