And Cereta hits the nail on the head

I haven't been able to read all the comments yet, but the essay is a good one.

ficangel has one of the best posts I've seen about the whole mess and the slew of "OMG she soooo had it coming!!" bullshit that's sprung up around it.

It doesn't matter if you do your very damnedest to not be her, to be quiet, to be good, to not make a fuss, to be thin, to be chaste, to be a good mother, to keep a clean house, to not break a single one of the eggshells that you walk on every single day. It doesn't matter; it's not about you. If he's going to hit you (if he's already hit you), he's going to do it no matter what you do.

Most of you on my flist have been around long enough to know my general opinion on matters such as this. For those of you who are new--

I do not tolerate victim-blaming. EVER. If you read up on this story or others like it and your first instinct is to scoff about how she must've provoked him and he never would've done it if she hadn't been a slut/too mouthy/such a bitch; if your response is to say, "Well, I'm not trying to blame the victim, but" or if you think, "Well, she must be exaggerating"; if you believe Team Chris icons are cute and shirts saying "Rihanna deserved it" are funny . . . then kindly remove yourself from my flist. Thank you. ((I sincerely hope this didn't need to be said, but once in a while people surprise me.))

Believe it or not, I saw that movie for the first time today. I know, I know, I'm behind.

Haven't seen too many Westerns yet-- I don't remember what the first one I ever saw was, but it had John Wayne in it. The scene was him coming up to this woman's house (I think she was a widow) and she was of course wary of a strange guy on her property, and he looked her over and sneered, "Don't flatter yourself." At which point I delivered a ten-minute lecture to my father about exactly how much of a sleaze the supposed 'hero' of the movie was and then left the room.

The remake of 3:10 to Yuma convinced me that no, not all Westerns are necessarily Like That. So today Chris and I borrowed A Fistful of Dollars, For a Few Dollars More, and The Good, the Bad, and The Ugly. We rented High Plains Drifter, which seemed to be the next part in the series. Loved the first three, but then the fourth one opened with Female Stereotype #42 saying nasty things to the Eastwood character until he snaps that she needs to be taught a lesson, and so he drags her into a barn and rapes her while this creepy guy from town watches and grins (of course, by the end of it she's stopped cursing at him and struggling, because we all know that even when women say no, they really want it!).

Chris: *turning off DVD* "Soooo, what do we want to watch instead?"

I check imdb so I can make sure to never ever rent anything else that guy did the screenplay for, and one of the first comments I saw about the movie was, "Well I don't know why people are calling it rape, she was obviously looking for attention and--"

Me: "Self, you cannot psychically make people explode through the computer. Unfortunately."

So now we're watching Pinky and the Brain, because it's unlikely to raise my blood pressure and Kaylee likes dancing to the theme song.

In other news-- dinner was chicken with tomatoes and feta cheese, and lunch yesterday was homemade tomato soup and grilled cheese sandwiches (white cheddar and bacon). I think I like this whole learning-to-cook thing. :-)

Okay, so, the "Santa Killer" case. My first thought was that one of those guys ringing bells on the street corner went bonkers. I suppose it was a small blessing that it was filed in the actual news instead of "Odd News" or "Weird Stories".

Because there is nothing odd or weird about this, it is far, far too normal. Not that you'd know it from the constant coverage of "Oh, he was so distraught!" and "Who could have seen this coming?"

Again, for a good take on that crap, go buy Gavin de Becker's book The Gift of Fear. You can get used copies really cheap at amazon.com; it's one of the best purchases I've ever made.

But as for this particular case? No, he was not 'distraught'. He was not some poor, poor man who was stressed about the holidays and his divorce and just snapped. He was a methodical, entitled, nasty guy who was pissed off about his 'property' trying to get away from him. It happens all the damn time. But instead we get "the Santa killer! Isn't that unusual and quirky? Similarities between this case and others? What are those?" and "Let's ignore the actual statistical patterns in child abuse and murder to focus on Caylee Anthony all. the. time." I mean, I understand the whole 'getting ratings by focusing on the unusual' thing, but there comes a point where focusing on the unusual to the exclusion of the actual patterns becomes irresponsible.

In conclusion, have a link to another rant:

"Domestic violence against women is an epidemic. But we don't care. Even when the horror of it smacks us in the face, we ignore it. We want to sensationalize the freak-show, carnival nature. We want to talk about SANTA committing a holiday massacre."

I'm just a little bit in love with this essay (trigger warning):

For instance, if a victim of false rape accusation was really treated like a victim of rape, then the accused man would be held responsible for it. He'd be asked why he was alone with her. He'd be lectured on everything he coulda woulda shoulda done differently, then or otherwise. He'd have his whole history dissected, looking for other women he might have annoyed, thus justifying this woman's annoyance. He'd be asked if he agreed to the rumour, or secretly liked it? He'd be pressured to drop the whole thing because it was a mistake, not really a serious allegation, she's not really the lying type (heck, she might even be called plucky), and is it really worth ruining her life over this?

What in the everloving hell?

As if I needed any more incentive to not get cable back. Thanks for backing up my decision, idiots.

