ATTN: People of America
Please watch this clip:
You have now seen the only mild quip about rape in existence that is even remotely funny or clever. That is it. It is the only one in existence. The rest are not amusing or charming or necessary. Your attempts will not be witty, clever, or provocative, and instead will assuredly be crude and offensive and will just make you look like a total asshole. So knock it off. You aren’t Mel Brooks.
numbskull
Possibly the weakest “joke” in an otherwise hilarious movie.
BGinCHI
Question 6: “Please say something about the power of words.”
You gotta be fucking kidding me.
Linnaeus
@numbskull:
And that tells you that if even a legendary comic talent like Mel Brooks can’t pull it off very well, then Joe Schmo sure as hell ain’t gonna.
Tom Levenson
Hell. Most of the time lately Mel Brooks isn’t Mel Brooks (i.e., it’s been a long strange trip from The Show of Shows and –IMHO quite possibly the funniest movie ever made — The Producers…to Spaceballs etc.
And yes, I’m wet. I’m hysterical and I’m wet.
cleek
in other ‘obvious’ news, Fox News makes shit up.
stuckinred
Sorry
Arlo, “Father Rapers”. 2:06.
freelancer
Well, there’s also the Carlin bit. But you’re right, the reaction online to the attack on Lara Logan has been fucking nauseating.
sukabi
at least his apology seemed genuine… not one of those “I’m sorry you were offended by my harmless statement, you should grow a thicker skin” apologies that the most offensive people seem to prefer.
BGinCHI
@stuckinred: Agree. I’ve been using that as a ne plus ultra for years now.
As in: “I’d root for a team of father-rapers against Duke in basketball.”
You can sub Dallas Cowboys, ND football, and all teams from FL.
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
@cleek:
Yeah, but look at about whom they were making shit up. Sorta like showing a clip of rainfall in Yourtown, USA, when rain is predicted on the morrow.
stuckinred
@BGinCHI:
I wanna kill,
I wanna see burnt dead babies
I wanna kill
The Moar You Know
He was stupid. Moving on.
A related topic: why are we being told that the mobs in Egypt are agitating for democracy when they are clearly out doing nothing more than beating people, engaging in street combat, and committing crimes? There is a huge disconnect between what we are being told and what is actually going on.
donnah
Yeah, that’s not actually funny, either.
Rape is in the headlines constantly, yet we do not understand what it is, how it affects people, or how to stop it. It’s one of the most common acts of brutality and more than in most other crimes, the victim gets blamed. It’s anger and hate and control all rolled into ugly acts against those who are targeted as being weaker.
We exist in a culture that still allows rape to be redefined according to the politics of the day. It’s not right, it’s not funny. Until we start to acknowlege that it’s a crime against human beings, including women and children and men as well, we won’t get anywhere close to stopping it.
stuckinred
@The Moar You Know: And you know this how?
Zifnab
But I can always aspire to be Mel Gibson.
kth
As soon as the Logan story broke, I knew that the wingnutosphere wouldn’t be able to help themselves. And not really because they are misogynists (though of course they are) so much as that they are terminally vulgar and without taste.
ploeg
No, not even that one is particularly funny or clever.
This one is a little better:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-UM9GjnTFIM
John PM
How long did it take you to find that clip? I have seen that movie numerous times and I did not even remember that line. However, I agree with your larger point.
JGabriel
John Cole @ Top:
Addendum: It’s only funny (to the extent it’s funny, and it didn’t really make me laugh either) because its crudeness and offensiveness ironically confirms that the character uttering it is a total asshole.
.
Lysana
@sukabi:
“This isn’t me and what I stand for” is distancing himself from the fact he meant it when he said it in the wrong way, though. It was him when he said it. He’s the same person. It’s like a drunk refusing to admit he’s the same person with or without getting his hands on the booze. He has to own the fact he is capable of being that much of an asshole. He isn’t.
Violet
Had the radio on this morning while in the car and listened to Glenn Beck’s program for a little bit. He was going on and on about some lefty guy who’s at NYU making jokes about Logan’s rape. He was horrified at what this guy did. Of course he turned it into a “leftists are monsters” type theme, but it was kind of weird to see the intersection between Beck and, well, pretty much anyone who isn’t an asshat. I guess he was making political hay, but strange nonetheless.
slag
Beyond which, can we stop stop stop using the word “rape” for anything that isn’t actual rape? Your football team lost, you paid a lot for a new couch, your ipad got broken in the overhead compartment on your last flight. None of that is rape. None of it is anything remotely like rape. Stop stop stop using that frickin word!
gil mann
Joan Rivers had one that was good–something along the lines of “I bought a rape whistle, but it doesn’t work.”
And Rosen wasn’t just making a tacky joke that didn’t land, he let his contempt for Logan gunk up his filter. Kinda like half the commenters on this thread, which I thought I could reread 8 months later without getting all eyestabby, but I was wrong.
Svensker
It’s a shame Rosen said that. He has truly been one of the good guys on the war in Iraq, Israel/Pals, etc.
Not to go all Quaker on your ass, but humans do require constant reminders of the need for humility. We ARE all sinners, even the good guys. And hubris really does carry its own banana peel.
Luci
This is an excellent post and the points are well made. I used to work with people who had been sexually and physically abused, and I still do, but not to the same extent. On occasion, when my colleagues and I were stressed and overloaded with grief and pain from hearing about something that was so horrid even we were having trouble processing it, we’d make snotty cracks and use black humor to help us get past it. But, and this is huge I think, and where many people make their mistake and get into trouble, we never took anything like that outside the small circle of people who knew what the point of a comment was and who were committed to doing what they could to help rectify the problems. In other words, we never said these things to anyone who was not using them for the same reason we were, which was to ease horrific stress, they never got to people who who would be hurt by them, and the comments were not able to be used to encourage more abuse or make light of it by anyone who did not understand the serious purpose. My reading of what this guy did is that he said things he does not really believe or agree with, they got taken in ways he did not intend, and it’s come back to cause hassle. I suspect he’ll watch better next time, as well he should. I feel a bit badly for him, but then again, likely it’s a good lesson too.
ploeg
@Tom Levenson: All in all, it’s probably a good thing that Mel Brooks isn’t Mel Brooks anymore. Blazing Saddles is a great movie, but we don’t really need another one like it.
