DO NOT PARDON MARK WAHLBERG!

I had several gossip topics lined-up for today, this being the most serious one, but this has just become even more of an outrage, so it needs to stand alone. I’ve been stewing about it all week. It’s so horrible that it shouldn’t even be called “gossip!” It should be called “shame!”

Mark Wahlberg, in his younger thug days.

I don’t know all the details of the original incident, but when Mark Wahlberg was a teen-ager, he beat-up a man so badly the guy lost his eye! (That was just one of his many criminal acts.) I actually heard Mark tell it on one of the television magazine shows a few years back. I was appalled then, and I’m even more appalled now! When I heard that, I felt that Mark should have been drummed-out of show business at that point.

He didn’t apologize in that interview, nor mention what he’s been doing for this man since he’s gotten rich and successful, so, at the time, I did a lot of research into the topic. And I couldn’t find any place where he was helping this man out, on any level. Nor even apologized to him!

So in the past week or so, Mark Wahlberg petitioned the Massachusetts State Parole Board and Governor Deval Patrick for a pardon for his actions. A pardon!!! For the blinding of man. And never apologizing nor doing anything else to help the guy out!

I was thinking I was wrong, and that he does help the man, and then I saw this story this week: The blind man says he forgives Mark, and that he never even knew who attacked him! That means that for twenty-six years, while Mark Wahlberg was rolling in all that dough, he never, ever, ever, ever sent a dime to the man he blinded! ( I’m so sick over this story, that I actually have to force myself to sit at the computer and write about it. And take an immediate shower afterwards.)

Wahlberg says that the pardon would “show that he has turned his life around.” NOOOO! You know what would show that he turned his life around? If he had even once paid this poor man with any of his gazillion dollars!!! And what about the blind man’s life?!

The real reason Wahlberg wants a pardon appears to be because, ala Shaquille O’Neal, he wants to become a part-time law enforcement dude. How about just doing some good behind the scenes, like so many others? Or even in front of the cameras, but without a pardon. He should never even have pardoned himself!

I am begging the Massachusetts Governor: PLEASE DO NOT GIVE THIS MAN A PARDON! On any level.

And someone should force him to give the man he blinded at least $20 million! This very second! Period.

The man Mark Wahlberg beat up.

Addendum #1: He’s now offered to fly this man and family to L.A. to apologize in person! Why did he never to do this before he was trying to get pardoned?! I guess because he had only a quarter of a century to do it in! The beaten man is being wonderful about it, but in my humble opinion, it’s way too little, too late. And only for his own aggrandizement. Shame on him!

Addendum #2: I just read that he says he’s not using his status as a movie star to try to get the pardon. Yeah, right.

Addendum #3: I tried to find a place to sign a petition to have him not pardoned, but struck-out. If you’re as outraged by this as I am, and can find a place to sign, please share it in the Comments section below. I’m sure all law-abiding citizens everywhere, not just New England, will appreciate it.

Addendum #4: I hope he doesn’t come beat me up now, for writing this!