October 2011
71 posts
One woman's lonely fight against college athletes →
chicagotribune.com
As security officers predicted, the woman’s allegations became national news. Though her name has not been reported in the mainstream media, journalists and students quickly learned of her identity.
She felt a backlash almost immediately. Reporters called her family, and Marquette-centric blogs ridiculed her. Some friends were angry with her for going to police and putting their social status in jeopardy, she said. The student she planned to room with decided to find other living arrangements.
Two of her four friends who attended the party refused to cooperate with the criminal investigation.
Her report also led another student to file a police report, accusing a fifth athlete of raping her in February. In an interview with the Tribune in June, that student said Marquette officers and administrators had discouraged her from going to police.
“It was a traumatizing experience that I would not wish on my worst enemy,” she said. “I realize that the majority of people this happens to don’t do anything about it because they’re scared. … But I wanted to do something so that maybe it would happen to one less girl and to let these guys know that they’re not invincible.”“I don’t want them — the university and the (athletes) — to know that they got to me,” she said. “They’ve done enough to me already. I’m not going to give them this.”
I wish there were a way to let this woman know what a powerful thing she’s doing by forcing her school - a conservative university obsessed with its basketball team - to act. The fact that Marquette is at last changing its archaic policies demonstrates that the daunting challenge of reporting a campus celebrity and holding him accountable for his behavior is so important because it means that hopefully eventually, women will feel as if their safety is just as important as the athletic careers of the men with whom they must share their college campuses.
Thanks, Bro →
thanks-bro.com
This has changed my life. Everyone is getting this for Christmas!
An online store that allows you to customize gifts for your bro - beer, beef jerky and other boy things and send directly to them. I love it.
found via cup of Jo
Obama Calls Out GOP, Krugman Calls Out Paul Ryan
Here is a pretty lame quote from mental midget Paul Ryan:
“Just last week, the President told a crowd in North Carolina that Republicans are in favor of, quote, ‘dirtier air, dirtier water, and less people with health insurance.’ Can you think of a pettier way to describe sincere disagreements between the two parties on regulation and health care?”
Here is a great response from Paul Krugman:
“Just for the record: why is this petty? Why is it anything but a literal description of GOP proposals to weaken environmental regulation and repeal the Affordable Care Act? So Ryan is outraged, outraged, that Obama is offering a wholly accurate description of his [Ryan’s] party’s platform…. You really have to be somewhat awed when people who routinely accuse Obama of being a socialist get all weepy over him saying that eliminating protections against pollution would lead to more pollution.”
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Under rules planned for one chamber, guns would be allowed on the Assembly floor and in the Assembly viewing galleries, said sources who have been briefed on the plans. That would mean the public could bring guns into the viewing galleries but would still have to adhere to other existing rules, including one that bars the use of still cameras and video cameras.
Rep. Robin Vos (R-Rochester) said he did not see a contradiction in allowing guns in the galleries while banning the use of cameras. He said people could bring both guns and cameras into the galleries, but couldn’t use either.
“You can have a gun in the gallery, but you can’t shoot,” he said.
” —Wisconsin Capital to allow concealed weapons - JSOnline.com
“You can have a gun in the gallery, but you can’t shoot,” he said.
“
That’s partly because the Personhood movement hopes to do nothing less than reclassify everyday, routine birth control as abortion. The medical definition of pregnancy is when a fertilized egg successfully implants in the uterine wall. If this initiative passes, and fertilized eggs on their own have full legal rights, anything that could potentially block that implantation – something a woman’s body does naturally all the time – could be considered murder. Scientists say hormonal birth-control pills and the morning-after pill work primarily by preventing fertilization in the first place, but the outside possibility, never documented, that an egg could be fertilized anyway and blocked is enough for some pro-lifers.
Indeed, at least one pro-Personhood doctor in Mississippi, Beverly McMillan, refused to prescribe the pill before retiring last year, writing, “I painfully agree that birth control pills do in fact cause abortions.” Bush does prescribe the pill, but says, “There’s good science on both sides … I think there’s more science to support conception not occurring.” Given that the Personhood Amendment is so vague, I asked her, what would stop the alleged “good science” on one side from prevailing and banning even the pill?
Bush paused. “I could say that is not the intent,” she said. “I don’t have an answer for that particular [case], how it would be settled, but I do know this is simple.” Which part is simple? “The amendment is simple,” she said. “You can play the ‘what if’ game, but if you keep it simple, this is a person who deserves life.” What about the IUD, which she refuses to prescribe for moral reasons, and which McMillan told me the Personhood Amendment would ban? “I’m not the authority on what would and would not be banned.” No – Bush simply plays one on TV. And if her amendment passes, only condoms, diaphragms and natural family planning — the rhythm method – would be guaranteed in Mississippi.
” —Irin Carmon (via fatmanatee)
The death of 1st Lt. Ashley White highlights women's increasingly important role in Special Operations Teams →
msnbc.msn.com
Army 1st Lt. Ashley White died on the front lines in southern Afghanistan last weekend, the first casualty in what the Army says is a new and vital wartime attempt to gain the trust of Afghan women.
White, like other female soldiers working with special operations teams, was brought in to do things that would be awkward or impossible for her male teammates. Frisking burqa-clad women, for example.
Her death, in a bomb explosion in the Taliban heartland of Kandahar, demonstrates the risks of placing women with elite U.S. special operations teams working in remote villages.
Military leaders and other female soldiers in the program say its rewards are great, even as it fuels debate over the roles of women in combat.
“We could do things that the males cannot do, and they are starting to realize that,” says Sgt. Christine Baldwin, who like White was among the first groups of women deployed to Afghanistan this year as specially trained “cultural support” troops.
