Subliminal Sexism
Current mood: disappointed

 

Walgreens Duluth - perpetuating our very sick American culture and values onto the two year olds of today.

12:06 AM - 3 Comments - 2 Kudos - Add Comment

Never according to plan...
Current mood: annoyed

So lemme re-cap for those that missed the memo(s).

We were moving to San Antonio Texas on July 15, UNTIL we went to Lake Nebagamon Wisconsin to visit Steve's family over the 4th of July weekend. When we were here, saying goodbye, his Aunt Carol told us his dad was considering the sale of the 40 yr old family business. We said we'd give running it a shot, what the hell, we can run a restaurant - I mean - it's easy right? LOL. No, we knew it'd be a fucking nightmare to make it work, being a business owner is hard, and we aren't stupid.

SOOOO

We move to Lake Nebagamon at the end of July and now we're here. It's been just a little more than a week I guess and more of a nightmare than we anticipated. There's emotions running high, freaking out, tantrums and crying -- and that's by all the grown-ups around here that are over 50. Seriously. Steve and I are about at the end of our rope. We had hoped that with Steve's illness and everything we have been through that the community and our family would be together in their desire to see us succeed. Instead it feels like they all can't let go of their own emotional and childish bullshit in order to let us even try.

*sigh*

Full time job? With benefits? Anyone?

10:50 PM - 4 Comments - 2 Kudos - Add Comment

I’m here.
Current mood: tired

Living in Wisconsin...

8:59 PM - 6 Comments - 2 Kudos - Add Comment

A little more info.
Current mood: bummed

10:22 PM - 3 Comments - 6 Kudos - Add Comment

Cat Cancer?
Current mood: blank

So our vomitous cat is in the hospital now, the University of Minnesota vetrinary clinic, because today he started vomiting blood.

Flashback: "There seems to be a mass in his [Steve's] upper chest..."

Flashforward: "Well, there's this mass in Cheeto's stomach lining..."

$1200 for tonight. Testing includes ultrasounds of his stomach tomorrow to get a closer look. I can't imagine feline oncology is cheap. I don't know if it's available up north either.

2:55 PM - 4 Comments - 4 Kudos - Add Comment

Well that was fun. NEWS!
Current mood: blessed

1:12 PM - 9 Comments - 10 Kudos - Add Comment

Cancer Update
Current mood: bitchy

Just to keep those who care posted...

Steve had a scan, we find out June 12th. If he has cancer again we will not move to Texas.

If his results are clear we will move to Texas on July 15th. Eivind will go to California with my parents in the beginning of July.

1:10 PM - 6 Comments - 6 Kudos - Add Comment

still alive
Current mood: anxious

flailing a bit
taking breaths
when my
head
is
above
the
"water"


i
   hope
           you
                don't
                       forget
                                me

11:28 PM - 3 Comments - 4 Kudos - Add Comment

Evil. This is just plain evil.
Current mood: angsty

The following is a transcript of a tape sent anonymously to the Washington Post, ostensibly from a meeting of high-level US government officials that took place in the resort town of Vonn's Eye, Pennsylvania.  Its authenticity has not been confirmed.      

VOICE: …to introduce to you my good friend and a great American, Ike [inaudible].

[APPLAUSE]

NEW VOICE: Thank you, thank you, Dick.  Dick and I go way back.  To Nam, right?  We both had to sit that one out.  Trick knees, you know.  [LAUGHTER]

{You GOT to love these "support the troops" whackos who laugh off "sitting out" nam because they didn't want to go. Ha ha ha ha yeah that's soooo funny how you send people to die, but you got out of war yourself. Hilarious.}

But seriously, gentlemen – and lady {So nice of him to acknowledge the lady in the room, very politically correct} – we're here to discuss a problem of interest to us all, indeed the world.  It's a problem that has been the thorniest, most intractable problem in international relations any of us have ever known.  The Palestinian problem.

