Tuesday, April 26, 2011

Mind Boggling Op Ed Piece

Worst quote from this awful, awful, piece advocating loss of privacy of sexual assault victims:

Is there really a special stigma attached to alleged victims of sexual assault? A viewing of "The Girl with the Dragon Tatoo" movie would indicate otherwise.


Seriously, he uses a film, based on a novel, to support his case. Also he misspells the name of the film.

Then he says some random county paper in some random county names victims and has a higher rape reporting rate so therefore maybe naming victims makes people report rape more often.

Sigh.

He doesn't seem to think about anything like possibly there's a fantastic rape crisis center in this county or anything else. (I've no idea if they do, but he doesn't mention any other data.)

Another quote:

And is there a really a stigma attached to a woman who has been raped? Is it not preposterous to think less of a woman because some man used superior strength to overwhelm her?

Right off the top of my head there are two things wrong with this. Most rapes are not stranger rapes and are aren't necessarily violent. Maybe he used drugs or alcohol. Or maybe he waited until she was asleep. And that's not taking into account all the ways women (and men and children) are sexually assaulted in public that don't require much strength, like rubbing against them on a crowded bus, or exposing himself, etc. etc.

And of course it's preposterous to think poorly of a victim but it happens all the time. There's slut shaming, assuming she is easy game, demanding to know all the sordid details, telling her it's her own fault for her clothes, or her walk or being in the wrong place (perhaps her dorm room) at the wrong time, ad nauseum.

Women can be subjected to threats and violence just for filing charges, from the friends and relatives of the attacker. (Not to mention the attacker himself.)

There's a reason so few sexual assaults are reported and it's not because victims are sad their names aren't in the papers.

Labels:

Friday, April 22, 2011

Do Orcas Kill on Purpose?

Here is a fascinating and incredibly depressing article about the exploitation of orcas and the end result of keeping them in circumstances that make them crazy.

http://outsideonline.com/outside/culture/201007/killer-whale-behavior-trainer-death-seaworld.html

It's disturbing on many levels, beginning with the death of Ms. Brancheau. It's also fairly graphic so be advised before you click on it.

Labels:

Wednesday, April 13, 2011

WBC

When WBC stands for white blood cell it's usually a good thing. Not so much when it stands for Westboro Baptist Church.

They're coming to our old neighborhood to protest the high school, apparently because many of the children at that school have at least one military parent and also because they have an active LGBTQ community.

Hopefully at least one of my boys will be able to attend a counter demonstration. I'm afraid if I go I won't be able to restrain myself.

This all goes down Thursday morning while the kids are getting to school.

WBC claims it's done thousands of these protests, which all cost money. Where does it come from? Has anyone looked into that?

Labels:

Friday, April 08, 2011

Snoop buys a Hilti Nailgun



One of the reasons I like this clip so much is because the salesman treats Snoop with respect. He could have talked down to her for being a girl, or not the same class or race or because she's gender fluid, or any number of reasons. But he doesn't. Which helps make the scene. Yeah, he's a little stunned halfway in but then who wouldn't be? In general we don't expect our customers to start talking about murder.