Guest Blogging

I am very excited to announce that for the month of November I will be a guest blogger over at The F Word.

So watch that space, along with this space, for posts!

Purple Ribbons

I had a light grey zippy top with a pink breast cancer awareness ribbon embroidered onto it.

I was dyeing some clothes a few months ago, and I didn't really like the pale grey of the top any more, so decided to dye it purple, along with some other stuff which I was tie-dyeing.

The result was that as well as having a newly funky purple hoodie, it also now sported a purple ribbon instead of a pink one.

I have finally got round to looking it up, to see what I'm inadvertently supporting these days with it.

Good old wikipedia informs me that I have quite a choice.

A purple ribbon is worn to raise awareness for various causes, including:
-Xenophobia and Homophobia (Austria 2009)
-Overdose Prevention
-Domestic violence
-The exile of FVSports poster Str8EastCoastin
-Alzheimer's disease
-Crohn's Disease
-Cystic Fibrosis
-Epilepsy
-Huntington's disease
-Lupus
-Fibromyalgia
-Arnold-Chiari Malformation
-Animal abuse
-Religious tolerance
-Homelessness
-Victims of 9/11
-Macular degeneration
-ADD and ADHD
-Sarcoidosis
-Pediatric stroke
-Gastrointestinal cancers
-Thyroid cancer[1]
-Ulcerative Colitis
-Pancreatic cancer
-Cancer survival
-Rwandan Genocide
It is worn by trade union members on Workers' Memorial Day (April 28), to commemorate workers killed, disabled, injured or made unwell by their work.[2] It is also a symbol used by 4 R Kids Sake whose mission is to protect our children from preventable injuries and death in and around cars. They were the driving force behind purple ribbon month in CA.
On the website FVSports.com, poster Horns21 is using the purple ribbon wrapped around a bottle of wild turkey as a symbol of support for banned poster Str8EastCoastin.

So really, I can pick a different one every day.

I'm Not Like Other Girls

Following my call for zine submissions post, I now have a deadline, so if you want to send me your sentence about why you're not like other girls, please do so by Sunday 25th October.

All the info you need is here.

Thank you!

Testing times for disabled people

From the Guardian

Testing times for disabled people

The new eligibility test for people on sickness benefit will only intensify the massive disadvantage faced by disabled people

There are some good principles behind the new Employment and Support Allowance (ESA), but what does the accompanying eligibility test actually mean for disabled people? The first full set of figures to show its impact suggest that more disabled people could end up in poverty.

A year ago the ESA was introduced to replace Incapacity Benefit (IB). At the same time the "work capability assessment", was introduced. Now the figures showing the impact of this new assessment have been published.

Essentially, they show that the new assessment is considerably tougher than the old one, so fewer people are being found eligible for the benefit. As eventually all existing recipients of IB will also be retested under the new assessment, the figures also show us that many people currently in receipt of IB will be found ineligible for the new benefit when retested.

Their circumstances won't have changed, their impairment will not have altered, but as the new test is tougher, they will no longer be eligible.

Disabled people still face massive disadvantage in the labour market. They are far less likely to be in employment than non-disabled people, and when in work likely to earn less. A recent survey of human resources professionals found that nine out of 10 agreed that employers would choose a non-disabled candidate over an equally qualified disabled candidate. Disabled people are also twice as likely as non-disabled people to have no qualifications, and twice as likely to live in poverty. It is clear that a benefits system that does more to help disabled people to find work, while also better supporting those furthest from the labour market, could potentially play a massive role in challenging disability poverty.

The new ESA is meant to offer disabled people better and more personalised support to get back to work. But if the assessment is made so tough that people are not getting the benefit in the first place, then they will also not be getting the support that could help them get into employment.

The benefit also includes a higher rate for those not expected to return to work. Of course this is positive, but the basic rate is just £5 more per week, and will not even begin to lift people out of poverty. The best way to save money in the long term would be to ensure disabled people have the support they need to get into work.

The extent of disability poverty in the UK should be a national scandal, and the benefits system should be a key weapon in changing the situation. Disabled people want to work and there is a crucial role for an active, engaging benefits system that offers support, challenges the continuing barriers to employment and works to lift those furthest from employment out of poverty. The key must be to get disabled people the support that they need and not to push them away from it.

If God Had Wanted Me To Be Accepting Of Gays, He Would Have Given Me The Warmth And Compassion To Do So

Gotta love The Onion...