It's a problem that most of us have wrestled with our entire careers, a problem that's been with us since before many of us even finished school.

Now, I know this will come as a shock.  But what I am about to tell you is not new.  In fact, what I'm here to say is that not only can we solve the Palestinian problem, the solution has already been laid out for us..  It's already worked: with a different people, and at a different time, but it's already been proven effective.

Gentlemen – and lady {wow, twice he had to address her as if she were not a part of the group} – I'm here to present to you a complete, and final, solution to the Palestinian problem.

[DISTURBANCE]

OTHER VOICE: [INAUDIBLE]

VOICE: No, no, I guess that was a poor choice of words.  God, I hope no one's recording this.  No, I'm not talking about that.  I'm talking about something far more devastating: Integration.

Let me explain.

In the 1960s and early 1970s we had a little intifada of our own.  Black Panthers were running around toting guns and talking revolution.  How did we stop it?  We had the stick, sure, but we also had the carrot.  And we had a King in our hand.

And that's the key.  We need to make the Palestinians think there are alternatives to violence.  What we need to do gentlemen, is create a Muslim Martin Luther King.

How can we do that?  Not directly.  We can't send him to Gaza in an Apache helicopter with marines for bodyguards, the way we did with Chalabi.  That blew up in our faces like an IED.  What we need to do is make them think he's homegrown, not a CIA stooge. 

We set up a contest for the best young orator in Palestine.  The grand prize should be a full scholarship to a college in the United States.  It will be a scholarship named after Martin Luther King, maybe to Stanford, where he can work with Clay Carson on the Martin Luther King Papers Project. (You're friends with him, right?) [INAUDIBLE] 

This guy will then go back to Palestine thinking the way we want him to think.  He won't be pro-American, he'll be anti-occupation all right – you can't get very far in Palestinian society unless you are – but he'll tell them to oppose the occupation the way we want him to, non-violently.  He'll lead a couple marches and maybe government soldiers will make some mistakes and kill a couple people, but that will just make our man stronger {Oh well by all means, kill some folks then}.  Just like King in '63 after the Birmingham bombings.  And once our man gets the Nobel Peace Prize, he will be the undisputed leader of the Palestinians.  Exactly what we want.{Didn't your men want Sadaam in power, and a couple of the other tyrants we have seen?}

But that's not enough.  In the '50s, black people in this country – pardon me, Afro-Americans {Again, with the exagerrated political correctness... this dude don't like to be told he got to respect anyone} – didn't have any options {Oh, and they do now? Please, do tell me so I can start telling our community members who are killing eachother, and/or themselves to escape the despair, hopelessness and devastating generational poverty your people have given them}.  You could have a Ph.D. like Dr. Rice here {Ah now we know who the "lady" in the room is} and not get a job as a shoeshine boy.  Boy, was that dumb of us.  That was real dumb.

We got smarter in the '60s and '70s.  Some of us in the conservative movement think that affirmative action was a mistake from the beginning.  But I'm here to tell you that affirmative action may have just saved this country as we know it from a Marxist revolution. 

A young black kid growing up in Watts or Detroit or Oakland or Harlem in the late '60s would have had no choice but to admire the Panthers.  Young, powerful, strong, bold, masculine, sexy,…um…Got a little off track, sorry {Ah yes, another closeted Republican man}.  Where was I?  Oh yeah, the Panthers were everything a young black kid wanted to be.  Except dead {Don't young black kids wanna be "not dead" too?}.  But before the '70s, we didn't give that kid an alternative, did we?  It was join the Panthers and die or don't join the Panthers and die. {Now they join the gangs till they die, because if they bust their ass in school it won't matter, they can't afford college anyway, and people been telling them they are too stupid to make it there anyhow.}