Cackalacka
For those of us without Flash, can someone enlighten us as to which Mel Brooks movie/line we’re seeing here?
Guster
Louis CK:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=za7jQ1s1BV0
Maude
@Svensker:
Hey, hey, hey. We have our glorious Christie here in the Garden State. He don’t do humble.
LT
Hear hear.
Superluminar
OT, but if anyone is interested Arsenal 2 Barcelona 1! Wahey!! Great match too.
Warren Terra
@Cackalacka:
Blazing Saddles, the Villain Recruitment scene.
aimai
@sukabi:
Well, he detoured through that level of apology before settling on the more appropriate “I’ve brought shame on my family.” Which is exactly right. I’m sorry he lost his fellowship, however. Being a partial asshole isn’t really cause to lose your job–especially when Erick Erickson and Patterico et al will wake up and still have their jobs.
aimai
jk
@Tom Levenson: @ploeg:
The Producers and The 2000 Year Old Man were infinitely funnier than Blazing Saddles. Brooks had clearly run of his A-list material by the time he made this film. Aside from a handful of good jokes, I think Blazing Saddles is one of the most overrated comedy films of all-time.
Sputnik
@slag: THANK YOU. I would like to extend your proposal to include the word “Nazis” as well.
Nellcote
@Svensker:
Awesome! I’m embroidering that on a sampler.
Mattminus
There is nothing funny about rape, unless it’s a clown that’s being raped.
Lol
It’s the “You said rape twice”/”I like rape” exchange.
On the subject of rape jokes, there’s the recent brouhaha over at Penny Arcade regarding the “dickwolves” strip.
Shoemaker-Levy 9
I find this statement odd. Rosen had made the offensive remarks, retracted, quit a job over them, and issued the most abject public apology I’ve ever personally read all before I even got out of bed this morning. And aside from being a little late to the party, you illustrate your point by setting the acceptable parameters for rape jokes. This was a weird post of yours.
Midnight Marauder
@aimai:
Yes, it is. The fact that Erickson and Patterico and numerous other assholes still have their job does not mitigate that fact.
Just Some Fuckhead
My girlfriend broke up with me because she said she thought I was a pedophile.
Taken aback, I replied “That’s a pretty big word for a 10 year old.”
Sly
I dunno. I always find Patton Oswalt’s “I’m gonna have rape for dinner” line in this bit to be hilarious.
Sputnik
@aimai: His apology fell a little flat in parts for me too. I thought he mostly hit the right notes, but his comments about context bothered me. There is no context where that “joke” would be appropriate.
ploeg
@jk: Not disagreeing so much. I suspect that Richard Pryor was likely the writer responsible for most of the good stuff in Blazing Saddles.
Blazing Saddles was a much deserved and needed slap-to-the-face for the Hollywood Western. And as I said, it’s almost certainly a good thing that we’ll never see another movie like it.
sukabi
@Just Some Fuckhead: that’s soooooo wrong on so many levels…
here’s hoping you’re just trying to poke buttons and not little girls.
campionrules
@Just Some Fuckhead:
The only thing worse than a rape joke……
We really are at the dregs of the interwebs
Just Some Fuckhead
@campionrules: Technically, it’s a statutory rape joke.
Chris Andersen
Question: which is harder to make? A joke about rape or a joke about The Holocaust?
Tim
God, I hate thought and word brownshirts, regardless of what side of the political spectrum they come from.
The fact that this guy quit his NYU job over this is ridiculous.
Has anyone noticed we STILL don’t know the details of the “attack” on Lara Logan, so none of you know what the hell you’re talking about; the rape thought/word police are just out in preventive mode, lest someone utter an non-pre-approved statement.
People who think in black and white, regardless of the subject matter, are full of brown shit.
Whomever allegedly messed up LL in Cairo are criminals and assholes.
LL was a dumbass to be where she was.
Two assertions. Both true, and non-contradictory. Those of you who pretend to be unable to digest that are full of brown shit.
sukabi
@aimai: well, I don’t know the guy and don’t know his writing… and without hearing an actual unedited interview and seeing body language, voice inflection it’s pretty hard to judge whether someone is being honest or is just going through the motions…
it seems like too much detail to be a “going through the motions” kind of apology… at least to me… time will tell if he’ll be back to being a part-time douchebag or not.
sukabi
@Tim: hate to nitpick, but EVERYONE is full of “brown shit” … unless they’ve got a serious medical problem… but that’s a discussion for the “why we need single payer healthcare” thread.
ruemara
@Tim:
hey, dumbass. LL was there with her crew, doing her damn job. She got separated from her crew in the mob and trapped.
STFU/GFY/DIAF
jackass.
Comrade Dread
Glad I missed all of the ‘jokes’.
What is it about the internet that brings out folk’s inner stupid jackass?
Lysana
@Tim:
As has been said but deserves repeating, she was DOING HER FUCKING JOB YOU GODSFORSAKEN ASSMUNCH.
Superluminar
@Just Some Fuckhead
I don’t think it’s right that you forcibly insert a joke into a rape thread.
Shoemaker-Levy 9
Which of the following may be joked about and why:
Rape
Assault
Assault with a deadly weapon
Verbal abuse
Negligent homicide
Homicide
Killing all lawyers
Consensual relationship between an adult and a 14 year old
War
War crimes
Genocide
Torture
Torture of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed
TIA
eemom
this thread will not end well.
Comrade Dread
@Tim: There is an increased risk of harm when one is reporting overseas in volatile and chaotic situations.
But that is there job.
I would no more call her a ‘dumbass’ for being there than I would call a solider a ‘dumbass’ for being in a situation where they could be shot or a traffic cop a ‘dumbass’ for getting hit by a car while doing their job. You know the risk, but you do the job anyway because it’s important.
Guster
@Shoemaker-Levy 9: They can all be joked about. But almost certainly, your attempts will not be witty, clever, or provocative, and instead will assuredly be crude and offensive and will just make you look like a total asshole.
Tim
@ruemara:
Excellent rhetorical skills, douche.
Phyllis
@Tim: What ruemara said. With a rusty pitchfork.
