House of Eratosthenes

Lindsay Clancy verdict watch: Jury ends second day without verdict, will return Monday
By Peter Yankowski, Lisa Backus, Austin Mirmina, Staff WritersUpdated Aug 28, 2026 6:10 p.m.

The jury of nine women and three men in the Lindsay Clancy murder trial have been dismissed for the weekend after not reaching a verdict on Friday.

The jurors deliberated the entire day Friday after three hours of deliberations on Thursday. So far, they only asked to see the Connecticut native’s prescription medicine and the knife prosecutors say she used in her suicide attempt after killing her three children in 2023.

People who think women are generally oppressed and in need of empowerment for equalization, want the murdering mom acquitted, or as close to acquitted as it might be possible to arrange. At first blush this might seem to make sense. It really doesn’t. Our attempts to equalize the various supposedly oppressed groups often meet up with this problem: Empower the oppressed, means up with the oppressed, and up with the oppressed ultimately means none among them can ever be held responsible for anything. They didn’t do it, and if they did do it they must have had a good reason. Either way, just forget about it. We all just go on with our lives.

This is the very definition of what our great grandparents used to call “no accounts.” People who can’t be held accountable for anything. It was not a term of endearment.

What happens if women, mothers in particular, become “no accounts” by way of mercy for Lindsay Clancy? It would rip a giant gaping hole in the fabric of western civilization, assuming it hasn’t already. This is a core tenet: We men, who are physically stronger, protect our women so that the women can protect our children. A new imperative that we have to protect the children from the women would drive a wedge — even further — between the two sexes. I can feel it!

We haven’t had to grapple with something like this before. Men have to wonder what’s going to happen when they leave their children home with mom? And if the worst happens, in the mind of many loudmouths, it’s the man’s fault and for no particular reason, just feels.

Let’s be clear on this point: I’m not calling for Ms. Clancy to be held responsible for murdering her children or, if this holding of responsibility does not come to pass, for the status of moms and women to be lowered as a consequence. It’s something that simply is. This is how it works. You’re responsible or else you aren’t. People talk a great deal about how we need to put more thought into postpartum depression and what it can do to these moms; well, if that thinking is that there’s hormonal drama going on here that men can’t ever understand, potentially driving the mom to do a thing like this — it doesn’t mean men need to, or are somehow obliged to, withhold their opinions about it. Quite the opposite.

This is something that gives a lot of people, who have lots of opinions and lots to say about those opinions, no small amount of trouble. They can’t quite seem to grasp it. You have influence over something, you’re “empowered,” there’s another side to that, a burden to be carried. In fact all authority should be like that: A pain in the ass. This isn’t the first time I’ve been given cause to wonder about how people think about things like this. They work so hard at “fighting for” that judgment call they can make, a final verdict subject to appeal by no one else; well, things might not turn out so great. There might be a disaster. Whose fault is it? If you’re working so hard to make sure no one else has anything to say about it…guess what.

There has been an acceleration lately of this kind of confusion. Things have, in recent years, on a variety of different fronts, become unwoven. It’s like some kind of chain reaction. Someone somewhere (can’t find it) made a joke about how it all started with Pluto no longer being a planet. However you think of that particular object, it’s named after the Roman God of the Underworld, a deity associated with malice and vengeance. Maybe, just maybe…we should try promoting it to planet status, hanging back for a bit and seeing what happens?

I myself had begun to take in some uneasy vibes just the year before, that all of the important things that really affect us were about as good as they were going to get for awhile, and were showing signs of coming undone, pointing us in the direction of a sustained down-slide. It’s interesting to me that these bits of evidence I listed some twenty-one years ago, seemingly important at the time, are by and large not even remembered today. But, the deterioration happened. It’s not a Republican/democrat deterioration. Just a sort of degradation in how we think of problems and how to solve them.

We used to put a lot of importance on leadership.

What is that, exactly?

It occurs to me that my leaders have all been at work, and at work I accept money for having stepped into a status of whatever. You want to order me around and have me do dumb stupid things, set the stage for a “Morgan was wrong wrong wrong” beatdown, have at it. I won’t tolerate it anywhere else. But if you’re paying the piper, you get to call the tune. So on the job, I have leaders. They tell me what to do and I do it.

Why else do we listen to leaders? We should think about this. It’s a question of some importance, much like “Why do we punish moms who have murdered their children?”