Affirmative action gave him a choice.  He didn't have to fight us.  He could, possibly, just possibly, become president of Brown University or CEO of Time Warner.  He didn't have to pick up a gun or a suicide belt. You see where I'm going? {Yeah, liberals have been saying to fight poverty and violence here in America we need to give American youth - especially in the inner city where there are less things to do that are positive for kids - things to do, jobs, school, after school programs, anything and this guy and his people cut cut cut the program funding until the programs close.}

In the '60s, the Great Society was great because we bought off the radicals {The Great Society? Is that another history thing I don't know about because Reagan gutted our history books?}.  Instead of joining the Panthers, they joined government-sponsored anti-poverty programs {Programs you designed to break up families (mothers couldn't get help to feed the babies if the fathers were around) and beginning a devastating trend of broken black families.}.  They're not going to fight the government if they work for the government.  So what we need to do in Palestine is the same thing.  A massive expenditure – hear me out – a massive expenditure for jobs programs and non-violence training programs in the disputed territories. {Wow, you know, that's what liberals have said for years and years, jobs programs and non-violence training for those kids in the inner city. Why am I not suprised that they want to take this money though and spend it in another country?  Huge Government spending must only bad if we are spending the money in our own country.}

I know many of you think it was our flooding the ghetto with drugs that killed the Black Power movement, but that really only came 10 years later {"our" flooding the ghetto with drugs? Is this an admission of guilt of attempted genocide?}.   It was affirmative action that killed it.  It worked like a charm.

Now there's one essential difference between Afro-American culture and the Palestinian culture: the Palestinians have a culture. {He just has to be offensive and blatantly racist, doesn't he? You had to know it was coming.}  They have a language, they have a history.  Afro-Americans have neither. {No history?} Slavery took care of that.  Sure, Afro-Americans have their music {he acknowledges black music, but not history or language?}, but even they do not describe it as "black" music.  They use monikers like urban, inner-city, anything to avoid calling it black.  Which is a good thing.  Because that allowed people like us – Elvis and Eminem – to take it over.  But I digress.  {People like us? White people? Elvis and Eminem "took" over "black" music?}

How can we destroy Palestinian culture?  We have to make it a bad thing to be Palestinian.  So when we admit them into mainstream society, as businessmen, as students, what have you, there have to be sanctions if they in any way refer to their Palestinian identity.  For example, none of us here treat Dr. Rice as a black woman, do we {How excactly are you "supposed" to treat a black woman}?  And she wouldn't have it any other way.  Neither would I.  So when we give the Palestinians this pressure valve, the possibility of becoming successful and middle-class without having to blow themselves up, we need to still leave an enforcement mechanism.  We will give you a chance if you renounce your identity.  Maybe you don't have to renounce it explicitly, but at least you have to do it subliminally. {LIKE CONDE DID - she renounced her identity, subliminally, because this man, and these people have made it a bad thing to be black. He says slavery took their culture, but they wanna keep everyone down through institutional racism, as they outline here so clearly.}

Here's an example: In the December 11, 2002 edition of that left-wing rag The Nation [HISSES] – I know, I know, why do I read that tripe? – John Nichols wrote about a black professor at a Southern university who publicly criticized the founder of the Ku Klux Klan.  Immediately, a nationwide group of 30,000 individuals forced the university to sanction the professor, who ultimately had to leave.  Not a single black organization had the spine to defend him.  That's what I mean by a self-regulating enforcement mechanism.  If they cross the line – and that includes defending anyone who crosses the line – the retribution must be swift and sure.  But for everybody else, there's the escape hatch, the pressure valve, the possibility to attain wealth and happiness in our great society.  They won't, but they'll think they can, and that's what matters.

In short, we want to achieve a situation like the one we have in America today: Thanks to the pressure valve and the enforcement mechanism, few if any successful blacks today identify in any way with the radical politics of their forebears in the '60s and '70s.   Hell, many of them even vote with us.  [LAUGHTER] {HA HA STUPID BLACK PEOPLE HA HA - Is this guy serious? He is. And everyone in that room... dead serious.}  Affirmative action, my friends, was the weapon that ended the culture war that began in the 1960s.