Fuck U III: The Duck Fucks Back
Phyllis: You do know that the ‘rusty implement’ meme is actually a rape joke, right?
I mean, this thread is clearly going off the rails quickly, but let’s at least try to be somewhat consistent.
Tim
@Comrade Dread:
A professional, well trained soldier will go out of his or her way to find methods of achieving objectives without unnecessarily putting themselves at risk.
Did LL have a weapon on her?
Did she dye her hair black, cover her head, and dress in the manner of the local populace so as to be unobtrusive? Or did she wade into a massive crowd of unsupervised protestors in a Middle Eastern country that treats women as second class citizens, blonde mane flying, with camera lights and microphone at fore, a sure way to remain anonymous?
I don’t buy that talking heads, male OR female, are there to gather crucial information. Their anonymous and unheralded local stringers do that. LL was there to get her mug on the tube and shore up her brand, all of which is ultimately about making money, not fighting for democracy. Same is true of Anderson Cooper.
I’ll mention again that none of us knows what actually happened to her, but why should that get in the way of a good “everything is rape and shut up” argument?
Tim
@Phyllis:
I feel rhetorically raped by your written violence. You are now a rapist. And no one here has any right to comment about it except in words I approve, you cold, vicious, hateful pitchfork person.
Stefan
OT, but if anyone is interested Arsenal 2 Barcelona 1! Wahey!! Great match too.
Well, there go my plans to watch it recorded tonight. And after all my careful avoidance of any kind of news sites, the radio, fellow football fans, etc., so I wouldn’t hear the results by mistake and spoil my enjoyment of the match.
Asshole.
Stefan
LL was a dumbass to be where she was.
What the fuck? She’s an international news correspondent, and she was reporting live from the site of the biggest international news story of the year. Being where she was was her job. How exactly does this make her at fault?
sukabi
@Shoemaker-Levy 9: Consensual relationship between an adult and a 14 year old
by specifying both the “adult” and “14 year old” you have acknowledged that there is no legal “consensual relationship” possible.
children cannot legally consent or enter into any legally binding arrangement, so it would be statutory rape at the least.
Just Some Fuckhead
Don’t forget the most hideous thing humans can do to one another: cannibalism.
Wil
Because it’s no longer acceptable to suggest that maybe covering a frenzied mob from the outskirts, or a rooftop, shows better judgment than trying to wade into the middle of it.
Because shots of people yelling and pumping their fists in the air up close is SOOO much more informative than seeing it from a distance.
Doing her job? Or being stupid and reckless and showing poor judgment?
As mentioned, a soldier’s job is inherently dangerous. But he also does it as safely as possible, and does not walk into enemy territory wearing a big “shoot me” sign.
Stefan
Did LL have a weapon on her?
Reporters don’t carry weapons, you fucking moron — that’s a good way to get themselves killed. She did, however, have a security detail with her, but the detail was unfortunately overwhelmed by the mob. But even if she didn’t have security, so the fuck what??? What is it about this crime that makes you so eager to discuss how the victim was really at fault?
Lol
Logan also had bodyguards. Not really irresponsible.
Intercalation
@Tim:
So, to reiterate, she was doing her job, not the job of a soldier, but rather the job of a reporter. Which involves standing in front of a camera and lights, not covering her head and not being anonymous.
Fuck U III: The Duck Fucks Back
Just Some Fuckhead: Eat me.
Stefan
As mentioned, a soldier’s job is inherently dangerous. But he also does it as safely as possible,
As safely as possible means not being a soldier — that’s inherently unsafe by its very nature.
and does not walk into enemy territory wearing a big “shoot me” sign.
Um, being a soldier in a combat zone IS wearing a big “shoot me” sign — your very status as a soldier gives the enemy permission to kill you anywhere, any time.
Villago Delenda Est
@Tim:
Tim, the first step is to stop digging.
So stop already, please.
Fuck U III: The Duck Fucks Back
Stefan: The Geneva Conventions, quaint as they are, disagree with you.
Wil
@sukabi:
Actually I think it depends on the state. Age of consent is not written on some stone tablet brought down from on high. It’s a legal construct decided by society and government.
bemused
@Nellcote:
It would also be great printed on a t-shirt.
Intercalation
@Wil: Oh great, another one. Yeah, it would be safer to be on the outskirts. Even safer to just stay home. But I’m going to give the benefit of the doubt to Logan and assume that she understands what her job requires better than some random internet armchair quarterback.
Do you also provide after-the-fact judgments for people in other lines of work? Because I think that would be really swell. Soldiers killed by an IED? Shouldn’t have been driving there. Blown up by a suicide bomber? Shouldn’t have gone to market that day. Wow, this is easy! Where do I pick up my paycheck?
ruemara
@Tim:
Considering what you said, I realized it had to be on the level you can understand. Douche and dumbass.
shortstop
@Mattminus: Those are the crying on the inside kind of clowns.
Phyllis
@Tim: Cold, vicious and hateful describes me to a tee, shithead.
Phyllis
@Fuck U III: The Duck Fucks Back: Aaack. You are correct sir. Mea culpa.
Comrade Luke
“left-wing journalist”? Who the fuck is this guy? I’ve never heard of him; might as well be Esperanza Spalding’s bassist as far as I’m concerned.
Catsy
@Tim: Shorter Tim: the bitch was asking for it.
Go crawl back under a rock.
shortstop
What’s with the recent influx of guys posting for the sole purpose of getting a rise out of women?
Wil
@Intercalation:
Or perhaps she was just being reckless.
Saying I am being an “internet armchair quarterback” for thinking what she did was stupid is no different than you being an “internet armchair quarterback” for saying the opposite.
You folks so intent on defending her, here and in the rape discussion in the other post seem to require absolute 100% obedience to your point of view.
Either she should be able to walk naked into a gigantic mob or else she “should have stayed home completely” seems to be the dishonest and simplistic either-or way you need to characterize it.
What most of the people who do not subscribe to your hardline view have been trying to tell you is that it is not so black-and-white.
It is possible for both things to be true:
1) She can be a daring reporter. From all accounts, she already is.
2) Walking into a gigantic seething mob was an incredibly stupid thing to do for a story that–let’s face it–was just eye candy…people celebrating…they will be celebrating for weeks.
It is also possible for a third thing to be true.