If God Had Wanted Me To Be Accepting Of Gays, He Would Have Given Me The Warmth And Compassion To Do So

I don't question God. The Lord is my Shepherd and I shall put none above Him. Which is why I know that if it were part of God's plan for me to stop viciously condemning others based solely on their sexual preference, He would have seen fit—in His infinite wisdom and all—to have given me the tiniest bit of human empathy necessary to do so.

It's a simple matter of logic, really. God made me who I am, and who I am is a cold, anti-gay zealot. Thus, I abhor gay people because God made me that way. Why is that so hard to understand?

Here, let's start with the basic facts: I hate and fear gay people. The way they feel is different from how I feel, and that causes me a lot of confusion and anger. Everyone knows God is all-powerful. He could easily have given me the capacity to investigate what's behind those feelings rather than tell strangers in the park they're going to hell for holding hands. But God clearly has another path for me. And who am I to question His divine will?

Compassion, tolerance, understanding, basic decency, the ability to put myself in another person's position: God could have endowed me with any of those traits and yet—here is the crucial part—He didn't. Why? Because the Creator of the Universe wants me to demonize homosexuals in an effort to strip them of their fundamental human rights.

I'm sorry, but you can't possibly ask me to explain everything God does. He works in mysterious ways, remember?

Try to understand. If I were capable of thinking and acting any other way, then I'm sure I would, but God seems to be quite adamant about this one. He's just not budging at all. So unless our almighty Lord and Savior decides to change His mind about my ability to empathize on even the most basic level—which I find highly unlikely—then everyone is just going to have to accept the fact that I'm going to keep on hating homosexuals. And I know that He will fill me with the strength to remain mindless and hurtful in the face of adversity.

Which isn't to say that my faith hasn't been tested. Believe me, there have been times when I've drifted from the bitter and terrified life God has chosen for me. When my younger brother told me he was gay, it shook my faith to its very core. But here I am, 27 years later, still refusing to take his calls. Just the way God intended.

It's actually pretty astonishing how many complaints to the school board you can make regarding the new band teacher you've never met when you are filled with the Light of Christ and devoid of any real kindness or mercy toward His other children.

At the end of the day, I'm just trying to lead a good Christian life. That means going to church on Sunday, following the Ten Commandments, and fighting what I believe to be a sexual abomination through a series of petty actions and bitter comments made under my breath. Sure, I sometimes wish God would just reach into my heart and give me the ability to treat all people with, at the very least, the decency and respect they deserve as human beings. But unfortunately for that new couple who moved in three houses down, He hasn't yet.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I have God's work to do.

Dannii

I've just made a complaint to OFCOM about a comment made by Dannii Minogue on X Factor tonight. After one singer - Danyl - finished his song she made a comment which essentially 'outed' him.

Firstly, his sexuality, whatever it may be, is entirely irrelevant to his talent (or not!) as a singer and performer.

Secondly, no-one should ever, ever out anyone else, particularly not on live TV.

My mouth actually dropped open when she said it, it was uncalled for, inappropriate, unnecessary, and smacked of desperate bullying.

I need to stop fuming so I can go to sleep.

Use Up BNP Resources

I just wanted to let you know that the BNP has a freephone number, and if you hypothetically called it from a payphone and left it off the hook, it could hypothetically cost them lots of money. The number is 0800 0086191.

That's all. Hypothetically, of course.

More on Polanski

Another good article has appeared online, called Common Roman Polanski Defenses Refuted.

I don't agree with it as utterly as I did yesterday's post, but it's still worth a read, and posting as much anti-rape stuff as possible seems vital.

Common Roman Polanski Defenses Refuted

Roman Polanski, the 76-year-old filmmaker who was accused of drugging and raping 13-year-old Samantha Geimer in 1977, has been arrested in Switzerland. Polanski, who was convicted of having sex with a minor but fled to France before he could be sentenced, is currently facing extradition back to the United States, where he could finally be sentenced for his 32-year-old conviction. In the wake of Polanski’s belated arrest, commentators have posed dozens of arguments in the Oscar-winning director’s defense. Most of them are bullshit.

—

“But he’s already paid his price, because everyone knows he’s a rapist, and he can never work in Hollywood.”

As Patrick Goldstein wrote in the LA Times, “I think Polanski has already paid a horrible, soul-wrenching price for the infamy surrounding his actions. The real tragedy is that he will always, till his death, be snubbed and stalked and confronted by people who think the price he has already paid isn’t enough.”