But culture is not so easily expurgated.  Look at rap, look at jazz.  No Afro-American today can speak a single word of Yoruba, but the culture is still there.  Like a bump in a rug.  But we can deal with that too.  What weapon do we have in our arsenal that is so powerful that it can eviscerate an entire culture's will to resist?  The answer, my friends, is simple.

Send in the clowns.

Send in the gangsta rappers!  Their message is exactly what we want the Palestinian youth to hear.  Faux rebellion without a trace of a real political message.  Your parents don't like it?  It's because they're not hip.  All that matters is money and ho's? (If you'll pardon me.)  Perfect.  Then the youth won't be worried about history or UN resolutions. {Keep them stupid, keep them down.}

We want to focus on music because it's one of the non-threatening aspects of culture.  Today, in America, during Black History Month, all you get regaled by are stories told by, well, story-tellers.  And not stories about slave revolts either.  They're festivals of food and fun, as I heard someone put it once.  Nothing angry. {He's right. He's so right. I want to cry. Or throw up.}

If we can fuse Arab culture with gangsta hip hop, we can destroy it from the inside.  So what we need to do is what we did with Eastern Europe.  There, we sent in Coca Cola, so to speak.  It totally undermined the Soviet culture, paving the way for free markets and prostitutes {very family values of him, and respectful of women} – I mean, profits. 

All this is just a sketch.  We need to fill in the details.  But hopefully, by 2020, we'll have solved this most vexing of problems.

And if that doesn't work we can always infect the blood supply.

{There are conspiracy theories that HIV was purposefully used to infect gays and African Americans. To rid our society of the "unwanted" ills. With HIV rates rising in African American communities at warp speed, I wonder if this is more than just a conspiracy theory. }

[APPLAUSE]

2:55 PM - 4 Comments - 2 Kudos - Add Comment

Summary of late...
Current mood: moody

"Breathe Me"
by Sia

Help, I have done it again
I have been here many times before
Hurt myself again today
And, the worst part is there's no-one else to blame

Be my friend
Hold me, wrap me up
Unfold me
I am small
I'm needy
Warm me up
And breathe me

Ouch I have lost myself again
Lost myself and I am nowhere to be found,
Yeah I think that I might break
I've lost myself again and I feel unsafe

Be my friend
Hold me, wrap me up
Unfold me
I am small
I'm needy
Warm me up
And breathe me

Be my friend
Hold me, wrap me up
Unfold me
I am small
I'm needy
Warm me up
And breathe me

"Lentil"
by Sia

You were waiting for me, you saw me, you saw me
As I wish the whole world would
You would never hurt me, desert me or work me
For all the things you thought you should
You would lick the tears from my eyes when I cry
How I missed you when I was gone
Hurt me so to leave you deceive you I need you
I believe in you.

I, I never meant to let you down
Awake with a stake in my eye
I never meant to let you down
I'm trying not to fall apart

Now all I have is riches and stitches and pictures
But money could never buy what you give
Though my heart is achin' and breakin' I'm takin'
Most of what you send my way
I want just to hold you, unfold you, I told you
I am coming back for you
I know we will be okay everyday
The sun shines a little brighter

I, I never meant to let you down
Awake with a stake in my eye
I never meant to put you down
I'm trying not to fall apart

I never meant to let you down
Awake with a stake in my eye
I never meant to put you down
I'm trying not to fall apart
I'm trying not to fall apart

When in the night we'll set a light
I'm wishing with all of my mind

Oh no, I never meant to let you down
I never meant to put you down
I never meant to let you down
Awake with a stake in my eye
I never meant to put you down
I'm trying not to fall....