3) Was the value of this particular story worth the risk involved? Would a story from a rooftop have accomplished the same thing from a journalistic perspective?
There is no need to pretend her only other option was to stay home behind some shutters and become a nun.
Lol
If your rape joke boils down to “She got raped, that’s the joke”, it falls in the unfunny/offensive category. If the punchline is something else, you may be okay.
AhabTRuler
@shortstop: Nah, Tim’s not new, and his attempts to get a rise out of people do not discriminate based on gender.
Still a dick, though.
C.S.
Reporters don’t carry weapons, you fucking moron—that’s a good way to get themselves killed.
And to get other reporters killed as well, and also to get them imprisoned.
gbear
@Shoemaker-Levy 9: Homicide jokes are always killer.
edit: sorry. I’ll just leave now…
gwangung
BUt measurably superior to yours.
sukabi
@Wil: I should have been a bit more precise… can a 14 year old enter into any contract legally, in any state in the US? (no, not even “age of consent” for sex) can they buy cigarettes, booze, vote, buy a car, rent an apartment or enter into any legal agreements WITHOUT FIRST being emancipated from their parents and deemed an adult by legal decree?
There are NO states where 14 year olds are considered to be the “age of consent”.
gwangung
Stop. Parse the sentence. Because the rhetorical argument falls apart. Seething crowd? Celebratory? And that carries a chance of rape…how?
Second, replace the woman reporter with a man. Replace the sexual assault with an assault. Does that make any difference for you?
Ruckus
@Stefan:
Don’t you know, they’re all asking for it
/SNARK, just in case there was any doubt.
ETA Tim was being himself over on ABL’s earlier thread, this is nothing new for him.
Barb (formerly Gex)
Frankly, apart from the commentariat and bloggers on this site, I usually find dudes to be universally pretty callous about the idea of rape. So whatever. The mere idea of rape is basically justifies homicide to dudes if they think a guy is after them. Our entire culture is weighed down with the idea of women as sex object, nothing more, nothing less. The Social Network had to take female engineers that worked on Facebook to skanky harpies, because that is all women are good for. And even here, the discussion gets fucking creepy. Hell, marriage still mimics the giving away of a woman as property, and the country is very adamant that is the way marriage is meant to be.
Again, whatever. We live in the cult of the dick. We’ll talk about cajones and balls etc. in politics. Because the only way to demonstrate positive qualities is to be more like guys.
RedKitten
@Comrade Dread:
Exactly. I have an hour-long commute to work every day. If I get hit head-on by a drunk driver, was I a “dumbass” for being on the road and “putting myself in that situation” in the first place?
Nerull
Just what does the dumbassness or not of being there have to do with it being rape? It’s not a difficult concept. Either she was raped, or she wasn’t. The circumstances are irrelevant.
You can come up with all the excuses you want for her assaulters, but that doesn’t change what happened.
Brachiator
And Credit where credit is due: Blazing Saddles, screenplay by Mel Brooks, Norman Steinberg, Andrew Bergman, Richard Pryor, and Al Uger. Story by Andrew Bergman.
And to the larger point, I simply had to stop reading anything about the horrible, horrible things that happened to Lara Logan. There is some weird disconnect among some people that makes them want to treat everything as though it were an episode of America’s Funniest Home Videos, where the audience is encouraged to laugh at whatever happens to someone, no matter how terrible.
Wil
It depends. Were you taking normal safety precautions and not being stupid, or were you driving into oncoming traffic thinking, “La la la, nothing will ever happen to meeee…”
Kathryn
@gwangung: In Egypt, and many other countries, the punishment for rape is the woman who has been raped is killed by her brother or father, often at the instigation of her mother.
That’s the crowd LL walked into. Everyone of those women in Tahir square were there with brothers, fathers, husbands or sons, and I will bet not one of them was unmarried, or if so over the age of 10. And those women in that square were still at risk of this same thing happening. And for a lot of men in the middle east, a woman without hijab, and particularly a westerner is a “whore” without question. There is no way she should have been out in the crowd. Not with a dozen bodyguards. And there are a lot of Egyptians who hate Americans as enablers of Israel and will not see “journalist” as any kind of an exception, male or female.
Phoebe
@Lysana: I think the “this isn’t me” bit just means “I totally agree with everyone who thought it was odious”. As for exactly what was going on in his head, i.e. trying to figure out why the him he is did in fact say what he said, he did a pretty thorough job, and with the necessary “in explaining this I’m not trying to excuse it” disclaimer. What else can you ask for? I know: that he never said it in the first place. But that isn’t an option, and as far as I’m concerned [not that I’m Lara Logan], truth and reconciliation accomplished. Next!
Just Some Fuckhead
@sukabi:
Wrong! In Hawaii, a 14 year old can consent to have sex with someone less than 5 years older which means a 14 year old can consent to have sex with an 18 year old adult.
Thank you wikipedia for allowing me to be a temporary internet genius!
Intercalation
@Wil:
Okay, I think I see the problem here: you are stupid. Saying that a reporter understands the job of being a reporter better than I, a non-reporter, do is precisely the opposite of being an armchair quarterback.
AhabTRuler
Journalists get assaulted and abused, including sexual abuse, all the time. The only reason why most people are talking about it is because it is a prominent American journalist, much in the same way that Anderson Cooper getting punched was news, too.
That being said, as a human being I have nothing but support for Ms. Logan and consider the parameters of what happened to be completely irrelevant.
Two. Different. Conversations.
Wil
@gwangung:
Any massive crowd carries multiple risks, that should be obvious.
Been to a massive rock concert? Yeah, so have I. Everybody celebrating. Doesn’t mean things don’t happen.
Trying to pretend that’s not true is just being obtuse.
Villago Delenda Est
@Wil:
Yup.
The problem is that you are a cretin. Don’t think there’s a cure for that.
bemused
@shortstop:
They have trouble getting dates?
Stefan
What’s with the recent influx of guys posting for the sole purpose of getting a rise out of women?
If you can’t get a woman to notice you in real life, next best thing is to annoy a woman on the Internet, I suppose…
sukabi
@Just Some Fuckhead: I don’t know about that… in this piece the age of 14 seems to be the age not of consent, but at which a determination of degree of sexual assault is determined…
Wil
@Intercalation:
Actually it’s precisely the same. Think about it for awhile. Eventually your brain will figure it out. Or maybe not.
