le charbonnier: October 2009

10.27.2009

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/33486372/ns/us_news-crime_and_courts/
http://www.cnn.com/2009/CRIME/10/27/california.gang.rape.investigation/index.html?eref=rss_topstories
http://www.contracostatimes.com/top-stories/ci_13644237?nclick_check=1

A lot has been said about how to prevent rape. Women should learn self-defense. Women should lock themselves in their houses after dark. Women shouldn't have long hair and women shouldn't wear short skirts. Women shouldn't leave drinks unattended. Fuck, they shouldn't dare to get drunk at all.

Instead of that bullshit, how about:

If a woman is drunk, don't rape her. If a woman is walking alone at night, don't rape her. If a women is drugged and unconscious, don't rape her. If a woman is wearing a short skirt, don't rape her. If a woman is jogging in a park at 5AM, don't rape her. If a woman looks like your ex-girlfriend you're still hung up on, don't rape her. If a woman is asleep in her bed, don't rape her. If a woman is asleep in your bed, don't rape her. If a woman is doing her laundry, don't rape her. If a woman is in a coma, don't rape her. If a woman changes her mind in the middle of or about a particular activity, don't rape her. If a woman has repeatedly refused a certain activity, don't rape her. If a woman is not yet a woman, but a child, don't rape her. If your girlfriend or wife is not in the mood, don't rape her. If your step-daughter is watching TV, don't rape her.

If you break into a house and find a woman there, don't rape her. If your friend thinks it's okay to rape someone, tell him it's not, and that he's not your friend. If your "friend" tells you he raped someone, report him to the police. If your frat-brother or another guy at the party tells you there's an unconscious woman upstairs and it's your turn, don't rape her, call the police and report him as a rapist.

Tell your sons, god-sons, nephews, grandsons, and sons of friends that it's not okay to rape someone.

Don't just tell your women friends how to be safe and avoid rape. Don't imply that she could have avoided it if she'd only done/not done x, y, or z. Don't imply that it's in any way her fault. Don't let silence imply agreement when someone tells you he "got some" with the drunk girl. Don't perpetuate a culture that tells you that you have no control over or responsibility for your actions. You can too help yourself. Rape is not about sex, it's about control and power, and what kind of power comes from taking advantage of others? No power anyone should ever desire.

10.22.2009

And this one.

Franken v. Furchtgott-Roth on Bankruptcies

I am in love with this man.

Grayson v. Broun

AlterNet: Rape Is a Pre-Existing Condition? The Heartlessness of the Health Insurance Industry Exposed

Ok, now this is just downright insane. I cannot believe that the insurance companies can do this. And if the reforms don't put a stop to it, I think I am going to move abroad.
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Rape Is a Pre-Existing Condition? The Heartlessness of the Health Insurance Industry Exposed
http://www.alternet.org/healthwellness/143426
By taking anti-AIDS medicine after a rape, Christina Turner discovered that she had made herself all but uninsurable.
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GIST: 38 of 365

1. OUR HEAT WORKS NOW!!

2. Picking pumpkins with Alexis and Louisa yesterday.

3. The color gray.

4. Emails from abroad.

5. Dinner with a good friend.

10.19.2009

YouTube - Beat the Horse - Pomplamoose VideoSong

YouTube - Beat the Horse - Pomplamoose VideoSong

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just decide already

Why is it that I cannot make a decision, be done with it and be content?

Instead, I spend countless hours fretting over whether I have made the right choice. I become anxious about each one, lest I do the wrong thing and end up disappointing someone else. And instead I am constantly disappointed.

So my life is full of regret. Every decision analyzed and re-analyzed. Always looking back, poring over past decisions, wondering what my life would have been like if I had gone in another direction.

If only I had fought to be a biology major instead of giving up and studying art.

If only I had made better choices with the men I have dated.

If only I hadn't stayed so long in doomed relationships.

If only I had been more willing to work on others whose flaws I allowed to overshadow their strengths.

If only I had been more aggressive in job searches instead of taking the first ones found and offered.

If only I had learned how to live within my means instead of getting so far into debt I can't see out of the hole.

An I know that there is nothing I can do about the past. I can only look forward and try to make better choices in the future.

Which is a problem in itself.

I just cannot seem to live in the present. To take things as they come. To stop wishing that my life will start and live in the moment. Carpe diem and all that. And while I know a lot of things about myself, I don't know why this is. And I don't begin to know how to figure it out.

10.14.2009

Tu.tv - Videos de MÃºsica - Video: EDITH PIAF LA VIE EN ROSE

Tu.tv - Videos de MÃºsica - Video: EDITH PIAF LA VIE EN ROSE

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10.13.2009

GIST: 37 of 365

1. Big Bang Theory!
2. Sending back the Dollhouse DVDs to Netflix and...

3. Getting the first three of Supernatural: Season 3 next.

3. My haircut is still making me happy. Thanks Doug!

5. The crisp fall weather that we're having.

10.12.2009

GIST: 36 of 365

1. Contemplation of the past in order to make better choices in the future.

2. I thought about what I would want to study if I went back to school.

3. I looked into the federal student aid I can possibly receive if I go back to school.

4. Red Velvet Cake Balls!!

5. I do not have a migraine today (as of right now) unlike the past two days.

A brief history of me.

Jobs Wanted, Any Jobs at All

This piece made me think about how I felt when I graduated from college and how I still feel about myself and my "career."