Ahh: “the real tragedy.” Some people may be under the impression that a 13-year-old being drugged and raped by a 44-year-old man constitutes a “real tragedy.” Others may contend that both Polanski and his rape victim have suffered “real tragedies” in their lifetimes. But no, there can only be one the real tragedy, and it is that people have “snubbed” Roman Polanski because he raped someone and skipped town. If only the recognition of the Academy Awards, the BAFTAs, the Berlin International Film Festival, Cannes, the Directors Guild of America, the Golden Globes, the Independent Spirit Awards, the Stokholm Film Festival, the Venice Film Festival, and dozens of other awards organizations could begin to heal that wound.

—

“But he escaped the Holocaust / his mother died at Auschwitz / His wife was killed by Charles Manson”

Talk about real tragedies: These, of course, are real tragedies. Upon hearing of Polanski’s arrest, French Minister of Culture Frederic Mitterrand announced that he “strongly regrets that a new ordeal is being inflicted on someone who has already experienced so many of them.”

This is a fair argument—and one that can be made about many, many people convicted of crimes in the United States. A lot of the people who are locked up behind bars have endured unspeakable traumas in their own lives—sexual assault, poverty, drug addiction, gang life, homelessness, and mental illness. Why are they held accountable for their actions, while Polanski gets to be like, “Peace, I’m just going to chill in France for thirty years, try not to rape anybody else, and maybe win an Oscar. See you guys later”? It’s not because of what he endured. It’s because he makes movies.

But let’s say, for argument’s sake, that Polaski isn’t getting a break because he’s famous, but rather because he’s had a hard life. When France decries “the ordeal” being “inflicted” on Polanski, what the country is really saying is that rape is not important because it’s not as horrific as the Holocaust, and not as evil as Charles Manson. And that’s a pretty fucked-up standard, oui?

—

“But he made The Pianist / Chinatown / Rosemary’s Baby / Revulsion.”

Congratulations, the Huffington Post’s Kim Morgan: You win the prize of penning the most disgusting defense of Polanski I’ve read to date! Morgan prefaces her post by saying she is “not going to go into my Roman Polanski defense,” but suffice to say she is “not happy about his arrest.” Instead of getting bogged down by the legal gobbledygook, Morgan shoots off a blog post entitled “Roman Polanski Understands Women.” Seriously.

“One should not,” she writes, “take Polanski’s films literally, for they are often heightened versions of what occurs naturally in our world: desire, perversion, repulsion.” Okay, but how about his rape of a 13-year-old girl? Are we allowed to take that “natural occurrence” literally? Morgan doesn’t directly address that question, but she does argue that Polanski’s very brilliance is a product of his relationship with human “darkness”:

Polanski’s removed morality is exactly why he is often brilliant: He is so empathetic to his characters that, like a trauma victim floating above the pain, he is personally impersonal. He insightfully scrutinizes what is so frightening about being human, yet he doesn’t feel the need to be resolute or sentimental about his cognizance. He is also, consciously or subconsciously, aware of the darkness he explores, especially in his female characters, who could be seen as extensions of himself.

Read more at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/kim-morgan/roman-polanski-understand_b_301292.html

You know what I find revolting? When a film critic prefaces her work with a disclaimer about how much it sucks that a rapist is getting arrested for raping someone, and then uses the rapiest imagery possible to applaud his film work. Nope! Sorry! Understanding Women is not a valid defense against rape. Similarly, being a really marvelous film director doesn’t mean that you get to rape someone and not go to prison. Even if you made The Pianist.

Remember: making The Pianist and being a rapist are not mutually exclusive.

Read more at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/kim-morgan/roman-polanski-understand_b_301292.html

Read more at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/kim-morgan/roman-polanski-understand_b_301292.ht“not happy about his arrest,” and goes on to defend “Roman Polanski Understands Woman”

—

“But the girl’s mother made him rape her.”

Oops, nevermind, this one is actually an even more disgusting defense of Roman Polanski, also on the Huffington Post:

The 13-year old model ’seduced’ by Polanski had been thrust onto him by her mother, who wanted her in the movies. The girl was just a few weeks short of her 14th birthday, which was the age of consent in California. (It’s probably 13 by now!) Polanski was demonized by the press, convicted, and managed to flee, fearing a heavy sentence. I met Polanski shortly after he fled America and was filming Tess in Normandy. I was working in the CBS News bureau in Paris, and I accompanied Mike Wallace for a Sixty Minutes interview with Polanski on the set. Mike thought he would be meeting the devil incarnate, but was utterly charmed by Roman’s sobriety and intelligence.