Warren Terra
@Barb (formerly Gex):
As a member of said commentariat, I’m glad that we are excepted, but it really sounds to me like you need to hang out with a better class of dude, or change your media intake if you’re responding not to the dudes you actually meet but those you experience on the television or whatever.
gwangung
Again, that incurs a risk of rape, how?
You’re not connecting the dots, other than a generalized risk, which is not particularly penetrating or insightful. Trying to pretend that means something rhetorically is just being obtuse (particularly since she brought a security detail).
ETA: Of course, if you want to play “blame the victim”, go ahead.
Stefan
Walking into a gigantic seething mob was an incredibly stupid thing to do for a story that—let’s face it—was just eye candy…people celebrating…they will be celebrating for weeks.
So, basically, it’s an incredibly reckless and stupid thing for a female reporter to walk into any large crowd of people celebrating.
Nope, can’t see how that would put a damper on her ability to do her job. As long as the female reporter avoids crowds of people, she’ll be OK, though.
Phyllis
@Kathryn: <blockquoteAnd for a lot of men in the middle east, a woman without hijab, and particularly a westerner is a “whore” without question. There is no way she should have been out in the crowd. Not with a dozen bodyguards. Interesting that no one is saying this about Elizabeth Palmer, who has been reporting from the Square wearing western clothes and no hijab. I guess that’s because she’s reached that middle-aged = invisible = non-f*ckable category.
Just Some Fuckhead
@sukabi: Same with Maine and New Jersey, BTW.
Tim
@Catsy:
Shorter Tim: the bitch was asking for it.
Yes, that is exactly what I said. You might try being more sensitive here; I was just rhetorically raped by Phyllis and am healing.
RedKitten
@Wil: So who gets to decide what a “stupid risk” is, then? Who’s the arbiter of that? If some people here think that LL was stupid for being in that crowd, there are also some people who think that LL was stupid just for being in Egypt.
If I’m raped at a massive rock concert, to use your example, was that a stupid risk that I took? What if it had been a smaller concert? Was that still stupid? There are some people who think that a woman walking down the street alone at night is taking a stupid risk. So should we not do that anymore?
I’d really like to know where this arbitrary line of acceptable behaviour for females is, please, so that if I’m ever raped, I’ll know whether or not to expect people to call me “stupid” for having been wherever I was.
Jeanne ringland
@Stefan: The only option of some, it seems.
Just Some Fuckhead
@sukabi: Many states have close age exemptions.
Virginia, FWIW, has the most stringent age of consent laws. I remember a few years back the state bought billboard ads to warn about it. I have a 15 year old daughter so I’m cool with it.
Stefan
Any massive crowd carries multiple risks, that should be obvious. Been to a massive rock concert? Yeah, so have I. Everybody celebrating. Doesn’t mean things don’t happen.
You said going into the square was “reckless”, and are now equating that to a massive rock concert. Is attending a concert now per se reckless?
FlipYrWhig
When did it become an article of faith that every woman in any large crowd is totally up for grabs, and everyone knows that, so entering a crowd is totally a provocation, and if that bothers you, you’re just naive, which makes it _your_ problem? That’s totally fucking abhorrent.
(edited slightly after original posting)
Kathryn
@Phyllis: NO. It is always the risk. Always. For a man who kills a female relative who has been raped, if he is even prosecuted, the jail time averages a year. This is “honor” in the middle east.
You have no idea how truly dangerous it is for everyone of those women, even those Egyptian women with hijab.
Tim
@Kathryn:
Kathryn, why do you hate women?
sukabi
@Just Some Fuckhead: I know most of these laws go back to the “women as chattel” days and have been revised only a bit to make them more palatable… still makes me sick… there is no way a 14, 15, or 16 year old is able to make an informed consent decision about sex… hell most adults aren’t able to do that.
Wil
@Stefan:
Noooo…..the original issue that you or whoever had was that the crowd was ‘celebrating’ and yet this event happened even though the overall crowd mood was celebratory.
My point was that giant mobs of people are giant mobs of people and things can happen, regardless of whether the event or overall mood is celebratory or not.
Just as a giant mob can also wind up trampling people to death, even though the purpose of the mob was not deliberately to trample people.
Following me?
FlipYrWhig
@Kathryn: Seems like a lot of stereotypes: “every one” does this, “a lot of men in the middle east” do that, “a lot of Egyptians” etc.
Villago Delenda Est
If Michele Bachmann, or Sarah Palin, walked into that celebratory crowd, with bodyguards, and was raped, would we be discussing how stupid they were to take a risk by doing so?
I don’t think so.
Just Some Fuckhead
@sukabi: It’s actually more complicated than age of consent. In a bunch of states, a 14 year old can marry with the consent of her parents and/or the court. Then ya can have sex with the full blessing of God and state.
FlipYrWhig
@Wil: This is just asinine. It has happened before that a giant sinkhole opened up in pavement and people fell into it, but that doesn’t mean that everyone who walks on every piece of pavement should always be on guard against sinkholes, so if you fall into one, it’s your own damn fault, bitch.
Wil
@Villago Delenda Est: Uh oh. I’ve been insulted by one of those losers who pick a Latin name to show how clever they are. Well, I guess that shows me.
Kathryn
@Tim: Yes I realize I have just joined you in the club.
Villago Delenda Est
@Wil:
Wil, you really are a serious blockhead.
Brachiator
@Kathryn: That’s the crowd LL walked into. Godddamit, Logan did not “walk” into a crowd. She was separated from her guards by people set on bad intent.
And she was saved by Egyptian women and Egyptian soldiers. Evidently, their sense of decency overrode whatever supposed hatred of Americans, etc., they had.
Kathryn
@FlipYrWhig: You need to look up “honor killing.” It’s horrific, but is how some societies control sexuality.
And in the US, it’s only 50 years of women being willing to press charges and demanding justice that have made the difference here.
Kathryn
@Brachiator: In a mob, in a mob. A huge crowd. It contains all kinds of people, and if only a fraction are rapist and haters, if the crowd goes out of control… it’s a serious problem in a country where rape and assault are not prosecutable crimes.