Day Too Soon
by Sia

Pick me up in your arms
Carry me away from harm
You're never gonna put me down
I know you're just one good man
You'll tire before we see land
You're never gonna put me down

Oh I've been running all my life
I ran away, I ran away from good
Yeah I've been waiting all my life
You're not a day you're not day too soon

Honey I will stitch you
Darling I will fit you in my heart
Honey I will meet you
Darling I will keep you in my heart

You'll risk all this for just a kiss
I promise I will not resist
Promise you wont hold me down
And when we reach a good place
Let's be sure to leave no trace
Promise they wont track us down

Now I've been running all my life
I ran away, I ran away from good
Yeah, I've been waiting all my life
You're not a day, you're not a day too soon

Honey I will stitch you
Darling i will fit you in my heart
Honey I will meet you
Darling I will keep you in my heart

I've been running all my life
I ran away, I ran away from good
Yeah I've been waiting all my life
You're not a day, you're not a day too soon

Oh honey I will stitch you
Darling I will fit you in my heart
Honey I will meet you
Darling I will keep you in my heart

12:12 PM - 2 Comments - 4 Kudos - Add Comment

Fond Farewell
Current mood: angsty

Fond Farewell 
by Elliott Smith

The litebrite’s now black and white
Cause you took apart a picture that wasn’t right
Pitch burning on a shining sheet
The only maker that you’d want to meet
The dying man in a living room
Who’s shadow paces the floor
Who’ll take you out in the open door

This is not my life
It’s just a fond farewell to a friend
It’s not what I’m like
It’s just a fond farewell to a friend
Who couldn’t get things right
Fond farewell to a friend

He said really I just wanna dance
Good and evil matched perfect it’s a great romance
I can deal with some physic pain
If it’ll slow down my higher brain
Veins full of disappearing ink
Vomiting in the kitchen sink
Disconnecting from the missing link

This is not my life
It’s just a fond farewell to a friend
It’s not what I’m like
It’s just a fond farewell to a friend
Who couldn’t get things right
Fond farewell to a friend

I see you’re leaving me and taking up with the enemy
The cold comfort of the in between
A little less than a human being
A little less than a happy high
A little less than a suicide
The only things that you really tried

This is not my life
It’s just a fond farewell to a friend
It’s not what I’m like
It’s just a fond farewell to a friend
Who couldn’t get things right
Fond farewell to a friend
This is not my life
It’s just a fond farewell to a friend

you can easily obtain recordings online, Elliott was supportive of music sharing. The Elliott Smith internet archive which Elliott’s family has approved is located at: http://www.archive.org/details/ElliottSmith

11:04 AM - 2 Comments - 2 Kudos - Add Comment

preferred list

they never made that shit any easier... if you aren’t on that list it’s probably only because i have been too lazy to re-do it... just let me know

10:25 PM - 2 Comments - 2 Kudos - Add Comment

That damn liberal media...
Current mood: argumentative

This was written in 2002 and is still relevant... *sigh* ESPECIALLY now that they are going to become more active liars than ever to try and win the Presidency again.

Fun links follow the article.

_______

Scandals and Lies
March 29, 2002
By Bridget Gibson

"If we understand the mechanism and motives of the group mind, it is now possible to control and regiment the masses according to our will without their knowing it." - Edward Bernays, a nephew of Sigmund Freud, America's No. 1 Publicist in the 1920's

When is a scandal not a scandal? When a scandal appears to be connected with a member of the Republican Party, it is not reported as a "scandal." Only when a member of the Democratic Party has involvement in anything that broaches the questionable grey area is something "determined" to be a "scandal."

After an eight year-long investigation of William Jefferson and Hillary Clinton was concluded with "no evidence," it is still reported as a "scandal." That $70 million in taxpayer dollars and untold hours were devoted to finding something, anything, to throw at the Clintons has shown that there was nothing to throw. The media (and I mean the major corporate media) still consider it to be a "scandal." One that just won't go away. One that has to be lied about and drummed constantly into the psyche of the American public until something resonates. What is resonating are the words that have been repeated endlessly until almost everyone can recite them verbatim.

