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[The Man]

It's obviously exaggerating for emphasis, and I agree that the implication is kind of problematic. The more accurate reading is probably, "If Christian Grey weren't insanely rich, he wouldn't be able to get away with what he does". I think the story I posted is pretty clear proof of that (contrast with how Bill Cosby got away with raping women for literally decades before anyone even cared about it).

Anyway:

5 Women Cut from Pop Culture History for Being Too Important | Cracked.com

Holy shit, you guys. How had I never heard of Sister Rosetta Tharpe before tonight? I feel like I've been deprived all my life.

Strange Things Happening Every Day

This was in 1944. This woman basically invented rock music and hardly anyone has ever acknowledged it. Or, apparently, even heard of her.

Also, from the comments:

Once, when she was getting prepared for a show, she heard a teenager singing. She was so impressed by their vocals that she invited him to sing onstage at the beginning of her show. The teenager was applauded, paid for their performance, and was so impacted by the experience that they decided that they were going to set out and become a wild R & B musician just like Sister Rosseta Tharpe. Their name was Richard Penniman. You know, Little Richard.

[BrotherMan]

Why Boys Will Be Boys Is a Bullshit Copout

Me: “Does that seem inappropriate to you? Why don’t you go and pull on Mrs. [Head Of Year]’s bra right now. See how fun it is for her. Or on that boy’s mum’s bra. Or mine. You think just because they’re kids it’s fun?”

Head: “Mrs. [My Name]. With all due respect, [Daughter] still beat another child.”

Me: “No. She defended herself against a sexual attack from another pupil. Look at them; he’s nearly 6 feet and 11 or 12 stone. She’s 5 feet and 6 stone. He’s a foot taller than her and twice as heavy. How many times should she have let him touch her? If the person who was supposed to help and protect her in a classroom couldn’t be bothered what should she have done? He pulled her bra so hard it came undone.”

[The Man]

Silencing women’s voices

If you reply with a simplistic “Free Speech!”, I shall point you to Theodore Beale’s own words: Speak back twice as hard. Speak back until they fall silent. There’s a conundrum for you — that free speech can be used silence other people’s speech. Give a maniac a bullhorn or a mob, and they can trample other people’s rights, and even make life miserable for them. Free speech is not a panacea. Sometimes you have to have ways to tell some people to sit down and shut up and give others a chance to speak, and sometimes you have to recognize that speech can be abused.

The other evasion used to shirk a responsibility to give everyone a fair chance is to throw the problem on to the victim’s shoulders. Toughen up. Grow a pair. We all agree that Theodore Beale is an obnoxious crank, we’re ignoring him, why can’t you? That’s easy to say when you’re not his target, or the target of ten thousand other Beales on the internet. He used a key word: relentless. A few people can be obsessive to the point of danger. No, one person cannot and should not have to bear that burden of focused hatred.

You cannot look at these interactions and be neutral. In one corner, Person A is screaming their contempt, urging one and all to mob Person B and hound them into silence. In the other corner, Person B is trying to write about their own experiences, explain their view of life, and ignore as best they can the lunatic who is calling them fascist Nazi Communists who wants to kill babies and destroy Western Civilization. Yet somehow there will be people who look on that scene and think A has every right to call down hellfire on B, and B is the guilty party who must adapt. They are the ones who shape the nature of the arena we all have to live within.

It is a lawless arena, apparently, where the winner is simply the one who can bellow the loudest. That isn’t a good thing.

Theodore Beale is one of the most vile human beings in existence. Read the whole thing. Some of the comments are also quite insightful. A particularly choice one:

I wish I could believe it was possible to wrestle ‘free speech’ back into a useful position. It’s an incredibly important concept being violated all over the world right now by religious and political powers, yet somehow it’s come to be synonymous with the right of the privileged to drown out minorities.

Free speech means the right to say what you believe in a public forum without being arrested. That’s all it needs to mean.

Following someone down the street yelling abuse is not ‘free speech’, it’s harassment, and I find it tragic that so many otherwise intelligent individuals don’t seem to understand.

[The Man]

TW: rape

show spoiler

Arkansas State Rep Probably Had Good Reason for Giving Adopted Daughter to Guy Who Raped Her

I wish I could say this guy would probably lose his elected office, but I can't, because Arkansas. Everything is terrible.