So, Polanski is just a really special guy who was practically forced to have sex with that 13-year-old girl by her mother. It’s almost as if Roman Polanski was raped by that 13-year-old girl. Also, no, the age of consent in California is not “13 by now,” it is 16 18 (!!). By the by: the author of this little gem is Joan Z. Shore, co-founder of Women Overseas for Equality. Thanks, Joan, for your deft approach to women’s issues!

“But he didn’t know she was 13.”


Please, Anne Applebaum. Polanski had to ask her mother for permission to shoot her for Vogue.

—

“But 13 is old enough to consent to sex”

Let’s assume that, like Joan Shore and others have suggested, age 13 is old enough to consent to sex, and Polanski is merely a victim of the Puritanical sex laws of the U.S.A. If that’s true, then surely 13 would be old enough to say no to sex, right? Because here’s what Geimer said happened at the one-on-one Vogue shoots:

According to Geimer in a 2003 interview, “Everything was going fine; then he asked me to change, well, in front of him.” She added, “It didn’t feel right, and I didn’t want to go back to the second shoot.”

Geimer later agreed to a second session, which took place on March 10, 1977 at the Mulholland area home of actor Jack Nicholson in Los Angeles. “We did photos with me drinking champagne,” Geimer says. “Toward the end it got a little scary, and I realized he had other intentions and I knew I was not where I should be. I just didn’t quite know how to get myself out of there.” She recalled in a 2003 interview that she began to feel uncomfortable after he asked her to lie down on a bed, and how she attempted to resist. “I said, ‘No, no. I don’t want to go in there. No, I don’t want to do this. No!”, and then I didn’t know what else to do,” she stated.

That’s rape, whether you are 13 years old or 14 or 16 or 44 or 76.

—

“But the American justice system is fucked up.”

Granted. But if we’re going to talk about the fuck-up-edness of the U.S. legal system, surely we can find a better martyr than a famous rich guy with the best lawyers in the world who drugged and raped a 13-year-old girl, struck a plea deal in order to get off with the lesser charge of “unlawful sexual intercourse with a minor” (or statutory rape), and then fled the country when it looked like the plea deal may not be honored? I’m all for Polanski being tried legally and fairly. Over the years, Polanski has repeatedly attempted to appeal the case—a really cool feature of the American legal process he purposefully evaded—but he refuses to appear in court.

Excuse me while I play the world’s tiniest piano, but if the American legal system is broken, the fix is not for rapists to just choose their own adventure (in this case, France).

—

“But his victim has forgiven him”

From Applebaum’s column: “The girl, now 45, has said more than once that she forgives him, that she can live with the memory, that she does not want him to be put back in court or in jail, and that a new trial will hurt her husband and children.”

It’s certainly a relief to hear that Geimer, after three decades and a settled civil suit against Polanski, has moved on from her childhood sexual assault. Of course, a victim’s should always be considered over the course of a trial. At the same time, forgiveness, sympathy, and identification with one’s attacker are fairly common in sexual assault cases, and these sentiments don’t make sexual assault any less damaging—or any more legal. Again, you can argue that Polanski is an example of how the American legal system unduly punishes its criminals, but until you’re willing to free all the nation’s sex offenders and make them promise to just keep their cool until their victims get around to forgiving them, it’s not a very solid argument.

—

“But his victim doesn’t want to have to relive her assault again.”

Now we’re getting somewhere. Samantha Geimer, like many victims of sexual assault, is justified in holding a grudge against the criminal justice system. When a rape victim decides to report her assault to the police, she’s looking at years of intense police, legal, and media scrutiny. She will have to relive her assault over and over again over the course of trial and investigation. She will have her sexual history dredged up and put on display. These are all big deterrents to reporting sexual assault. But while a sexual assault victim may never personally recover from the trauma, the public scrutiny, at least, usually ends with the sentencing.

Unless, of course, your attacker is a famous movie director who refuses to be sentenced, in which case you will be forced to relive your assault: a) every time your attacker attempts to cross another country’s borders; b) every time your attacker releases a new film; c) every time your attacker attempts to have his conviction overturned; d) every time your attacker does anything noteworthy. The fact that Geimer’s childhood sexual assault has haunted her in the press for 30 years is a real tragedy, and one man is responsible for that: Roman Polanski.

Reminder: Roman Polanski Raped a Child

I was so joyous when I heard on the radio the night before last that Roman Polanski had been finally arrested. The next day, I was utterly bewildered on hearing people defend him in the media. I've discussed it with a few people, and it's not just me that is furious.