And men are just as at risk.
sukabi
@Just Some Fuckhead: still disgusting, and puts the minor in the relationship at a distinct disadvantage… and what is the ratio of female minor / adult male relationships to male minor / adult female relationships?
I’d almost put money on the age of consent laws changing if adult females started taking boys as lovers…
Kathryn
@Brachiator: And notice… it was Egyptian WOMEN who took a huge chance to stop this.
RedKitten
.
So once again, I ask you: where do you draw the line on what is stupid and what is not? Should all women therefore avoid giant mobs? What about large mobs? Medium-sized gatherings?
I’m REALLY interested in hearing precisely where this arbitrary line is drawn. If I go to the U2 concert in New Brunswick this summer, and something bad happens to me, will you call me stupid for having been there in a crowd of 100,000 in the first place? Let me know, okay? I’d really like to know what size/mood of crowd it’s not stupid for me to be a part of.
RedKitten
@Kathryn: And the Egyptian military, which I assume is not solely female.
FlipYrWhig
@Kathryn: Yes, there is such thing as “honor killing,” but I’d prefer to resist explaining this event–whatever its specifics–by saying that it’s just part and parcel of interacting with The Dusky Hordes.
Phyllis
@Wil: Thanks for the clarification. Who knew that a man’s dick or other appendage could inadvertently end up inside of a woman just because there’s a big crowd and all and you know, shit happens.
Jeanne ringland
@Kathryn: I don’t think you want to join his club.
Intercalation
@Wil:
1)Double-down after being called out for saying something that’s obviously really stupid
2)????
3)Profit!!!
Kathryn
@RedKitten: The women went and got the military. And the argument is simply enough if you don’t stop this it will spread.
There were dozens of men, if not hundreds in the vicinity who apparently did nothing. I say apparently because it is not clear, and some may have tried. And I will give credit where it is due.
But this is not the US, it is not the west, and the rules are brutal and women and children are the victims more often than not.
Kathryn
@FlipYrWhig: It does not explain the event, it is part and parcel of the larger issue of why women are at risk in public space in some cultures. It is naive to think your rules apply in someone else’s country.
Medicine Man
You can joke about any of those things, Shoemaker, regardless who says what is “allowed” or not. The thing(s) to remember: Most likely you cannot joke about those things in good taste. Nor with a light heart. If you do so before a broad audience, expect push back or condemnation.
I realize your question may have been rhetorical.
Tasteless, offensive humor can serve a purpose in the public sphere; if you care at all about the outcome, your humor should be deft and needs to reveal its purpose in the telling (see Johnathan Swift). Rosen’s off the cuff tweets failed on both of these counts.
Scamp Dog
I’m appalled that no one has brought up the job announcement leading up to the video clip:
Hedley Lamarr: I want rustlers, cut throats, murderers, bounty hunters, desperados, mugs, pugs, thugs, nitwits, halfwits, dimwits, vipers, snipers, con men, Indian agents, Mexican bandits, muggers, buggerers, bushwhackers, hornswogglers, horse thieves, bull dykes, train robbers, bank robbers, ass-kickers, shit-kickers and Methodists.
No need to thank me!
sukabi
@Kathryn: But this is
notthe USRedKitten
Well holy shit, let’s just haul every female reporter home from the Middle East, then. It’s just too danged dangerous for them to be there. Might as well haul the female troops out of there, too. Goodness knows they might get separated from their platoon and wind up among a crowd of men, and then we ALL know what could happen then? Charitable workers? Nope. Keep your ass home, lady.
Sigh.
Villago Delenda Est
It’s amazing how we didn’t have this conversation when Anderson Cooper was assaulted.
Or perhaps not.
shortstop
@Kathryn:
Are they? Because you seem to be earnestly telling us the opposite in all your posts. Were the male reporters’ forays into the crowd equally as foolish as you think Logan’s was?
Kathryn
@RedKitten: Not too long ago, nuns in central america asked the Vatican if they could use birth control because they were being raped regularly but didn’t want to leave the poor they were there to help. It is extremely dangerous for men and women in 3rd world foreign countries, and those that do this work in any capacity have been told that, and I totally respect those that go anyway. They are brave and devoted and exceptional and Logan falls right into that category as far as I am concerned. But it doesn’t change the fact that you have to be extremely aware of those risks in order to minimize them. And there had already been assaults on men in Cairo, male journalists – and that should have been a warning sign.
And as far as the military, it’s actually dangerous for American women in the US armed forces because the military won’t prosecute rape charges, and that’s right now.
FlipYrWhig
@Kathryn: But explaining it by norms and stereotypes breaks down immediately. As you’ve pointed out, Egyptian women helped stopped the assault. If the norm for women’s conduct is docility and compliance, well, that’s not how it played out. Similarly, even if the norm for men’s conduct is aggression and vigilante-style moral policing–and I’m no expert, but that seems like a rather broad brush–they’re not _programmed_ to do that.
FlipYrWhig
@Kathryn: She was aware, and she had people with her, but it seems her precautions were overwhelmed by events.
Brachiator
@Kathryn:
No. It was women and Egyptian soldiers, of unspecified gender, but presumably including males. In short, decent people intervened and stopped indecent people from continuing a depraved act. Stop making shit up.
@Villago Delenda Est:
I didn’t participate in those discussions, but read them, and the fools who talked about how superstar Western reporters were pampered and not seriously in danger, compared to local reporters, obviously were full of it.
Apart from this, the Committee to Protect Journalists has an timely post on Documenting sexual violence against journalists
Kathryn
@shortstop: Yes, absolutely men are at risk here too. And don’t think it’s just assault, like AC. They can be raped just as easily. Once attacks on journalists and other foreigners started being reported it should have redflagged all movement in public spaces.
shortstop
It is extremely dangerous for men and women in 3rd world foreign countries
Speaking of broad brushes, the edges of this one are past the sight line.
Just Some Fuckhead
@sukabi:
Near as I can tell, age of consent laws aren’t predicated on the sex of the minor in question.