[LadyShea]

Just look up Gabby Schilling and link around. Gist is her dad Curt Schilling posted his pride at her college acceptance, bunch of fuckwads make comments about raping her, Schilling doxes some of them, some of them cry. The Vanderbilt student in the comments of Schilling' s blog post is worth reading. He is really sad to have gotten spotlighted.

[BrotherMan]

My radio guys were talking about that the other day. I'm not up on the sports, but he was a local sports celebrity for a while. They mostly sort of agreed that while Curt himself might not be the nicest guy all the time, attacking his fambly - and especially being that level of wrong about it - was beyond the pail. Pale? I dunno. I'm certainly glad he was in a position to contact people he knew who could uncover the shitheads perpetrating the wrongness.

[LadyShea]

I was exploring my feelings because it seems like I should feel happy about all the justice, and kinda yeah, but mostly no, and I found out it's because I don't like doxxing...ever. You know how some people feel like prison rape is not really a bad thing and maybe even a good thing to happen to rapists (or whatever heinous crime was committed?). It's kind of like that. I don't think any rape is a good thing. Not ever. Even for horrible, evil pieces of shit. I certainly don't cry for them the way I do other victims, but it makes me really uncomfortable.

Had he contacted the guys schools and parents and employers directly, or investigated criminal charges, I would have no problem with that. He could have even said "These guys are easy to locate, I have done so and called their parents". Throwing them directly to the Internet though, I just can't feel like that is a good precedent to set. That seems like a practice that is bound to have something go terribly wrong.

This was a good article on the issue.
Log In - The New York Times

[lisarea]

Oh, hey, who wants to get real mad today?

This 21-year-old woman faces decades in prison for trying to escape her abuser

The story makes some really good points about stand your ground laws and battered women's syndrome, though, which make it worth reading even if you actually didn't want to get real mad today.

[Crumb]

John Green's tumblr • white-eagle: talesofthestarshipregeneration:...

[Stormlight]

WTF is wrong with people?

An Indiana jury says Purvi Patel should go to prison for what she says was a miscarriage. There’s a lot that’s still confusing about the case of Purvi Patel. But one thing is clear: The 33-year-old from South Bend, Indiana, is facing up to 70 years in prison as the first pregnant woman to be convicted under Indiana’s “feticide” law.

FFS. Seriously?

[BrotherMan]

EQUALITY NOW!

[lisarea]

This is pretty interesting, and there are a couple of corrections and clarifications in the comments too:

Hysteria and Teenage Girls | The Hairpin

[LadyShea]

You go, cool Aussie Ken Lay!

Before he resigned as Victoria’s police commissioner in December, Ken Lay spoke about men “needing to own” the crisis of violence against women – including the men within his own police force.

“We are constantly misapprehending the nature of violence,” he said.

“When a woman is jeered, groped, bashed or raped I want you to consider the man who did it, and the culture which encouraged it. I want you to consider why we so ardently place the emphasis on the woman – why was she there? what was she wearing? – rather than on the man’s indecent entitlement, grubbiness and criminality.”

This other Aussie cop OTOH, seems to be suggesting women shouldn't walk or jog in public places in daylight.

detective inspector Mick Hughes, following the brutal and seemingly random killing of 17-year-old schoolgirl, Masa Vukotic, in broad daylight while she was out walking as part of her usual exercise routine.

Hughes’ advice to the community?

“I suggest to people, particularly females, [that] they shouldn’t be alone in parks,” Hughes told ABC radio on Thursday morning.

“I’m sorry to say that that is the case. We just need to be a little more careful, a little more vigilant.”

Despite the interviewer, Fran Kelly, pointing out that, “this was not even night – if you want to go jogging, if you want to keep fit, it’s not really practical [advice],” Hughes repeated the comments during a press conference later that day.

“We encourage females to walk together,” Hughes said, adding that it was up to women to take “reasonable precautions” to protect their safety. He described the park as an “enclave,” implying it was no place for a woman on her own to be.

Reasonable as in jogging in public park in the daylight? And what the fuck does "enclave" mean here?


Masa Vukotic had the right to be in a park alone. Victoria police must apologise for saying she didn't | Melissa Davey | Comment is free | The Guardian

[Clutch Munny]

These are Aussies, aren't they?

[LadyShea]

Sorry!

[JoeP]

As a non-gendered counterpoint, Johannesburg police recommend not walking through any park in groups of fewer than six adults.

(There's plenty of victim-blaming in SA, but at least they're being gender-blind in saying that the public are responsible for their own safety.)