I just found this article at salon.com and want to thank Kate Harding for speaking the brutal truth about the situation.

Reminder: Roman Polanski Raped a Child.

Roman Polanski raped a child. Let's just start right there, because that's the detail that tends to get neglected when we start discussing whether it was fair for the bail-jumping director to be arrested at age 76, after 32 years in "exile" (which in this case means owning multiple homes in Europe, continuing to work as a director, marrying and fathering two children, even winning an Oscar, but never -- poor baby -- being able to return to the U.S.). Let's keep in mind that Roman Polanski gave a 13-year-old girl a Quaalude and champagne, then raped her, before we start discussing whether the victim looked older than her 13 years, or that she now says she'd rather not see him prosecuted because she can't stand the media attention. Before we discuss how awesome his movies are or what the now-deceased judge did wrong at his trial, let's take a moment to recall that according to the victim's grand jury testimony, Roman Polanski instructed her to get into a jacuzzi naked, refused to take her home when she begged to go, began kissing her even though she said no and asked him to stop; performed cunnilingus on her as she said no and asked him to stop; put his penis in her vagina as she said no and asked him to stop; asked if he could penetrate her anally, to which she replied, "No," then went ahead and did it anyway, until he had an orgasm.

Drugging and raping a child, then leaving the country before you can be sentenced for it, is behavior our society should not tolerate, no matter how famous, wealthy or well-connected you are

Can we do that? Can we take a moment to think about all that, and about the fact that Polanski pled guilty to unlawful sex with a minor, before we start talking about what a victim he is? Because that would be great, and not nearly enough people seem to be doing it.

The French press, for instance (at least according to the British press) is describing Polanski "as the victim of a money-grabbing American mother and a publicity-hungry Californian judge." Joan Z. Shore at the Huffington Post, who once met Polanski and "was utterly charmed by [his] sobriety and intelligence," also seems to believe that a child with an unpleasant stage mother could not possibly have been raped: "The 13-year old model 'seduced' by Polanski had been thrust onto him by her mother, who wanted her in the movies." Oh, well, then! If her mom put her into that situation, that makes it much better! Shore continues: "The girl was just a few weeks short of her 14th birthday, which was the age of consent in California. (It's probably 13 by now!) Polanski was demonized by the press, convicted, and managed to flee, fearing a heavy sentence."

Wow, OK, let's break that down. First, as blogger Jeff Fecke says, "Fun fact: the age of consent in 1977 in California was 16. It's now 18. But of course, the age of consent isn't like horseshoes or global thermonuclear war; close doesn't count. Even if the age of consent had been 14, the girl wasn't 14." Also, even if the girl had been old enough to consent, she testified that she did not consent. There's that. Though of course everyone makes a bigger deal of her age than her testimony that she did not consent, because if she'd been 18 and kept saying no while he kissed her, licked her, screwed her and sodomized her, this would almost certainly be a whole different story -- most likely one about her past sexual experiences and drug and alcohol use, about her desire to be famous, about what she was wearing, about how easy it would be for Roman Polanski to get consensual sex, so hey, why would he need to rape anyone? It would quite possibly be a story about a wealthy and famous director who pled not guilty to sexual assault, was acquitted on "she wanted it" grounds, and continued to live and work happily in the U.S. Which is to say that 30 years on, it would not be a story at all. So it's much safer to focus on the victim's age removing any legal question of consent than to get tied up in that thorny "he said, she said" stuff about her begging Polanski to stop and being terrified of him.

Second, Polanski was "demonized by the press" because he raped a child, and was convicted because he pled guilty. He "feared heavy sentencing" because drugging and raping a child is generally frowned upon by the legal system. Shore really wants us to pity him because of these things? (And, I am not making this up, boycott the entire country of Switzerland for arresting him.)

As ludicrous as Shore's post is, I have to agree with Fecke that my favorite Polanski apologist is the Washington Post's Anne Applebaum, who finds it "bizarre" that anyone is still pursuing this case. And who also, by the by, failed to disclose the tiny, inconsequential detail that her husband, Polish foreign minister Radoslaw Sikorski, is actively pressuring U.S. authorities to drop the case.