But let me tell you what was not a "scandal."

There was no "scandal" when Republican President George Herbert Walker Bush pardoned Caspar Weinberger with an indictment filed against him, thus avoiding any questions regarding the involvement of that same Republican President in the Iran-Contra Affair. There was no "scandal" when a partisan court appointed the highest elected official in this country.

There was no "scandal" when an intern was found dead of mysterious causes in Florida Republican Congressman Joe Scarborough's office. There was no "scandal" when Republican Mayor Philip Giordano of Waterbury, Connecticut was caught and charged as a sexual predator of young girls.

There was no "scandal" when the Republican President George Walker Bush nominated Theodore Olson (investigated for obstruction of justice and lying to Congress during the Superfund investigation) to the office of Solicitor General. There was no "scandal" when Florida Governor Jeb Bush's daughter, Noelle Bush, was charged with felony fraud in obtaining a controlled substance.

There was no "scandal" when Republican President George Walker Bush's daughters, Jenna and Barbara Bush, then 18, were convicted with using illegally obtained and false identification to obtain alcohol. There was no "scandal" when Mark A. Grethen, a Republican activist, nominated for "Republican of the Year" was convicted and is serving a more than 20 year sentence in prison for six counts of sex crimes involving children.

There was no "scandal" when Wendy Gramm, the wife of prominent Republican Senator Phil Gramm, approved illegal partnerships and waived the code of ethics for those partnership formations while on the Board of Directors of Enron. There is no "scandal" when Kenneth "Kenny Boy" Lay (Enron and Lay contributed $2.16 Million to Republicans in the 2000 election cycle) the largest contributor to the sitting Republican President, George Walker Bush, currently being investigated for leading one of the largest American companies, Enron, into bankruptcy following fraudulently filed earnings reports.

There was no "scandal" when Enron was allowed to price-gouge consumers and the sitting Republican President George Walker Bush refused to allow the Federal Energy Regulatory Committee (FERC) to impose price caps to control excess profiteering. There was no "scandal" when the current sitting Republican President George Walker Bush appointed Elliott Abrams (convicted of lying to Congress about the Iran-Contra affair) to the Human Rights Commission of the United Nations.

There was no "scandal" when John Ashcroft, the current Republican Attorney General, spuriously gave a "reprieve" and discontinued the lawfully entered agreement for damages to The Adams Mark Hotel, owned by Fred S. Kummer Jr, a personal friend and $25,700 senatorial campaign contributor, for charges of serious violations of racial discrimination.

There was no "scandal" when key figures, John Negroponte (complicit in the Honduran Death Squads), Richard Armitage (linked to illegal arms transfers and CIA drug-running operations), Otto Reich (propaganda operative), John Poindexter (convicted of conspiracy {obstruction of inquiries and proceedings, false statements, falsification, destruction and removal of documents}; two counts of obstruction of Congress and two counts of false statements) of the Iran-Contra Affair have re-appeared in official governmental positions by appointment by George Walker Bush, the sitting Republican President, the son of the former Republican President, George Herbert Walker Bush, for whom these men worked.

There is no "scandal" when the current Republican Vice President Richard Cheney refuses to release what should be public records of meetings held in the formulation of public policy (The Energy Policy) after being ordered to do so by three Federal Judges (U. S. District Judge Gladys Kessler, U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan and U.S. District Judge Paul L. Friedman). There is no "scandal" when the personal fortune of George Walker Bush, the sitting Republican President, is being bolstered by governmental war contracts to The Carlyle Group, partially owned by his father, former Republican President, George Herbert Walker Bush.

The only exception to this "scandal" rule that you will be able to easily recall is the Watergate scandal presided over by Republican President Richard Milhouse Nixon, who was forced to resign his office in disgrace.