You’re paid to do what they say. That’s good enough reason.

After that, there’s: Captain of the ship and owner of the ship. Two more reasons. “I get to say what happens, because it’s my boat.” Or, “Because if it hits a shoal and sinks, I go down with it.” Ownership, and responsibility. Boss makes a decision I know is a stupid decision, I’ve already given my reasons why it’s stupid…in theory, if the worst comes to pass, he pays the price and I don’t. Company posts a skimpier profit, or a loss. I still get my paycheck.

Unless, of course, the company folds. So the “Captain goes down with his ship” has persuasive power, but it’s limited.

Why else?

One can pick up the message, spoken or not, that a mutiny would be futile. The crew will follow the Captain through hell or high water. Might as well go with the flow, he’s popular. Well, why is he popular? These are questions you’re not supposed to ask if he really is the Captain or if he really is signing your time sheet, but it’s still a question that exists and can draw in a number of different, but entirely valid, answers. It is said that of all our presidents, Bill Clinton was the most charismatic one. Some would say that honor goes to Barack Obama. Those two had it in common that their explanations of what they wanted to do, were consistently incoherent and weak. A Clinton speech or an Obama speech does not follow the rule of “Every paragraph must have a purpose”; they just drone on and on with a bunch of lilt and resonance, to be consumed eagerly by their adoring fans for an hour or two. But if they walk into a room, it is said, you want to look. If they speak, you want to listen.

So we have: He pays you; he owns the boat; he’s responsible and goes down with the ship if it sinks; he has the loyalty of your colleagues because of his mannerisms and charisma…

And then there is: Your chances of coming out of this in one piece are much higher, if you follow his orders, because of his experience and good judgment.

That last one is supposed to be the most important of all of them. And I dunno, maybe it’s President Obama who did this to us, but I can’t remember any leaders anywhere being qualified that way. In fact, it occurs to me that as I jotted down my prognostications that we were at a summit and due for a sustained sinking twenty-one years ago, I was working for a boss who did possess that particular advantage. A boss who knew, better than anybody else, what we were trying to do and could formulate our best strategies for getting it done.

I hope none of my bosses since then see this and take it the wrong way, but that’s the last boss I had who could make this claim. Unfortunately, he had a health crisis soon afterward, discovered the hard way he was a diabetic, and lost his spiritual and bodily vitality in the ensuing months as if cursed. At the beginning of 2008 he didn’t show up for work and we received word that he’d dropped dead, literally, at his home.

He changed my career for the better, I think. I was under the impression we were close friends, the company started to go through reductions in force and he “fought hard for you” I was told. I never had reason to doubt this. But when his health faded and the circles of trust were more clearly demarcated, it became equally clear I was not in them. Yet for attending to the job we were trying to get done, he stood by me when others did not. Well, I find that flattering.

But the point is, since then, with my bosses and everybody else’s bosses, during this stretch of time following the “summit” vibes, or Pluto being demoted, or Obama being elected, take your pick…everybody taking on some position of authority is supposed to just because. They own the boat, or they’re owed the boat — by — someone. People wonder why Trump has been elected twice, and you know, maybe that’s his draw. For all the people who reject him because they hate him, or who vote for him only reluctantly because they don’t like him, the question of “Why would anyone think of putting him in charge?” is answered, by those who would, the good old-fashioned way. It’s like Willie Garvin doing exactly what Modesty Blaise says, even though Garvin is a manly man and he isn’t a simp. The legacy leader, the old-fashioned leader. The experience and good judgment. Do what he or she says, and that’s your best shot at getting through this alive.

More than twenty years ago, this was commonplace. Leaders were leaders for good reasons.

Now it’s a rarity. Leaders are leaders for flighty, twisty, ethereal and strange reasons. The boss is the boss. Can’t do anything about it. So that settles that.

It becomes relevant when the boss tells you to do something dumb. Who’s responsible for the consequences of doing dumb things? The boss isn’t. You’re not. We just end up doing the dumb thing and hoping for the best.

And I’ve found California to be an excellent vantage point for watching this, for many reasons. But I suppose that’s a story for another day.

The point is, the leaders aren’t leading. And the moms aren’t going to be mom-ing. Or, we potentially aren’t going to think of them that way. Some among us already don’t think of moms that way. The moms are supposed to be victims. Unaccountable. If and when they strangle all the kids it will be someone else’s fault.

Not good.

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