I don't remember receiving any career advice along the way. I had next to no idea about what I was going to do to support myself. I stayed on over the summer after my graduation working nights in the Public Safety office and sleeping the days away in a basement dorm room that had no air conditioning. I had very little human contact, but I planned a roadtrip. I tried, studiously, to avoid thinking about a future beyond that. I surfed the internet, I pored over maps and I pretended that everything would just fall into place when it was supposed to.

Then the summer ended and I had to go home. I hated home. So, I drank too much. I still hated home. I worked for a few weeks as the secretary of my parents' church and I was hung over every day.

I went on my roadtrip. I drove from the east coast to the west coast and back with my best friend.

At times it was liberating... and frustrating... and joyful... and depressing. But, mostly it was painfully beautiful. And I wanted so badly to never come home, to never have to make a decision about what to do with my career or anything else, and to stay out there in the great wide open. We camped under the stars and in the snow, wandered around National Parks and big cities, visited oceans and lakes and rivers, hiked in deserts, mountains and forests.

And sometime during the trip, I think that it was in New Mexico, I decided that I wanted to be a park ranger.

Sent to you by Sadie via Google Reader:

Meet The Barry Twins, New York City's Newly Famous Job Seekers [Big City Livin']

via Jezebel by hortense on 10/10/09

The New York Times is currently running a profile of Katie and Kristy Barry, twins who moved from Ohio to New York City in order to chase their dreams. As these things often go, their plans aren't quite working out.

Kristy and Katie started out at Marietta College in Ohio , N.R. Kleinfeld of the Times tells us, but transferred to Rutgers' Newark campus during their junior year. They hoped to obtain journalism jobs in New York City after graduating in May or 2008, but the job market has made that virtually impossible, and the twins are now in the same position as many of their peers; straddled with thousands of dollars in student loans and a degree that isn't taking them where they'd hoped it would.

Kristy currently makes $800 dollars a week as a bartender. Katie, on the other hand, was fired from her bartending job "after landing in Cancun to begin a vacation. Her boss said she played the music too loud." Times commenters, reading the piece, seemingly wanted to fire her from this article for taking a vacation in the midst of what is played up to be the job search of her life, which I suppose is a somewhat fair argument.

At one point, Kleinfeld notes that "their dream is to work together in sports reporting or have a TV show, but they are flexible. They talk of teaching piano, or inventing, say, a lipstick-case microphone." The first time I read this, I laughed, hard. The second time I read it, I rolled my eyes. The third time I read it, I just sighed and felt a bit sad. It's not bad to have dreams, mind you, but these women are 24 years old, and the lack of reality in their grand plan strikes me as a bit tragic. Not only because it seems like their family is somewhat rooting for them to fail and come home to Ohio, but because, in many ways, they represent the lack of preparedness that many students have upon leaving college and striking out on their own for the first time.

There should be a required course for everyone during senior year of college called "Nobody Owes You Anything," wherein your professor informs you that the economy is terrible, the job market sucks, and your degree is no longer an instant ticket to a dream job. The course should also force students to come up with a backup plan (or several) should they find themselves in a position where they have to make ends meet while waiting for their big break to arrive. The Barry twins are trying to do this on their own, and while the article makes them sound enthusiastic and creative (Katie plays her sax in Times Square for business cards), they don't come across as terribly well-prepared. "I need a life coach to come in and tell me what I'm doing wrong," Katie admits.

And so the Times leaves us with this tale of two suburban girls, still struggling to find their way, paying nearly $3,000 a month in rent (along with their brother and his roommate), drinking Starbucks at every turn, and trying to figure out how to make it in the big city. It's a piece that pokes a little fun at everyone who watched a romantic comedy about makin' it in the big city and believed every word of it. It should be good for a few laughs, at least, but in the end, the reality of it kicks in, and suddenly it doesn't seem so funny after all.

Jobs Wanted, Any Jobs At All [New York Times]

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10.09.2009

GIST: 35 of 365

1. I brought my lunch today.

2. I made it to work on time.

3. I have an easy desk today.

4. Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize.

5. My cousin Jeff commented on a post I made and put up on facebook yesterday.

Barack Obama Wins Nobel Peace Prize - NYTimes.com

Sent to you by Sadie via Google Reader:

Barack Obama Wins Nobel Peace Prize - NYTimes.com

via www.nytimes.com on 10/9/09

OSLO — In a stunning surprise, the Nobel Committee announced Friday that it had awarded its annual peace prize to President Obama "for his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples."

"He has created a new international climate," the committee said in its announcement. President Obama's name had not figured in speculation about the likely winner until minutes before the prize was announced here.

Likely candidates had been seen here as including human rights activists in China and Afghanistan and political figures in Africa.

The committee said it wanted to enhance Mr. Obama's diplomatic efforts. "We are awarding Obama for what he has done," the committee said. "Many other people and leaders and nations have to respond in a positive way" to President Obama's diplomacy.

The announcement noted the special importance the committee attached to President Obama's vision of a world without nuclear weapons. "Obama has as president created a new climate in international politics. Multilateral diplomacy has regained a central position, with emphasis on the role that the United Nations and other international institutions can play," the committee said.

Walter Gibbs reported from Oslo, and Alan Cowell from London.

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10.08.2009

MyDD :: Health Savings Accounts Are A Scam

Mind - When a Parent’s Love Comes With Conditions - NYTimes.com

Mind - When a Parent’s Love Comes With Conditions - NYTimes.com

I can't remember whether I read this and it spoke to me regarding my own parents or it was to be a lesson for me to take with me into parenthood (whenever that might come) but it was a great read.