Don't worry about those "scandals," you know the "liberal" major media corporations (Rupert Murdoch of FOX - $30,033 to RNC... AOL/Time Warner/Walter Isaacson of CNN - $6,150 to RNC... GE/Jack Welch of NBC - $160,350 to RNC... Disney/Michael Eisner/ABC - $208,052 to RNC) are surely going to tell you every "scandal" that they want you to know.

They do not want you to remember Republican "scandals." It makes it easier to demonize Democrats. They do not want you to look around. They do not want you to question their version of the news. There are only Democrat "scandals". You can recite them as easily as you can recite the Pledge of Allegiance: Whitewater. The Blue Dress. Chandra Levy. Chappaquiddick. You know the drill.

12:33 PM - 1 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment

Preview
Current mood: busy

MH - not many read this blog anymore, but let me know if this is a no-no and you want this removed until after publishing.

Lavender Magazine Fashion Spread Photoshoot 3/08
Photo By Mike Hinda, Lavender Studios, Copyright 2008



Not bad for an old gal about to turn 30 at the end of April. *cries*

11:45 AM - 8 Comments - 10 Kudos - Add Comment

Because Raping someone is better than smoking pot...
Current mood: angry

From "The Curvature"

"To all of the assholes last week whose comments both deleted and published demanded proof — proof, I say! — that we live in a rape culture and that men who are undoubtedly guilty of sexual assault very regularly get away with their crimes: here you go, assholes.

The guy who admitted to attempted sexual assault but was acquitted and got to keep his job as County Commissioner has nothing on the guy who raped a woman in her dorm room, was found guilty by the school of committing the rape, is on record as saying "I know what I did was wrong" and still got to keep his job as an Resident Assistant. Emphasis mine (and a trigger warning):

"I remember him kissing me, and I remember putting my hand out and saying, 'no,'" Erika said. "We get back to my room, and he [said] he [was] going to tuck me into bed. … That's when the assault happened."

Erika said she didn't remember much else about what happened that night, but she was suspicious because her friend was still in bed with her when she woke up. She said she got a rape test that morning, but the results came back inconclusive. Later that night her friend told her through an instant message that he had forced her to have oral sex with him, she said.

Erika said she had not spoken publicly about her attack until she attended a meeting last week in response to the Feb. 3 rape in Emerson Hall.

Erika said her alleged assailant was a resident assistant in East Tower. The incident took place in Terrace 10. She said she reported the attack to Public Safety immediately, and after they completed their investigation, the case was turned over to the Office of Judicial Affairs.

Erika said Mike Leary, assistant director of judicial affairs, told her they found her assailant guilty and placed him on disciplinary probation, but they could not remove him from his position as an RA.

When reached by e-mail, the alleged attacker confirmed that he was accused of sexually assaulting Erika and that he was not terminated from his position as an RA after the incident occurred.

"I know what I did was wrong," he said in the e-mail. "I've learned a great deal from the whole situation."

Leary confirmed he spoke with Erika regarding her assailant's judicial case but could not comment further because of privacy reasons.

Erika said she was devastated when she found out her alleged assailant was keeping his job.

When asked why the alleged attacker was allowed to remain as an RA, Bonnie Solt Prunty, director of the Office of Residential Life, said she could not comment on personnel issues.

Prunty said the circumstances under which an RA could be removed vary.

"It is a case by case review … depending on what the violation was and a determination of what the appropriate outcome is for the staff member," she said.

Prunty said sometimes there is a one-strike removal policy because the violation is so significant.

"For instance, if we had an RA who was dealing drugs, they'd be terminated," Prunty said. "If they were possessing drugs, smoking pot in the residence halls, those would be the kinds of things that would result in termination."

Please, do let that sink in. Because it took me a minute to actually understand what is being said here. When I found the story through SAFER and saw the headline "Because smoking pot is worse than raping someone," I thought that the two had to be slightly less related. Like, perhaps, that someone else had lost their job for possessing pot a few years ago, but now the rapist gets to keep his. That would have been more than bad enough. The fact that he got to keep his job at all is bad enough. But the Office of Residential Life actually admitted that someone who was dealing or possessing drugs would without a doubt be terminated, and that "significant" violations adhere to a a "one-strike removal policy." And you know what isn't on that list? Rape.