There is evidence of judicial misconduct in the original trial. There is evidence that Polanski did not know her real age. Polanski, who panicked and fled the U.S. during that trial, has been pursued by this case for 30 years, during which time he has never returned to America, has never returned to the United Kingdom., has avoided many other countries, and has never been convicted of anything else. He did commit a crime, but he has paid for the crime in many, many ways: In notoriety, in lawyers' fees, in professional stigma. He could not return to Los Angeles to receive his recent Oscar. He cannot visit Hollywood to direct or cast a film.

There is also evidence that Polanski raped a child. There is evidence that the victim did not consent, regardless of her age. There is evidence -- albeit purely anecdotal, in this case -- that only the most debased crapweasel thinks "I didn't know she was 13!" is a reasonable excuse for raping a child, much less continuing to rape her after she's said no repeatedly. There is evidence that the California justice system does not hold that "notoriety, lawyers' fees and professional stigma" are an appropriate sentence for child rape.

But hey, he wasn't allowed to pick up his Oscar in person! For the love of all that's holy, hasn't the man suffered enough?

Granted, Roman Polanski has indeed suffered a great deal in his life, which is where Applebaum takes her line of argument next:

He can be blamed, it is true, for his original, panicky decision to flee. But for this decision I see mitigating circumstances, not least an understandable fear of irrational punishment. Polanski's mother died in Auschwitz. His father survived Mauthausen. He himself survived the Krakow ghetto, and later emigrated from communist Poland.

Surviving the Holocaust certainly could lead to an "understandable fear of irrational punishment," but being sentenced for pleading guilty to child rape is basically the definition of rational punishment. Applebaum then points out that Polanski was a suspect in the murder of his pregnant wife, Sharon Tate, a crime actually committed by the Manson family -- but again, that was the unfortunate consequence of a perfectly rational justice system. Most murdered pregnant women were killed by husbands or boyfriends, so that suspicion was neither personal nor unwarranted. This isn't Kafkaesque stuff.

But what of the now-45-year-old victim, who received a settlement from Polanski in a civil case, saying she'd like to see the charges dropped? Shouldn't we be honoring her wishes above all else?

In a word, no. At least, not entirely. I happen to believe we should honor her desire not to be the subject of a media circus, which is why I haven't named her here, even though she chose to make her identity public long ago. But as for dropping the charges, Fecke said it quite well: "I understand the victim's feelings on this. And I sympathize, I do. But for good or ill, the justice system doesn't work on behalf of victims; it works on behalf of justice."

It works on behalf of the people, in fact -- the people whose laws in every state make it clear that both child rape and fleeing prosecution are serious crimes. The point is not to keep 76-year-old Polanski off the streets or help his victim feel safe. The point is that drugging and raping a child, then leaving the country before you can be sentenced for it, is behavior our society should not -- and at least in theory, does not -- tolerate, no matter how famous, wealthy or well-connected you are, no matter how old you were when you finally got caught, no matter what your victim says about it now, no matter how mature she looked at 13, no matter how pushy her mother was, and no matter how many really swell movies you've made.

Roman Polanski raped a child. No one, not even him, disputes that. Regardless of whatever legal misconduct might have gone on during his trial, the man admitted to unlawful sex with a minor. But the Polanski apologism we're seeing now has been heating up since "Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired," the 2008 documentary about Polanski's fight to get the conviction dismissed. Writing in Salon, Bill Wyman criticized the documentary's whitewashing of Polanksi's crimes last February, after Superior Court Judge Peter Espinoza ruled that if the director wanted to challenge the conviction, he'd need to turn himself in to U.S. authorities and let the justice system sort it out. "Fugitives don't get to dictate the terms of their case ... Polanski deserves to have any potential legal folderol investigated, of course. But the fact that Espinoza had to state the obvious is testimony to the ways in which the documentary, and much of the media coverage the director has received in recent months, are bizarrely skewed."

The reporting on Polanski's arrest has been every bit as "bizarrely skewed," if not more so. Roman Polanski may be a great director, an old man, a husband, a father, a friend to many powerful people, and even the target of some questionable legal shenanigans. He may very well be no threat to society at this point. He may even be a good person on balance, whatever that means. But none of that changes the basic, undisputed fact: Roman Polanski raped a child. And rushing past that point to focus on the reasons why we should forgive him, pity him, respect him, admire him, support him, whatever, is absolutely twisted.

― Kate Harding

Sites I Peruse on Sundays

For your Sunday pleasure:


• Post Secret
  
• Post Secret France
  
• Cake Wrecks - where professional cakes go horribly, hilariously wrong.
  