Wil
@Kathryn:
Kathryn, you are trying to make your point to people who absolutely refuse to accept it or even consider it.
sukabi
@Just Some Fuckhead: probably not, but was asking if you had any information on how the proportion of relationships broke down between minor female/adult male to minor male/adult female… I was betting that the majority of minor/adult relationships fell into the little girl/adult male category… and was speculating that there would be a quick, decisive change in consent laws if adult women started taking up with boys…
Tim
@FlipYrWhig:
What an asinine comparison. lol
RedKitten
So what IS your point, then, Kathryn? That the Middle East is a dangerous place? That covering a large crowd in Cairo is not the same as covering a large crowd in Topeka?
So where are you going with this? Should journalists not go there?
Are you saying that journalists should take precautions? Because LL WAS taking precautions — she had a security detail with her, but they got separated in the mob.
I guess I’m just trying to figure out what the moral of your story is.
Kathryn
@Wil: I know, I’ll stop now.
Just Some Fuckhead
@sukabi:
The current laws would still be applicable in such a case and wouldn’t need to be altered.
Wil
@RedKitten:
It’s a judgment call. To keep to the concert analogy, going to a Dead show at a Day on the Green somewhere presents a different set of rules, considerations, and risks than going to a death metal show in Moscow where a quarter of the crowd is made up of neo-nazis and skinheads.
Walking into a microbrewery in Ashland, Oregon wearing a gay pride T-shirt is one thing, wearing the same shirt to walk into a bar in Redneckville, Miss. with a sign over the door saying “the best liberal is a dead liberal” is another thing entirely.
This sort of hyperbole of “if a blond journalist can’t wade into a giant mob of men in Cairo, I guess she can’t go anywhere!” is really kind of absurd.
Tim
@RedKitten:
Well holy shit, let’s just haul every female reporter home from the Middle East, then. It’s just too danged dangerous for them to be there. Might as well haul the female troops out of there, too. Goodness knows they might get separated from their platoon and wind up among a crowd of men, and then we ALL know what could happen then? Charitable workers? Nope. Keep your ass home, lady.
You are SO full of shit. You and your imaginary arguments you pretend your opponents make. You’re sort of pleasuring yourself here, aren’t you? Self righteous rape-outrage makes you feel a little warm?
RedKitten
WHOSE judgment, Will? Is YOUR judgment the be-all and end-all, here? Because there are some people out there who, if I went to that Dead show and got raped by some asshole, would think that I was stupid to put myself in that situation. There are some people who, if I wore a skirt that shows my kneecaps, would think that I was stupid to put myself in that situation.
So who the fuck gets to decide where I am “stupid” to go? I’d really like to know.
Wil
@sukabi:
Nah…I bet an entire subculture would grow up around it.
RedKitten
@Tim: You’d like to think that, wouldn’t you?
No, Tim. My question to you is the same as it is to Kathryn and Wil.
WHAT is acceptable risk? What activities can we females engage in without being called “stupid” if something bad happens to us?
Where do you draw the line?
shortstop
@Kathryn: Gotta get your copy done for NRO?
Tim
@RedKitten: @RedKitten:
Do YOU think large crowds in Topeka and Cairo are the same under these circumstances? Do you think there might be ANY difference at all, generally speaking?
sukabi
@Just Some Fuckhead: the current laws are / were no doubt written with an “understanding” of how current western society works… namely that men like women and girls, some of them like much younger girls, and that women prefer men, not younger boys as partners… these consent laws will change when societal “norms” start taking effect on who is and who isn’t allowed “to touch my child”…
think of the shit-storm Mary Kay Letourneau(sp?) caused when she had sex with her minor student… male teachers have been screwing their students for decades and it never makes national news for weeks… pretty much happened with the next female teacher that did the same, although not to the degree…
I really don’t think there are that many mothers and fathers giving consent for their 14 yo boys to marry 22 – 30 yo women…
Jeanne ringland
@Scamp Dog: I’m a Methodist; we end up on lists of miscreants all the time.
Wil
@RedKitten:
Yeah but probably very few would actually think that. The more likely reaction would be, “Wow, that happened at a Dead show? Really???”
This absolute refusal to recognize that context matters is absurd.
Tim
@RedKitten: @RedKitten:
WHAT is acceptable risk? What activities can we females engage in without being called “stupid” if something bad happens to us?
Where do you draw the line?
Kitten, the world is not BLACK AND WHITE. The world is nothing but grays. There is NO ONE LINE; this is not a hard concept.
Look, maybe for LL the risk was entirely ACCEPTABLE. In return for getting her media whore face on the telly across the world she has allegedly been sexually assaulted. And maybe she is entirely ok with the the payoff for the price; I don’t know; she has to decide.
Maybe some people would literally be ok with DYING to get their face on tv around the globe in return for being violated; I’m not one of them.
It’s simple, even though you pretend to not understand, so I’ll say it yet again: TWO things can be true at the same time:
1. If LL was violated, she was violated by criminal assholes who should be brought to justice.
2. LL played a part in enabling the incident to occur by CHOOSING to wade into a dangerous, unpredictable situation under volatile circumstances.
See how that works? The truth of #1 does not mean #2 cannot also be true. I suspect you will continue to pretend otherwise.
FlipYrWhig
@Wil: So blond journalist in Cairo is… just asking for it, because Everyone Knows [tm] Egyptian men are like a pack of jackals under those circumstances. That about right?
Just Some Fuckhead
@sukabi: I think the opposite would happen. For better or worse, the reason we have age of consent laws is because we gotta protect girls, keep ’em pure, deny them agency. If older women were having sex with boys, no one would give a damn- if anyone ever found out- which is unlikely.
FlipYrWhig
@Wil: So why isn’t your reaction, “Wow, that happened in the midst of a joyous celebration of overthrowing a dictator, really?” As opposed to, “Well, sure, Arabs do that kind of thing at the drop of a hat, you’d have to be stupid not to know that!”
Brachiator
@Wil:
Bullshit. There were 18 days of demonstrations. There was not a rape every day. No one could have made a judgment or assessed the “risk” of what might happen.
No more than anyone could make a judgment call about when a member of Congress might be able to safely meet constituents without being worried about getting shot in the head.
And sadly, reporters, of all genders, put themselves at greater risk. And women reporters probably incur additional dangers. But the other side of it is that journalists are sometimes targeted, to keep them quiet, to intimidate them, to intimidate those who might want to speak to them.