Male soldiers in Afghanistan are often not able to speak to Afghan women because of the strict cultural divide between men and women. In an effort to effectively reach the majority of the Afghan population - its women - the first female soldiers were brought in to serve in commando units. They are trained to ferret out critical information not available to their male team members, to identify insurgents disguised as women and figure out when Afghan women are being used to hide weapons. Elite special operations teams have started performing “stability operations,” especially in villages, where women and children make up at least 71% of the population.
The teams not only solicit sensitive information, they also teach women basic skills and medical assistance techniques.
“Any day that they’re walking into a village and engaging with the population they are at the same risk as those Special Forces, SEALs, or special operators they’re detailed to. So I would say it is not for the weak-kneed,” said Michael Lumpkin, principal deputy assistant defense secretary for special operations.
“When 71 percent of the population are women and children, you have to have buy-in from a greater number of people in the villages to really connect with them, and to understand really what’s going on. Because of that female-to-female connection, that can be achieved,” Lumpkin said.
He added, “We’re coming late to the table, but we’ve recognized the value (of the program), and I think this will transcend beyond Afghanistan. … I don’t see them going away any time soon.”
Ashley was killed in the same incident that killed Kristoffer Domeiji, who was on his 14th deployment.
“Jess, is a classic manic-pixie-dream-girl archetype, but traditionally the manic pixie dream girl’s story is told from a male point of view. Here is a chance to reverse the equation, like those novels that retell The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn from Jim’s P.O.V., or Gone with the Wind from Prissy’s. What is the toll of manic-pixie-dream-girlishness on a woman’s psyche? Is manic pixie dream girlishness merely a function of the hipster male gaze, or is it a form of self-objectification on the manic pixie dream girl’s part? Or is it a form of self-realization, an embrace of bohemian gender stereotype analogous to, say, queer identity politics? These are the questions I’d like to see New Girl examine. The series could represent a radical rethinking of a key contemporary genre. Or there could just be an episode where Jess gets drunk at a party and makes out with her hot model girlfriend, to her three male roommates’ delight.”
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Juli Weiner and Bruce Handy (hello? Are those their real names?), the Vanity Fair recappers of The New Girl, which I have actually not watched very much, are the best thing about this show.
It goes on to say this, which may or may not be facetious - I can’t tell, but I do agree:
”I would argue, Bruce, that New Girl is no more from Jess’s perspective than The Iliad is from the perspective of the Trojan Horse. Jess is an empty vessel whose existence is a mere catalyst for change in the lives of the three male roommates, Chad, Brad, and Tad—or whatever. Take the title, New Girl. Already we feel the oppression of the male gaze. Jess is only ‘new’ in the sense that she has just moved into the loft and met the men. Jess was not recently born; her defining characteristic, her ‘newness,’ is true only in the context of her relationship to the roommates. Without the men, she is simply ‘girl’—not even ‘woman’—and even then, she is identified by her biology (lack of male genitalia) and nothing else.”
I just looked again. Bruce Handy? Seriously? Am I twelve, or is that a crazy name?
“…the troubled 27-year-old suffered “death by misadventure”
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Alcohol Killed Amy Winehouse, Coroner Rules
This coroner is a poet.
(via jennyjennybobenny)
There were no illegal drugs found in her system. That is terrifying.
“I made ‘Jesus Walks,’
I’m never going to hell” —
I’m never going to hell” —
Kanye West. Dare I say that might possibly be a gross assumption?
I was the Star of David in the second grade Christmas pageant, but I can still feel my feet burn occasionally.
i am the worst.
When I’m sober, I have a pathological fear of the phone. I hesitate before making calls, write scripts before I call to schedule my doctor’s appointments, and refuse to answer my phone if I’m nervous. It’s ridiculous. But if you put a phone in front of me after I’ve done any sort of excessive social drinking (two glasses of wine), it’s like I’ve got scores to settle - you’ll be virtually unable to pry it out of my cold, dead, chatty hands. I used to throw my phone at other people after I’d been drinking, so I consider this new a more social behavior that is generally an improvement, but it still gets me into some unnecessarily frustrating jams. I do this thing where I run through my list of recent calls and dial them, indiscriminately, until I get a person on the other line. Luckily, I have several friends with whom I can count on exchanging several boisterous, reliable, appreciated drunk dials a week. It’s like a thing.
But this new trick has put me on the other end of the AT & T automated customer service line, screaming about their poor treatment of their customers. It has led me to call Jimmy John’s and hang on the line, unable to muster the ability to make an order, until they hang up in disgust. It obviously also puts me on the other end of people whose numbers I’d misguidedly obtained in bars and meant to continue avoiding. It’s put me quickly back in touch with guys I’m trying to subtly seduce, which is unfortunate. Lately, now that I’m living at home and most of my recent calls are from my mom, I’m starting to call her. I am starting to drunk dial my mother. She’s been understanding - more so than most - but it’s definitely not preferred.
Most of the time I’m too useless to do any serious damage to my friendships or betray all of my serious inner most feelings, but sometimes I don’t remember. Then I do what I’ve done today, spending the day curled in bed under a large comforter, sending apologetic texts in an effort to repair any damage done. It’s embarrassing, to be sure. I figured by the time I was twenty-four, I wouldn’t be doing this anymore, but I am. It makes me cringe to know that most of my friends understand that when I’m calling at three a.m., the best action is to avoid answering unless they want to listen to me ugly cry or tell me why they think I’m still single in a thoughtful, heart-felt way. I know it pales to some of the tragic things I’ve done after over-serving myself in my younger years, and I make myself feel better by telling myself that it’s generally a nice, social action - I just want to talk to people! But I just really wish I could stop, or at least start to strategically avoid calling my entire recent calls list. Like my dad’s office phone. Or my ex-boyfriends. Or my bank.