• Fail Blog
  
• (The customer is) Not Always Right
  
• LOLTATZ
  
• Hanzi Smatter - dedicated to the misues of Chinese characters in Western culture
  
• Photoshop Disasters
  
• Passive Aggressive Notes
  
• The "blog" of "unnecessary" quotation marks

Referrers.

I hope that the reader from Independence, Missouri, who found this blog (somehow!) by search ask.com for Teen Rape Porn finds themselves bitten by lots of itchy insects this weekend.

I'm Not Like Other Girls

I'm looking for submissions for a one-off zine called I'm Not Like Other Girls.

What I want women and girls to do is to complete the sentence,
"I'm not like other girls because..."

I will make a zine of the responses.

The sentence will appear randomly placed, with all credits at the end, so your sentence and your credit aren't linked. This may help you to be more open, and the zine will flow much better too.

They may be categorised by theme, but that will depend on the submissions.

If you want to contribute, email me at incurable.hippie@googlemail.com

1) Put 'I'm not like other girls' in the subject line.
2) Email me your sentence (I'm not like other girls because...)
3) Tell me if you want to be anonymous.
4) If you want to be credited, tell me how (name / pseudonym, name of zine, etc)
5) If you want to receive a contributors' copy when it's ready, tell me your address too.

I can't guarantee your words will be put in the zine, but it's very likely. I only want submissions from women and girls.

Thanks!

To see more of my zine stuff, go to rebelgrrlzine. New ones to be added next week.

Help Imogen Find her Voice

I very, very rarely post appeals like this, but Imogen is a friend of mine who is in a dire situation since losing the ability to speak after emergency surgery.

Please watch this video and see if there's anything you can do, be it donating, or passing the link onto your friends.



Imogen's site is at www.imogenmay.com.

Sexual Assault Prevention Guaranteed to Work

(edited with non-facebookified links, that was an accident sorry).

In the spirit of How to Really Prevent Rape and Rape Prevention Advice, I was just recommended Sexual Assault Prevention Tips Guaranteed to Work by Femin-Ally.

Sexual Assault Prevention Tips Guaranteed to Work!
1. Don’t put drugs in people’s drinks in order to control their behavior.
2. When you see someone walking by themselves, leave them alone!
3. If you pull over to help someone with car problems, remember not to assault them!
4. NEVER open an unlocked door or window uninvited.
5. If you are in an elevator and someone else gets in, DON’T ASSAULT THEM!
6. Remember, people go to laundry to do their laundry, do not attempt to molest someone who is alone in a laundry room.
7. USE THE BUDDY SYSTEM! If you are not able to stop yourself from assaulting people, ask a friend to stay with you while you are in public.
8. Always be honest with people! Don’t pretend to be a caring friend in order to gain the trust of someone you want to assault. Consider telling them you plan to assault them. If you don’t communicate your intentions, the other person may take that as a sign that you do not plan to rape them.
9. Don’t forget: you can’t have sex with someone unless they are awake!
10. Carry a whistle! If you are worried you might assault someone “on accident” you can hand it to the person you are with, so they can blow it if you do.
And, ALWAYS REMEMBER: if you didn’t ask permission and then respect the answer the first time, you are commiting a crime- no matter how “into it” others appear to be.

Quiet Just Now

Moving inactive blogs from cluttering up the sidebar to this post.

Be Reasonable

Domestic Violence Memorial (UK)

Lara Barrett - Photography

Inspire Me Thursday

Mixed Media Memoirs

The Tarot Deck Creation Collective

Museum of Left-Wing Lunacy

Run Over By The Truth

Survivor Worker

This Thing You Call Love

75 degrees South

The Accidental Artist (1)

Anonyrrie

Artful Journey

Artwork Anonymous

Blogs That Flickr - Photolog

Boules de Neige

The Camel Exchange

Crafty Metallyptica

INKEDblog

*International Charm Exchange*

Adventures in Ethical Consumerism

Doing the Right Thing

HippyShopper

Supermarket Sweep Up

God Speak

Take Your Medicine

Chasing Daisy

Le Google Bomb Taking on the Far Right

The GoogleBomb Project

Infected Papercut

Meta Kate

perfect.co.uk Rational Dissent in an Imperfect World

Sheffield PhlickrBlog

Anonymous Work Blogs

ani mechapesset a'vodah

Loquacious of Blog

Love & Rage - a sane response in an insane world

saesnes, apparently

Undecidedly So

Welcome to the Monkeyhouse

Yehovah Yireh (new)

Amateur Blog

- - - ~Washington City Paper BackPage

- - - ~City Link Florida

wacky neighbour

The Progressive Blog Alliance

The Adventures of a Snowball in Hell

CustardSpies

Weird or Wise?