[lisarea]

There's a big difference when you think about it. I can see, if there's a genuinely dangerous area and they don't have the resources to make it safe, everyone being warned. But in that case, they were saying it was a random attack, so if there was a temporary situation where it really merited warning the public to avoid it, why just warn women?

People just seem really casual about telling women as a group to take extreme measures to avoid dangerous situations, as though it's not that big a deal to tell them not to do something. Look how much more hardcore and over the top it sounds when they tell everyone to travel in groups. Because it IS hardcore and over the top, and it severely restricts people's ability to live a normal life. Nobody seems to notice or care how extreme that reaction is until someone tells men to do it, though. We're just so acclimated to this fucking Taliban shit that people don't think twice about cloistering women "for their own good." (Besides which, anyone who is paying attention to that announcement in the first place already knows that girl was murdered there, and women have been trained all their lives to be ridiculously risk averse. You don't need to tell them again.)

That's something that really gets my dander up, because I have done a lot of walking around by myself, and I get a little tired of people going oooooh at me, like I'm some sort of degenerate for doing totally normal things. And they do! Everyone does that, men and women. Still, even, even though I'm old now and don't do as many things. It's insulting and it's stupid.

[Ensign Steve]

Geez, so last night I walked over to the trail head near my house to drop something off to my neighbor, and afterward she posted in our group chat to let everybody else know that we had not been "attacked" ... uh, in case anybody was worried about that. Literally, the place is across the street from my place, across a different street from her place. Yes we live in the city, but in one of the most boring, milquetoast, family-friendly neighborhoods of the city. And it was like 9:30 at night. I was seriously like wtf. Also I was like wtf, because when the chat came through, I was still walking because I wasn't going home, I was going to meet bey at some other place. So there I was walking alone, in the city, at night and she's telling everybody I'm safe. What if I had been attacked?!!

But then here's the best part. I found out our other neighbor friend, who is a grown-ass human adult male of slightly above-average height and build, won't walk in the part of our town that's near the recycling place, because it's sketchy. This place is literally on my walk to and from work, so I stroll through it up to twice a day on days where I don't get a ride. I'm like, trust me, guy. These people are way too busy dealing with the grind of fucking turning in scrap metal and cans for pennies with which to buy food to be even remotely worried about you. Get over yourself.

[Ymir's blood]

Maybe the guy is secretly a cyborg and in fear of being scrapped! Check your (organic) privilege.

[Janet]

When I showed my best friend's daughter A Hard Day's Night the first time she asked me about the screaming. I'd never thought about it much, but I had to admit that if I had been in a small TV studio with The Beatles when I was 14 I would have lost my fucking mind, too. Now she screams at K-pop acts and I think she gets it.

[Ensign Steve]

Originally Posted by Ensign Steve

Geez, so last night I walked over to the trail head near my house to drop something off to my neighbor, and afterward she posted in our group chat to let everybody else know that we had not been "attacked" ... uh, in case anybody was worried about that. Literally, the place is across the street from my place, across a different street from her place. Yes we live in the city, but in one of the most boring, milquetoast, family-friendly neighborhoods of the city. And it was like 9:30 at night. I was seriously like wtf. Also I was like wtf, because when the chat came through, I was still walking because I wasn't going home, I was going to meet bey at some other place. So there I was walking alone, in the city, at night and she's telling everybody I'm safe. What if I had been attacked?!!

Oh my god, this chick!

Last night a bunch of us met downtown, so I took my shuttle from work* one extra stop to the university and did the last mile on foot. When I arrived, she goes "you survived!" I super want to get to the bottom of this, so I push. "What wouldn't I have survived?" She says "I don't know, you were on your own." Now I'm just straight-up gobsmacked and wondering whether she'd be better off in a Taliban country. So I go "well I am a grown-ass person" and she says "maybe you would have gotten lost." I just don't even.

*I usually call it "the bus" but I want to be absolutely clear what level of risk we're dealing with here. This is the employee private shuttle with wifi, not the city bus with the actually interesting people.

[Ymir's blood]

Just putting this here to torture you.

[Sock Puppet]

Sweet merciful crap.

[JoeP]

Yb, did you find this article while scanning the web for

Lovecraftian monstrosity

[JoeP]

Also, could "Elrit Frisia" be an anagram?

Also, why did the writer not use the word "bimbos" anywhere?

Also, I'm pretty sure the writer was semi-consciously thinking of something else:

The imagery is awesome - I'm sure Terry Gilliam did something like this with Python: