Westboro Baptist "Church" vs. the KKK

Riot.Jane

The Westboro scammers were up to their usual shenanigans yesterday, Memorial Day (US), at Arlington National Cemetery. The latest twist? The Knights of the Southern Cross (KKK) responded in kind.
Westboro is, for the most part, a multi-generational family affair, with 11 of the 13 people in the second generation being practicing attorneys in the law firm  Phelps Chartered, LLC. 

What amuses me about the lawyering-up of the second generation is the fact that the State of Kansas Supreme Court disbarred the clan leader Fred Phelps in 1979 because of his "has little regard for the ethics of his profession."

Another Bill to Restrict Reproductive Freedom: HR 3 (UPDATED)

Riot.Jane

I just received the following e-mail, and the topic is news to me.  This is surprising because I'm usually pretty current on matters of reproductive freedom . . . More on this topic to come.

This is not an advocation that anyone should contribute, it's just the method by which I learned of the existence of HR 3.

The link in the e-mail: http://www.dccc.org/page/m/1d63cab1/1b83fc72/4a3c2f65/4e0ce84b/2346893725/VEsE/ .

Who Can Become an Addict?

Riot.Jane

In Compass of Pleasure: How Our Brains Make Fatty Foods, Orgasm, Exercise, Marijuana, Generosity, Vodka, Learning, and Gambling Feel So Good, brain scientist and neuroscience professor at Johns Hopkins University David J. Linden, PhD, describes the physiological processes of how the human brain reacts to different types of pleasure.  He's found that the effects of both our vices and our virtues are virtually indistinguishable within the brain.

In an interview with Salon, he briefly discusses the biological causes vs. societal reactions to addiction.  A particularly striking paragraph (emphasis mine):

*I* Was "The Other Woman"

For almost two years, I was "The Other Woman."  The man was divine in my eyes.  The wife was a crazy person, and theirs was a loveless marriage.  He stayed married to her because, where he came from, divorced fathers weren't fathers, and come hell or high water, he was going to be a good father. Even if that meant staying in a marriage where neither person had a single word to say to one another outside of "Excuse me" or "Did you pay the electricity bill?"

We began as friends, and I didn't even know he was married until after I was hooked -- He didn't wear a ring, and spoke only of his children (i.e. not his wife, ever), so I assumed that there simply wasn't a wife.  It wasn't until a third party told me that he was married that the concept crossed my mind.  I didn't believe it, but  I asked him anyway.

The look of surprise on his face told me in that instant that he assumed I knew.  By that time it was too late . . . Even after the hours of talking that followed, in which he told me the details of his loveless marriage, I couldn't walk away knowing that he wanted me to stay.

In hindsight, I don't think he'd ever fallen in love before he fell in love with me.  A confident and self-sufficient person, he didn't understand what loneliness was until he was separated from me while on a trip.  Our affair was inflammatory, and our conviction epic.

A Joe’s Take on Treating Child Sexual Abusers

I was a boy, and I was sexually abused in my family from the age of 11 or 12 to nearly 20. As a result, I might have a different perspective on how we should deal with abusers.

Zero tolerance, as expressed in most law, is an attempt by well-meaning legislators to capture that rarity which is the full-on pedophile. In that sense I say go for it and get those people into some kind of treatment.

The problem arises in that as disgusting as kiddy porn is, it's an after-the-fact response, sometimes years or decades after. By then it's far too late to help the child in question.

Then, of course, there's nations like Thailand who nod and wink as organized child abuse is traded on to increase tourist traffic. I don't buy for an instant that authorities in Thailand don't know who is running and controlling this appalling business or are completely unable to do anything about it. Mind you, it does draw true pedophiles as well as those who have fantasies. (And no, I don't understand what might cause those fantasies but as long as they aren't acted on I see no need to hunt those people down.)

The problem, as I said, with kiddie porn is that a response to it is after-the-fact rather than preventative.

As I said in my previous post, most abusers were abused themselves as children and come from within the circle of trusted adults and then, most often, from parents. To attack this head-on means exploding the myth of the nuclear family as some sort of perfect construction for the making and raising of children. In the United States and, to a lesser degree in Canada and Europe, this is well-ingrained and very well-defended.

Of course, there are professions that DO attract pedophiles and those who are in danger of repeating what happened to them. In no particular order they tend to be caring professions such as medicine, teaching, the clergy, therapists, police, coaching and, well, I'll let the reader complete the list. Any profession or trade that brings the pedophile in to near-constant contact with children where they can establish a trusted and trusting relationship with the child and its parents.

Each profession closes ranks around offenders, or has a history of that. The most obvious, for now, being the Roman Catholic Church. They're far from the only ones, though.

And each of these professions is surrounded by a mythology all their own, created by Hollywood or by themselves as wonderful, caring people who genuinely want to help their young charges and in the vast majority of cases they are. But amongst the angels there are devils.

So it means attacking the unattackable symbols of our society/civilization and I don't know of a single politician willing to take that one on.

Sending someone with a few pictures of child porn on their hard drive to jail for 10 years is akin to sending someone to the same jail for 10 years because they have an ounce or two of pot in their possession. In the former you aren't, in all likelihood, busting a true pedophile just as much as in the latter you haven't busted a dealer.

What abusers like my father needed and still need, and this is potential and actual abusers of both genders, is caring, non-judgmental treatment for exactly the reason I stated. They are very likely to be victims of abuse themselves and know no other way of expressing great affection. Jail isn't the place for that.

The true pedophile, on the other hand, really ought to be locked away in the same place we put psychopaths and sociopaths because they're another chip off of that self same block.

And then, we ourselves, need to look on those at the lower ends of society's rungs as what they most often are the outer grown up shell of shattered children who never, ever chose the life they now lead.

~TtfnJohn

Participating in the American Cult of the Individual

Greetings this lovely October day, Ladies and Gentlemen Jane!

I've found that mentally dissecting (or comparing point-by-point) a contrary argument is a useful tactic in strengthening your own.  At the very least, it's a mental exercise that helps one separate emotional, moral, and logical factions of his own opinion.

In that spirit, I offer a passage from Pygmy by Chuck Palahniuk that knocked the air from my chest:

(The setting: The protagonist [nicknamed Pygmy] is a teen-aged exchange student to the US from an unnamed communist country who also happens to be a terrorist on a government-sponsored mission to create havoc in the US. The following is part of a report to his superiors.)

For official record, no yet legal adopted so become full member host family Cedar.  Making all effort resist absorption into American cult of the individual, traditional method entrenched oligarchy so maintain own power: Fracture citizen isolated into different religion, different race, different family. Label as rich culture diversity.  Cleave as unique until each citizen stand alone.  Until each vote invested no value.  Single citizen celebrated as special -- in actual, remaining no power.

Only when wedded to state purpose grants the citizen actual power.  State mission and plan creates helpless individual as noble identity with grand reason for exist.

Because the protagonist is an extremely intelligent person who learned English from a book and is displaying what I've seen in the past as the Asian ESL speaker's inability to properly treat word variations, the above passage might be difficult for a native American English speaker to understand. This "translation" might help (no disrespect the Palahniuk intended!):

For the official record, my legal adoption by my host family has not been completed.  I am therefore not yet a full legal member of the Cedar family. I am making every possible effort to effort resist absorption into the American cult of the individual.  The entrenched oligarchy's traditional method  to maintain power: Fracture the citizenry so that all individual identities are isolated into different religions, different races, different families. The oligarchy then labels and celebrates the result as "rich culture diversity".  In this way, each person is cleaved from the whole as unique until each citizen stands alone, until each vote is divested of any value.  In this culture, every single citizen is celebrated as special -- but in actuality, this specialness contains no power.

Only when wedded to State purpose does the citizen have actual power.  The mission and plan of the State transforms the helpless individual into one with a noble identity and a grand reason for existence.

What strikes me most about Pygmy's scathing  indictment of American culture is its accuracy.  While Pygmy and I heartily disagree about the intentionality of the situation and also about the solution of subsuming oneself to the glory of the State, I cannot deny the veracity of his observation regarding the practical results of the Cult and its effects on the daily lives of all American Janes and Joes. 

I'm sure that the fact that we also somehow celebrate the Cult's other negatives -- our sense of crippling social isolation (reinterpreted as "independence") while trying to "win" at all costs (i.e. Enron, WorldComm, Tycho, et al), our subliminal drive towards similarity (i.e. "keeping up with the Jones'), and our awe-inspiring self-absorption and entitlement in daily life, etc. -- serves to deepen the cultural sinkhole that separating us from one another creates.

I believe that the American Cult of the Individual is the logical marriage and issue of the concepts of American Exceptionalism and liberty, and as such, has been a prime building block of our culture since before our culture was distinctly our own.  We have been members of the Cult always, and the repercussions are not new. 

Theodore Dreiser

Consider these 1932 observations on individualism from Theodore Dreiser (1871-1945), in The Progressive:

That leaves the American citizen [...] with his faith in individualism and what it will do for him --mainly without his rent, his job, a decent suit of clothes, a pair of shoes, or food. His faith in this free-for-all individualism has now led him to the place where his fellow individualists of greater strength, cunning, and greed are in a position to say for how much, or rather, for how little, he shall work, for how long, and whether, he shall be allowed to make any complaint or even seek redress in case he is unhappy or dissatisfied, ill-treated, deprived, or even actually starved. In fact, his faith in this individualism as a solvent for all of his ills has caused him to slumber while his fellow individualists of greater greed and cunning have been seizing his wealth, his church, his press, his courts, his judges, his legislators, his police, and quite all of his originally agreed upon constitutional privileges so that, today, he walks practically in fear of his own shadow.

Also, consider this 1933 analysis of the balance between liberty and cultural health by Bertrand Russell (excepted from Godwin's Law based upon date of writing):

No one has ever succeeded in stating what are the proper limits of individual freedom.  We are all agreed that people must not be free to murder each other, and those who are not destitute have always thought stealing a mistake.  But beyond this point, everything is in doubt. Have we the right to advocate the assassination of Hitler? Most people would say no.  Have we right to speak so ill of Hitler that that an unbalanced person may be led to assassinate him? Hitler would say no, but many people would say yes. Those who say no will find themselves committed to the view that all opposition to government is wicked. Those who say yes will find that in difficult times their principle endangers all government. This raises a problem to which no definite, clear-cut solution is possible.

One of the troubles about the principle of liberty is that its advocates are generally inspired by a revolt against authority.  The authority which has caused their rebellion may have been thoroughly bad, but having once begun to assert themselves, they are likely to go on doing so in many directions in which self-assertion is foolish. [...] Rebellion against authority was necessary while authority was bad and is still necessary in many ways. But one cannot secure wisdom by merely rebelling. [...] Rebellion, therefore, is not likely to be of benefit to mankind when it springs merely from a rebellious mood but only when it is a protest against some definite remediable evil.  Whatever may have been said about the rights of the individual, they are limited always by the welfare of the community. 

Almost one hundred years later, the observations of these contemporary thinkers holds true.  These passages could have been written this year. 

Don't misinterpret - Pygmy is as much an indictment of Communism as of American culture, and my opinions do not mean that I think we should turn Communist. 

What I'm trying to say is that even though there's quite a bit of our culture and our collective self of which we should be proud, there's a darker portion that we should re-examine.  Why we do what we do, why we think what we think, what motivates and demotivates us, analysing the repercussions of all three and considering possible alternatives -- this is what I'm getting at, and what I wonder about.

~Riot.Jane

Why Shoot Looters?

Why shoot looters?

After reading an article about the "shoot to kill" order that cops may or may not have gotten in New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina, I began wondering: Is it necessary to shoot looters?

First, we have to distinguish amongst armed gangs, random people with guns, and looters.

I'm referring to people that, during a disaster, go into stores and take food, water, shoes, TVs (not a good idea), and such.  I'm referring to people that are taking merchandise.

Now, in New Orleans, there is footage of people taking stuff they needed from WalMart, but they weren't violent or armed. The cops in the stores just made sure people don't start fighting and hurting each other. In this clip, the cops were doing just that:

This seems the proper way to handle the situation to me.

How would turning that scene into a killing field help me, or make me safer?

At what point is the "shoot looters on sight" order legitimate? How can someone stealing, DURING A DISASTER, become such a threat to others that they need to die . . . and die right then?

What if someone had taken a loaf of bread . . .  literally. He couldn't get out of the city, found a bakery, and took a loaf of bread. How is that punishable by death?

And just to be snarky, isn't that what insurance is for? Stolen merchandise?

How is stealing water-soaked property worth someone's life?

Now, I'm not talking about people breaking into your house while you're there. I'm talking about people taking things they need to survive from abandoned businesses. How is killing the bread thief protecting me?  Or you?

Hell, how is killing some idiot taking a TV protecting anyone from violence?

The energy that goes into killing looters should be used to load trucks with food and water and hand it out to people in the street. That energy should be used to find people in the street, place them into vehicles, and take them out of the city.

By all means, the police should fight armed people hurting others. But explain how the bread-stealing guy had to die? And, while you're at it, explain how a woman stealing food deserves death at that point.

That is my question.

Explain that one to me.

~Above-Average.Joe

My Favorite Books: "The Handmaid's Tale"

In the continuing series of Riot.Jane's favorite books . . . In no particular order, this is the third:

The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood

The only one of my Five Faves written in my lifetime (1985 publication), this novel extrapolates American sociological currents first spotted in the 1980s, currents that have since become waves, to logical (if horrifying) conclusion.

The opening paragraph of a NYTimes (login required, copy here) interview with Atwood that I can't beat sets the stage:

The President and Congress have been assassinated by right-wing religious fanatics who have overthrown the Government and set up a monotheocratic [Christian] dictatorship based on biblical principles in a land they now call Gilead. Women may no longer possess jobs, or property, or money of any kind. Pollution has sharply reduced fertility, and certain women, selected for their ability to breed, have become slaves - Handmaids - forced to try to conceive through joyless copulation in bizarre menages a trois [sic] with their Commanders and the Commanders' barren wives.

As an agnostic who has been terrified for years about the rise in political power of US Christians trying to dictate the details of my life per their Good Book, I can't recommend this novel too highly.  Atwood is somehow able to give voice to the very real temptations of humanity, to the darker parts of our psychology that allow bad things to happen, to the fears that paralyze me when I try to verbalize them. 

I am personally convinced that America is on the path to becoming a Christian theocracy and that, if we don't stop it in time, the only difference between other religious theocracies and us will be the details of the government-enforced dogma.

Atwood gave specific voice to my fears later in the NYTimes interview (emphasis mine):

I delayed writing it [the book] for about three years after I got the idea because I felt it was too crazy. Then ... I started noticing that a lot of the things I thought I was more or less making up were now happening, and indeed more of them have happened since the publication of the book. There is a sect now, a Catholic charismatic spinoff sect, which calls the women handmaids. They don't go in for polygamy of this kind [as in the book] but they do threaten the handmaids according to the biblical verse I use in the book - sit down and shut up.

... You could say it's [the book is] a response to 'it can't happen here.' When they say 'it can't happen here,' what they usually mean is Iran can't happen here, Czechoslovakia can't happen here. And they're right, because this isn't there. But what could happen here?

It wouldn't be some people saying, 'Hi, folks, we're Communists and we're going to be your new Government.' But if you were going to do it, what would you do? What emotions would you appeal to? What groups would you utilize? How exactly would you go about it? Well, something like the way the religious right is doing things.

And the ultimate result of that process would be the union of church and state, which this country since 1776 has striven to keep apart, with great difficulty, because the foundation of this country was not separation of church and state.

We're often taught in schools that the Puritans came to America for religious freedom. Nonsense. They came to establish their own regime, where they could persecute people to their heart's content just the way they themselves had been persecuted.

If you think you have the Word and the right way, that's the only thing you can do.

The book is an instructional and cautionary tale not just for atheists and agnostics, but for all religious people who honestly can't understand why the atheists and agnostics have become as aggressively anti-religion as they have.  This book explains the reasons behind the rise of The New Atheism (see the works of Dawkins, Dennett, Harris, and Hitchens) in response to undercurrents nee waves (soon to be a tsunami) in recent modern America.

~Riot.Jane

Ralph Lauren Ad: Wrong on So Many Levels

Greetings to the Ladies Jane!

Today I've stubled upon an odd intersection of feminism and digital rights to share with all of you. My two favorite subjects, rolled into an unlikely bitter pill. This doesn't happen often, so I'm going to enjoy it!

The Ralph Lauren Blue Label ad to the right was originally posted (and commented upon) at the PhotoShop Disasters blog. Apparently, Ralph Lauren objected to said activities and issued a bogus DMCA takedown notice ("bogus" because Fair Use includes criticism).

Since Blogger's policies include automatic removal of content subject to any in/valid DMCA takedown notice, the PhotoShop Disasters post disappeared.

The Streisand Effect immediately came into play, and that's how the outraged feminist in me stumbled upon this advertisement glorifying a soul-crushingly unobtainable female body shape. Thank God for the Streisand Effect, otherwise I would have missed my weekly dose of self-righteous indignation! >only slight hyperbole<
Yes, Blogger also happens to host TJP. As a result, the picture you see to the right is actually residing on a TechDirt server. In fact, because of Blogger's policy to remove any subject of an in/valid DMCA takedown request, all pictures in this post are actually links to files residing on servers that in no way belong to me. I hope those server owners will forgive my poor digital manners because I'm doing this to both prove a point and keep this post alive, not to suck their bandwith.

As for the myriad issues with the advertisement itself, suffice it to say that this is a knuckle-dragging step backwards from the news of recent years that indicates a glacially changing (but changing!) international perspective among swimwear designers, magazine editors, runway model organizers, clothing designers, and a portion of the French fashion industry in the unconscionably thin body types displayed by these industries during the entirety of my lifetime.

Of particular interest is the case of Crystal Renn. In her book Hungry: A Young Model's Story of Appetite, Ambition, and The Ultimate Embrace of Curves, she discusses the experience of having lost 70 lbs to land a $250K modeling contract while still in high school. Suffice it to say that while she had that $250K contract, she looked like this:

Eventually, surviving on "lettuce with a side of batshit" caused a break. One day, "something snapped," leading her to quit her agency and move to the Plus Size division of Ford Models. She now shoots fashion campaigns for the likes of Jean Paul Gaultier, Dolce & Gabbana, and UK clothing chain Evans. This is what Renn looks like today -- Healthy, happy, and the most successful American plus-sized model:

You can read more about Renn's experience and book here and here.

Posting this recent picture of Renn brings into focus the sharp contrast between it and the monstrous Ralph Lauren ad above. I've studied design at an undergrad level, so I can usually figure out what ads that fail were trying to accomplish, who their target market was, even if they missed that target. This ad that someone intentionally altered to glorify an impossible-to-achieve crack-whore/cancer-patient silhouette simply baffles me from a design perspective. I can't figure out their target market except to know with utter conviction that I was not part of it. Because of this atrocious ad, I will never, ever purchase anything from the label, even as a gift.

Note to Ralph Lauren: When your model's head appears larger than her pelvis, you have created a side-show freak, not an attractive living mannequin for your clothes, so you might want to reconsider the message your freak is sending about your product.

Renn is a realistically-shaped, realistically beautiful woman. She looks like someone that I might befriend, someone that high school girls who aspire to be models (like she once was) might one day become. The fact that this woman is considered "plus size" (just look at her!) astounds me.

Renn is the archetypal beautiful, healthy woman. She is what we need to be portraying as beautiful and glamorous to not only our girls but to the never-good-enough half of the adult population that is female. If we're to ever win the fight for the hearts, minds, and souls of our females, we have to practice what we preach, live what we speak, and further what we write.

That we cannot discuss an advertisement (with legal digital supporting material) that doesn't further a corporation's monetary aims without legal bullying (I am looking at you, Ralph Lauren) and without the recourse the law provides (I'm looking at you, Blogger) is a powerful statement about who has the power in this country.

I, for one, do not generally believe that just because Big Money always has the power that it is always right. I, in fact, believe that in the vast majority of cases, the power that Big Money wields is morally (if not legally) wrong. In this case, it is both. Releasing that ad was morally wrong, and submitting a bogus DMCA takedown notice was legally wrong. Since Blogger is complicit in the injustice, PhotoShopDisasters cannot fight back.

We can. Just a little, but we can.

Comment on this post. Tell us how you feel. Drive traffic to this post. E-mail it to everyone you know. Post about it in other blogs that have audiences that care either about women's issues or digital rights, or both. Write a letter to Ralph Lauren, include a copy of the ad. Write about how their ad affects you, personally; women, as a group; and us, as a culture. Write about how their ad is a throwback to an earlier time, and how shamed they should feel. Talk to people: About Crystal Renn, about the small changes we've been seeing in the perspective in the fasion world, about the importance of actual humans as the people we see, not painted stick figures that couldn't possibly be alive. Demand that companies that sell the products you buy use advertising that features people who look like people who could actually exist.

Read. Write. Talk. Demand. Change begins with us.

~Riot.Jane

Ralph Lauren ad: TechDirt
Crystal Renn then: The Sun
Crystal Renn now: The Sun

Now I can Say Nothing

First, they came for the "child molesters," but I was not a child molester. So I said nothing.

Then, they came for the "terrorists," but I was not a terrorist. So I said nothing.

Next, they came for the "conservatives," but I was not a conservative. So I said nothing.

Finally, they came for the "middle class," and I found that I am middle class. Now I can say nothing.

~Riot.Jane

This Week's WTF Moment

I bring to your attention (and hope for you discussion!) this StrangeNews tidbit from the St. Petersburg Times:

TREASURE ISLAND — A woman has been arrested after accosting her live-in
boyfriend with a pink sex toy.

Kimberly Lynn Calvert, 45, [address redacted], was arrested Wednesday on a charge of simple battery.

Police say an intoxicated Calvert first yelled at John Anthony Gonzales,
with whom she has been living for five months, then "began poking" him "in the
groin area multiple times" with the sex toy.

Gonzalez called 911.

Is it possible for a woman to demand "Pay more attention!" any more strongly than poking him in the groin with her dildo? Why did he feel the need to call 911 for being poked? Poked!

And WTF is the reason for printing their complete address, including apartment number? The only purpose I can see is to shame her (or him, or both).

~Riot.Jane

Woman Dies in Cage in Arizona Desert

The Associated Press reports on the case of a State of Arizona prisoner Marcia Powell, an inmate placed in an unshaded "outdoor detention enclosure" (i.e. cage) for twice as long as regulations dictated and died of heat-related causes the next day in the hospital.

Arizona has used these (currently 233) outdoor cages state-wide since at least the 1960s, even though summer temperatures are as high as 110 degrees F. Believe it or not, the Arizona Department of Corrections Director cannot say if anyone else has become seriously ill or died as the result of being placed in one of these cages.

The Department of Corrections is aware that Powell was not removed at the two-hour mark as regulations dictate and has suspended three guards. The Department is also investigating whether or not the guards in the Control Center 20 yards away from the cage checked on Powell's well-being every 30 minutes as regulations dictate or even gave her water.

An advocate from Middle Ground Prison reform is incensed, "The big problem for us is that the [Department of Corrections] is conducting its own investigation . . . There is some criminal liability here. They should not be investigating themselves . . . It's unconscionable."

Both the US Department of Justice and the FBI have been asked to conduct an independent investigation due to citizen doubts regarding an impartial Arizona Department of Corrections inquiry.

Further reading.

~Riot.Jane

Immigration Group: Hospital/DHS "Stealing Immigrants' Babies"

On November 16, 2008, Ruby Cruz was born to Mexican Cirila Baltazar Cruz in a Pascagoula, MI hospital. Two days later, hospital staff filed a report with the state Department of Human Services regarding the Cruz child's situation.

Included in the hospital report to DHS are allegations of neglect supported by the mother's exchanging sex for housing, the mother's inability to communicate in any laguage besides the indigenous language Chantino, the mother's illegal immigrant status, and mother's plans for giving the child up for adoption.

"After thoroughly investigating Ms. Cruz's situation, we are very confident that our employees acted appropriately in all phases of her care," said a Singing River Hospital spokeman. "We reported her case . . . as we are bound to do by law, and DHS, after its own investigation, made the decision regarding Ms. Cruz and her baby."

Court records indicate that the legal charges of neglect include the tidbits that, due to her only language being Chantino, she "was unable to call for assistance for transportation to the hospital" in order to give birth, that "she has failed to learn the English language," and that this situation has "placed her unborn child in danger and will place the baby in danger in the future."

The Mississippi Immigrant Rights Alliance alleges that Singing River Hospital and the Mississippi DHS are "stealing immigrants' babies" by the hospital only providing a Spanish translator and then DHS charging the mother with neglect as a result of the hospital's error.

The Southern Poverty Law Center is assisting in the Cruz defense.

Additional reading.

~Riot.Jane

"We're the Victims Here"

That absurd statement came from the mouth of Alan Yaffe, attorney for RJL Entertainment Inc. d/b/a "Cheetah Club," a strip joint in Corpus Christi, TX. RJL is suing a minor dancer, her parents, and the man accused of abducting the minor, sexually assaulting her, and forcing her to strip at the club.

The 14-year-old girl was allegedly abducted from San Antonio, held and assaulted in the captor's home over the course of a week, then handed a fake ID card and forced to work in the club. The alleged abductor/assaultor, Leslie Campbell, is being held in the Nueces County (Texas) Jail on charges of aggravated kidnapping and aggravated sexual assault. A Manager at the Cheetah Club was arrested (already out on bail) and charged with the sexual performance of a child and employment harmful to a minor.

A Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission (TABC) Sergeant involved with the case expects the TABC to take legal action against the Cheetah Club. He said that anyone looking at this girl should have known there was a good chance she was underage.

RJL Enterprises, Inc. is seeking currently-unspecified damages from the minor, parents, and abductor and a statement from a judge indicating that the Cheetah Club did not intend to hire the minor. "There was no real kidnapping," RJL attorney Yaffe told the San Antonio Express-News. "We're the victims here, sir. My clients are the victims."

Additional reading.

~Riot.Jane

Our Broken Healthcare System

As if we needed more evidence that the US healthcare system is fundamentally broken, consider the story of Starla Darling, a pregnant 27-year-old mother who was laid off when Archway & Mother's Cookie Company in Ashland, Ohio filed for Chapter 11. With her job went her health insurance.

Starla began her maternity leave on October 1, 2008. Two days later, on October 3, Archway employees received a letter advising them that their jobs would end and their health insurance would be terminated on October 6. COBRA wsn't an option because the company was self-insured (administrated by Blue Cross Blue Shield), and the plan was being terminated.

So, Starla immediately did what any pregnant woman would do when unexpectedly laid off of an 8-year job who fears the loss of her health insurance: She called her midwife and insisted that her labor be induced and her child born within the three-day window in which she still had medical coverage.

Because her first child's delivery bill was approximately $9,000 three years before, and because she knew she would never be able to pay that amount for her second child's delivery, she decided "that we were getting this baby out, and it was going to be paid for."

On October 5, her delivery was induced, but excessive bleeding mandated an emergency cesarean section. Starla's daughter Kathryn was born three weeks early, and both are doing fine.

Because of the more than $700,000 in medical set-aside arrears that Archway was in when it shuttered, Blue Cross Blue Shield has denied payment for Starla's delivery based upon the plan's termination (i.e. no money, no plan, no coverage). She's now on the hook for more than $17,000 for the emergency cesarean section.

Starla hasn't been able to obtain unemployment benefits because recovering from the emergency cesarean section has left her "unable to work." Her husband Derek and her father Frank Phillips were also recently laid off, the father also from Archway the same day Starla was, after having worked there for 24 years.

Further reading available.

~Riot.Jane

Paying for Your Own Rape-Kit

Greetings to the Ladies Jane --

One would think, after the flap that ensued during the most recent US Presidential election regarding same, that any law-enforcement agency still requiring victims pay for their own sexual assault medical forensic examinations (i.e. rape-kits) would have stopped the practice.

Not so.

As recently as last month, Texas rape victims have received hospital bills and payment delinquency notices for their rape-kits. As of just over a year ago, North Carolina rape victims were in the same situation. Ditto for Georgia, Illinois, and Kansas.

The problem seems to be part paperwork issues, part privacy laws, part cost-cutting, and part insensitivity. Because the specimens collected during the forensic medical exam are not labeled "rape-kit" and the patient's file is not noted "sexual assault" (both points to protect the privacy of the patient), these women are falling down a rabbit hole of hospital-billing-department/private-insurance/public-aid/credit-delinquency merry-go-round where every organization says, "Not my responsibility," and refers the victim to someone else.

Victim receives a bill --> Hospital says insurance didn't pay, call insurance --> Insurance says services not covered, call the police since they told you it wouldn't cost anything --> Police say we don't pay hospital bills, call the state --> State says you have insurance, call insurance --> And on and on.

To be fair, most (if not all of these states) have funds established to pay for at least some of these expenses, and public aid and private insurance are supposed to be exhausted before a victim sees a bill. The entire concept is broken because it is built upon the concept that the victim is ultimately financially responsible for the forensic medical examination. The fact that a sexual assault victim could ever see a bill for her rape-kit is a secondary crime in and of itself, and the fact remains that women are receiving hospital bills and delinquencies on their credit reports as a direct result of sexual assault.

The US Department of Justice, Office of Violence Against Women, has outlined its views of the roles of first responders to sexual assault as part of a coordinated community response to same in its publication A National Protocol for Sexual Assault Medical Forensic Examinations. In this document, the USDOJ states, "Just as critical [to effectively collecting evidence for successful prosecution] is performing sexual assault forensic exams in a sensitive, dignified, and victim-centered manner."

Does rape victims receiving bills for their own rape-kits sound "sensitive, dignified, and victim-centered" to you?

~Riot.Jane

A Thong is NOT a Gateway Drug!

Greetings to the Ladies Jane --

The city of Yakima, Washington passed a law this past Monday that criminalizes female butt-cracks, see-through dresses, and whale-tale.

Yakima Mayor Dave Elder, coincidentally a church pastor, insists the target of the law is so-called "sexpresso" businesses where scantily-clad baristas prepare and serve coffee to customers. He says he initially wanted to classify the "adult" coffee-houses as sexually-oriented businesses and then change the SOB ordinance, but city legal staff warned that trying to do so could cause legal challenges.

The law falls under indecent exposure, with a first offense misdemeanor conviction garnering up to 90 days incarceration and $1,200 fine. If a child under 14 sees the offense, the punishment increases to up to 1 year incarceration with $5,000 fine. For the top of your underwear or, God forbid, the top of your butt-crack showing when you bend over!

The Mayor insists that this law is intended to apply only to coffeehouses, not to the public at large, but the law isn't written that way. The mayor also insists that this law is intended to protect women: "If you want to create an environment where crime can happen. You turn a blind eye to adult businesses." How about applying the law to people who actually commit crimes instead of policing female attire?

Let me get this straight: In an effort to protect women freely working at "adult" coffeehouses, Yakima passed a community-wide gender-specific law that criminalizes accidental and incidental undergarment or anatomic display? With stiffer penalties if a child, her child, sees it? And you didn't even bother to write the law to specify that it applies only to said coffeehouses?

So much for the common knowledge that the Pacific Northwest is somehow more Bohemian, Progressive, or Enlightened than the rest of this country! If I hadn't read it myself, I'd be convinced this was someone's sick joke.

Further reading available.

~Riot.Jane

Man Has His Own Wife Raped

Sad Greetings to the Ladies Jane --

If the various news reports I've read are accurate, a 25-year-old North Carolina man arranged, via a popular online classified site, for a complete stranger to have sex with his wife using "scare tactics." Since the wife was ignorant of and therefore not complicit with the plan, rape is the only possible word for this event.

The concept bears repeating: A man had someone else rape his own wife.

Now, while you're trying to wrap your mind around that concept, here are details from various news reports (linked below):

• The woman awoke from sleep, in bed with her husband, at 2:45 AM to see a black male stranger standing at the foot of the bed with a knife.
  
  
• The stranger raped her.
  
  
• The husband didn't try to interfere with the sexual assault, and he didn't try to comfort her afterward.
  
  
• The victim (not the husband) called 911 after the assault.
  
  
• The victim was forensically examined, medically treated, interviewed, and released from the hospital due to no significant physical injury.
  
  
• Police could find no sign of forced entry into the couple's home.
  
  
• The husband's statement contained specific inconsistencies, and he's being held on $200,000 bond on various charges: first-degree rape, first-degree sexual offense, and attempted first-degree sexual offense. He waived the appointment of a public defender at his first hearing.
  
  
• Police confiscated the husband's computer and have obtained the assistance of the US Secret Service in gathering forensic computer evidence.
  
  
• The couple's two children were home (but presumably asleep) and not aware of the sexual assault.
  
  
• The victim told a reporter that she is receiving help and support from family members, that the details of the assault are too painful to discuss, but that she didn't know about the plan. Police have indicated that they firmly believe her.
  
  
• The police have located the assaulter. He is a veteran who was convicted of indecent exposure in Virginia last March.
  
  
• Police are not yet sure whether or not the husband paid the assaulter for the assault, or if the assaulter even knew the victim was non-complicit. Police believe the assaulter may have simply believed he was fulfilling a consensual fantasy.
  

I hereby volunteer to have Karma's flow skip over the next three good things that are supposed to happen to me so that there's plenty of Karma available to give this piece of human garbage exactly what he deserves.

Further reading sources available.

~Riot.Jane

The Bystander Effect

Sad Greetings to the Ladies Jane --

If the news report is accurate, a woman in her 20s was raped, in broad daylight, in front of hundreds of people, yesterday afternoon in a Spokane, Washington park.

No one stepped in, even though "Witnesses reported seeing her struggle and attempt to get away from the male several times."

Local NBC affiliate KHQ reports that the incident occurred at Riverside Park approximately 1:45 PM, and that the perpetrator was reportedly a 53-year-old panhandler.

If hundreds of people watched, then it's safe to assume that there were women, just like us, who stood by and let this happen. A remarkably similar case in the mid-1960s prompted the first social psychological research into this phenomenon, the Bystander Effect, in which the herd mentality diffuses personal conscience and responsibility to the point of eradication.

I am outraged and disgusted to the level of physical illness. I guess this means my normal mantra of "People are really good at their core" simply doesn't apply to groups.

How do we make sure that we're not a part of the herd? That we don't ever stand idly by, silently waiting for someone else to take the lead, while another woman is assaulted?

~Riot.Jane