Loopy Ex-Student

Is That All There Is?

godhatesgod.com (1)

Zazzafooky

Be The Jam (1)

Diary of a Refused Asylum Seeker

Anti-Pornography Activist

Because Sometimes Feminists Aren't Nice

Blog of Feminist Activism (1)

brand new feminist (1)

Dead Men Don't Rape

Den of the Biting Beaver

Fate is Chance. Destiny is Choice (1)

FeminisTIC

Feminist Reprise (1)

Feminist, Unmodified

Fluffy Woman

Grrrlcott

Holla Back UK

I'm Not a Feminist, But...

The Jerk List

Linguistic Concerns

Mad Sheila's Musings

Mind the Gap, Cardiff (1)

Ms Violet's Musings

Opinionated Lesbian

The Opuscular Outpost

The other world of the Dynamite Lady

ReSISTERance

Trollbuster

Wall of Shame

J a v a J i v e Photography from Indonesia (1)

The Other World of the Dynamite Lady

The World of the Dynamite Lady

A Speakout on Male Violence (2)

Stick It!

A Stormy Blog

The Tree Remembers

la somnambule

The Shouty Woman

SaraFenix

radical quaker activist grrl

Angry and Queer

ruining it by talking

City Hippy

Speakout on Male Sexual Violence (1)

Witchy Woo

When Ukuleles and Charity Combine.

Buy this t-shirt in the colour and style of your choice!.

Ukuleles are cool. If you were in any doubt, just watch this:



If you don't play the ukulele then you clearly should, and probably know other people who do. In this case then both you and they, and everyone you know, should read on.

From 17th June until the 31st July 2009, every sale of this t-shirt will result in a £2 donation to Cancer Research UK.

This is to celebrate the London Uke Festival which takes place on June 20th in London.

So remember, every time anyone buys a Ukulele Hero t-shirt between now and the end of July, £2 will be donated to Cancer Research UK.

Buy one now from the link below! Or buy 5 and give them to friends. Then spread the word by passing on this URL: http://bit.ly/kRVPV

Buy this t-shirt in the colour and style of your choice!.

Racism Against Your Own Children?

I know, I know, going on the Daily Mail website is never a good idea. But for some reason I did.

I was (duly) horrified by this story, about a white couple who had IVF and due to a mix-up had mixed race children, one of whom apparently has noticeably darker skin than the rest of them.

Now, clearly this isn't ideal, it is concerning that such mix-ups can occur, and the couple, who wanted to keep their IVF a secret for some reason, are feeling now that this secret might be revealed.

However, this poor child is suffering from what, I fear, is an element of racism from his parents. He apparently asks his Dad at night 'Why am I brown? How can I make myself lighter, like you?'

This must be hard for them to hear, but there is a clear reason why he is not happy in his own skin.

Because of his colour,

the Williamses are suing the Belfast Health and Social Care Trust (formerly the Royal Group of Hospitals Trust) for damages for their mental distress, social discredit and breach of contract under the Supply of Goods and Services Act 1982.

They consider that their black son is a 'social discredit' to them, his skin colour causes them mental distress, and I'm not sure whether he'd have been consider goods or services when he was 'supplied'.

His father says:

'I felt very angry and betrayed,' he says. 'We'd placed all our trust in the hospital and one person's mistake had ruined all our futures.

He also says:

'It's not so bad when we all go away on holiday, but at home I've given up picking up my son from school and we don't go out as a family any more.

How can this boy have a chance of having any kind of positive self-image, or appreciation of his heritage, with his parents openly suing the hospital, refusing to pick him up from school or take him out anywhere, all because of the colour of his skin?

It's no wonder he wants to whiten his skin.

Sheffield Anti-BNP Demo. 8th June 2009.

An urgent demonstration was called yesterday in response to the election of two British National Party MEPs, one in the Yorkshire and Humber region.





Many gathered outside Sheffield Town Hall to hear speakers, watch drummers and express their disgust and discontent at racists gaining power.



It was a heartening event with a good turnout and a positive atmosphere.



You can see all the photos of the event here and the best of the photos here. There is also an Indymedia article up too.

Don't Vote BNP #2

Vote tomorrow, for anyone BUT the BNP

Vote. And not for the BNP

Vote tomorrow, for anyone BUT the BNP.