Such as oh, say, any day I am reminded that I have Sam Brownback for a Senator. :-P

I got one of those form-letter responses from him today. I wrote in about the proposed HHS regulations (for those who didn't see my previous entry/links on this, it's the "doctors/pharmacists/anybody shouldn't be forced to do their jobs, silly!" regulation). And I got a letter back talking about how horrible and wrong and eeeeevil it is that doctors should have to do something they have a moral problem with.

The letter ended with some idiotic 'I hope you stay in contact with me!' Jackass, the only 'contact' I'd ever want to have with you is my hand smacking the back of your head as I call you a misogynist piece of shit.

Combined with things like this, I'm about ready to just sneak into Canada. Or get on a raft over to England. Or start giving certain know-it-all governmental types vasectomies 'for their own good'. After all, knowing that they're most likely breeding and potentially spreading their stupidity offends my delicate moral sensibilities. And that should of course trump all else, including their bodily autonomy.

Oh wait, you mean it doesn't work that way? Because I'm not figuring out a way to use the Bible as justification? And because they're men and therefore full human beings? Damn.

As if the story about Brooke Bennett wasn't sickening enough, we have idiot writers pulling this shit:

The 14-year-old said she herself had been having sex with Jacques since she was 9, as part of the sex ring.

How goddamned hard is it to write "The 14-year-old said Jacques had been raping her since she was 9"?

We've got assholes who need to be shot in the head assaulting little girls and kidnapping them so that other assholes can have a crack at them, too, and altering their MySpaces so that mysterious 'internet strangers' can be blamed and people in the media who should know better enabling them because oh, an adult male is 'having sex' with a nine-year-old! Rape? Nah, of course not! We all know that doesn't exist. It's always a case of the slut asking for it, or the bitch lying, or the little Lolita tempting the poor guy! How was he supposed to help himself? Boys will be boys, after all!

I swear to god I am going to end up beating these jackasses to death with a copy of the dictionary.


ETA: Oh look! The latest headline! "Death penalty possible in Vermont sex-kidnap". KILL.

In apocalypsos's LJ-- "Tell me something awesome about a woman you love in any fandom."

-- on the list of 'shows I used to like but will no longer watch'. And what do you know, for sortof the same reasons.

( Read more... )

So, Norman Mailer died. And reading the Yahoo article about it, I started feeling ill-- not because of any sense of loss, but because of the fond, 'awww, lookit the shenanigans' tone to it. Which normally wouldn't bug me; that's something to be expected from obituaries. Except that in Mailer's case, said shenanigans include things like stabbing his wife.

But that's okay, it was just a sign that his "personal life was as turbulent as the times"!

"He had nine children, made a quixotic bid to become mayor of New York, produced five forgettable films, dabbled in journalism, flew gliders, challenged professional boxers, was banned from a Manhattan YWHA for reciting obscene poetry, feuded publicly with writer Gore Vidal and crusaded against women's liberation.

But as Newsweek reviewer Raymond Sokolov said in 1968, "In the end, it is the writing that will count."

Now I'm not sure of the original context of the Sokolov quote, but the way it's set up here makes it sound like, 'did all this stuff, including using his influence to argue against freedom for half the population, but that's okay because he was a good writer and that's what counts'.

Feh.

Bush Muses on Marriage, Chicken-Plucking

I am not making up that headline.

(it's either laugh at the stupid, or concentrate on the Supreme Court patting my and every other woman's head and saying 'there there, we'll handle those pesky reproductive decisions for you' and fly into an Epic Rage, so right now I'll laugh at the stupid)

Speaking of the stupid, there might be a post sometime soon dealing with the media coverage of Virginia Tech. Right now. . . *hangs up Out to Lunch sign*

About that Duke Lacrosse Thing

Sums up my feelings very well, and a lot more articulately than "dammit, dammit, dammit", which is what I was just about to post when I came across that.

The ERA is being reintroduced.

Of course, Phyllis Schlafly and her ilk are whining about it again. Hopefully this time they won't succeed. (even before I ever became a feminist, I thought she was full of it. And don't even get me started on her "OMG if this passes there will be unisex bathrooms!!!" idiocy. Most people already use a unisex bathroom, lady, it's called the one in the house. Eeesh.)

Anyway, I know I shouldn't get my hopes up, but . . . man, they are sky-high right now. :-D

I found out it's Blog Against Sexism Day, and debated on what exactly to write (thought about discussing the fact that the jerk who tried to shove a cell phone down his girlfriend's throat only got sentenced to six years in prison, but really, a bunch of incoherent rage is all I can come up with there), when the universe drops this into my lap:

I wish I could say 'I can't believe this', but . . . yeah I can.

"The principal, Rich Leprine, said on Tuesday that the girls were told not to use the word because young children could be in the audience..."

The word is vagina. It's a medical term. It's a part of women's bodies. It's not a curse word, and therefore there is no logical reason for the principal or anyone else to get all "OMG what about the CHILDREN?!?!" about it.

And as if that wasn't reason enough, from a theatrical standpoint, they didn't have the right to make changes to material they were performing. Ad-libbing if you forget a line is one thing; rewriting someone else's work without their permission is something else entirely.

Now, before my brain implodes from the dumb, I'm going to go write for a while. And/or be happy some more about last night's LOST (Sayid episode; about time). :-)