But the rape apologists need some proof that sexual assault isn't considered to be a crime deserving of serious consequences, that our society both condones rape and sees it as a fucking joke. And hey, where the hell are we going to find that?

As those of you who are regular readers could have probably already guessed, it gets worse. It always gets worse. From yesterday's editorial in the campus newspaper (again, emphasis mine):

The rape reported Feb. 3 reminds us that sexual assault is a sobering reality.

IC Feminists and SAFER responded to the attack with an open meeting to discuss sexual assault. At the gathering — because of the gathering — two more rape victims came forward to share their accounts of rape, which they said happened on campus during the 2006-07 school year. Both victims said they knew their assailants, one of whom was a Resident Assistant at the time of the attack. Both victims also reported the rapes to the Office of Public Safety, but Public Safety did not alert the rest of the community.

The way these rapes were dealt with in the hands of Residential Life and Public Safety officials is counterintuitive. Leaving rapes unreported should never happen; an RA should never be allowed to keep his or her job after being found guilty of a crime such as rape.

The Office of Public Safety said it did not issue a Public Safety Alert for the rape reported in October 2006, nor for the rape reported last Friday, because both victims knew their assailants. By this logic, alerts are issued when Public Safety is still seeking an attacker, but not if the attackers remain on campus.

[. . .]

It seems that by making these decisions, both offices decided that it was not important to inform the campus, much less the RA's residents, that a student with access to many residence halls was under investigation for rape.

These fuckers are giving the immoral assholes at UW a run for their money.

The school feels absolutely no responsibility to inform the students of an alleged or known rapist in their midst, if the victim knew her rapist.

You know what's exceedingly convenient? That every rapist at Ithaca College only knows one woman. And he's already raped her! No reason to get people into a panic, right?

I really hate to bring this up, especially seeing the horrible campus shooting that took place in Illinois yesterday, but does this kind of policy scream "Virginia Tech" to anyone else? Remember, the first shooting victim who was killed in her dorm room, but no one felt the need to alert the student body due to assumptions that it was some kind of "personal dispute"? You know, because men murder women all the time, and it is indeed true that most of the time, that man intimately knows his victim. Nothing to worry about. The assumption was apparently that the shooter, too, only knew one woman. And he had already killed her. No reason to get people into a panic, right?

But back to the news at hand, which is currently making me feel physically ill. The good news is that the campus feminist group is on the case, and demanding to be taken seriously:

Junior Sarah Brylinsky, a board member of IC Feminists, said she wants to change the policy that allowed Erika's alleged attacker to keep his job.

"Is there really a system in place that thwarts [punishment]?" Brylinsky said. "I think we'd all like to update our response into a proactive policy."

Brylinsky said the IC Feminists would like to have a collaborative effort with the student body, faculty and the offices of Residential Life and Judicial Affairs to reform the campus's response to rape and create a culture of respect towards women.

Brylinksky and some members of IC Feminists will be meeting today with officials in the Office of Judicial Affairs to start discussing changes to the process.

"The creation of this culture won't happen through a poster campaign, a rally or educational events," Brylinsky said. "It will happen when each and every individual finds the strength to speak out against … rape culture in their lives."

While I actually think that a massive demonstration outside the Office of Judicial Affairs is in order, if for nothing other than a place to vent, be publicly recognized and to alert those who don't read the paper of how their school treats its female students, Brylinsky does have something of a point. And if they've already managed to get a meeting and have sincere reason to believe that their voices are going to be heard and listened to, I hope that they're right. Personally, I'm not holding my breath. But I do have hope.

And no matter what happens, we can feel better knowing this situation to be so common that  SAFER already sells an applicable protest tee-shirt. You might want to stock up."

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