I’m sure you’ve heard about the arrest of Pete Townshend for downloading child pornography. I have no idea if he is or isn’t a pedophile (I hope he isn’t), and the only reason I even blog this is because of an interview he gave years ago on if I recall correctly, a local (St. Louis) radio station. Chuck Berry had been arrested and sued over tapes he made of women in a bathroom at a business he ran. He said it was to check for drugs or some such; I think it was degenerate. Anyway, the point isn’t Mr. Berry’s extensive legal problems, but Pete Townshend’s attitude. He kept repeating “Leave the man alone” – he stated that it was wrong to hassle such a great musician, to whom we all owed a debt of gratitude, and his guilt or innocence didn’t matter. He’d done so much for music, he could do whatever he wanted. I was kind of shocked.

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