FlipYrWhig
How many women were brutally sexually assaulted during the fall of the Berlin Wall? Is that a “dangerous, unpredictable situation under volatile circumstances”?
Nerull
http://i.imgur.com/tl9EX.jpg [NSFW]
This girl must have deserved it too.
I’m still not sure what the fucking point of this argument is. Rape is rape. It doesn’t become okay because a woman was in a crowd. It doesn’t matter if she was running naked through a sex offender convention. It’s still rape. Making light of rape makes you nearly as much as a jackass as the rapist.
FlipYrWhig
@Brachiator:
But it’s happened before, meaning that everyone should know it will certainly happen again, ergo when it happens to you it’s because you were too stupid to defend yourself against it happening, and you bear at least partial responsibility, QED.
Yeesh.
eemom
you know, there’s nothing like a blog post whose point is simply “Rape isn’t funny” to smoke out the sick fucks among the readership. Ditto with that post last night.
There is just nothing about the occurrence of this crime that should inspire ANY kind of argument directed against the victim. NOTHING. To anyone who isn’t a sick fuck or a pathological attention whore, that is.
Kathryn
@shortstop: Here you go:
http://cpj.org/2011/02/journalists-under-physical-assault-in-egypt.php
This is from Feb 2. The people doing these assaults didn’t go away, they are still there. No one should have been sent into the square to cover the celebration, this is a failure to recognize the real danger that was present, in general. Where women are concerned, failing to consider the culture context in which women in general are viewed is an additional problem. All reporting could have been done from places where security details were going to be effective: ie NOT in a place where 200 “bad element” types can cut you off, if nothing else you make sure you have escape routes and or a wall behind you. And this report is just of the journalists who were attacked. This was not some NY eve celebration in Times square.
@Redkitten: a Dead show???? holy shit that’s stupid.
Nerull
@eemom: Calling out people for making rape jokes hurts their fee-fees, and apparently we can’t do that. Their right to offend without being offended must be protected. Because she deserved it. Or something.
This has got to be the most moronic argument I’ve ever seen.
Tim
@Nerull:
You’re rhetorically pleasuring yourself, and it’s embarrassing. No one here has made light of rape, except maybe the voices in your head.
Tim
@eemom:
To anyone who isn’t a sick fuck or a pathological attention whore, that is.
More rhetorical excellence from the eemom, rat fucker extraordinaire.
Midnight Marauder
There are just some really crazy things being said in this thread. Just outright ludicrous comments.
@Tim:
I’m sorry, what?! Lara Logan enable her own
incidentbrutal and sustained sexual assault and beating? That is a real thing you believe and are attempting to argue?4tehlulz
Worst thread ever.
Tim
@Kathryn:
Kathryn, you are REALLY harshing the EVERYTHING IS RAPE SHUT UP vibe in this thread with your sensible talk.
Nerull
@Tim: At least I’m not the one inserting sex-related analogies into all their posts. Issues, Tim?
Your very first post was arguing that everyone is acting as “word police” for criticizing this guy for making rape jokes. It’s there. Scroll up and read it again, if you forgot. You’re not going to hide from it.
Nerull
So, Kathryn, question.
Do you agree with Tim that she was not raped?
I can’t understand thinking rape is a serious problem while simultaneously rushing to the defense of someone seeking to trivialize it.
Kathryn
@Brachiator: 2/2/11 “Thieves raped my daughter in front of my eyes, without showing mercy,” a resident of Cairo, Said Mahmoud, told Ynet. Up to 60 rapes were reported, and many citizens organized neighborhood watch groups armed with clubs and knives. ”
Rape was happening repeatedly in those 18 days. The above is from http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/MB01Ak03.html
And this is only what was reported, most families won’t report.
Jethro Troll
Do “say hello to your cellmate” jokes count, John?
Phyllis
@Midnight Marauder: Yeah, it is. This is the second thread that I know of where’s he’s been vehemently making this arguement.
Jeanne ringland
@4tehlulz: Hear, hear.
Tim
@Midnight Marauder:
Do you deny that if she had not chosen to be in the crowd, ie. put herself in a dangerous, unpredictable situation, where numerous journalists in the prior weeks had been brutalized, that she would still have been allegedly violated?
I’m thinking it’s not about “blame” for me, it’s about self-care and personal responsibility. As I referenced above, perhaps LL consciously made the choice to value her journalistic attention-seeking over her safety and well being. That’s not a good example of taking care of oneself.
Secondly, all we have is a vague statement from CBS. No one here knows the details of the incident, though it gives you pleasure to imagine that you have divined such from halfway around the world.
Looking forward to reading what the hell you freaks try to twist the above phrases into…
Kathryn
@Nerull: Yes, she was raped and beaten. And it sounds like it may well have been fully intentional. And she didn’t “ask” for it, this is not about “blame the victim” shit. It was horrific and wrong, and most Egyptians are probably just as horrified.
It was a huge error in judgment on someone’s part just the same. Whoever made the decision to send foreigners into that crowd should be held accountable. Because in light of the amount of journalists alone that had been assaulted up to that point, it was stupid beyond belief. You combine that with the serious amount of rape (ie violence against women) that was already happening, and the risks involved were far greater than any story was going to be.
Tim
@Nerull:
No I did not argue that EVERYONE is doing that, just certain commenters such as yourself. I don’t deny it. It’s a big part of my point. Where did I try to hide from it? Are these the voices in your head again? I detest people who show up in threads and announce what we are allowed to say and with what exact words. Fuck that.
Tim
@Nerull:
Please be patient with me, Nerull. I was rhetorically raped with a pitchfork by a couple of your compadres upthread and am still in shock. Hence you have no right to judge anything I say because you don’t know what I am going through.
Nerull
@Tim: It’s always funny how people screaming about their “rights” to say things always do it in the context to telling other people to shut up.
You have a right to say whatever the hell you want, just as everyone else has a right to call you a jackass for it. You don’t seem to grasp that second part.
chopper
@Just Some Fuckhead:
and those can be funny. Q: what’s 16, purple and illegal? A: statutory grape.
Jeanne ringland
“….perhaps LL consciously made the choice to value her journalistic attention-seeking..”
I think this attitude is part of what’s setting people off here, that she was merely attention-seeking rather than trying to get the story.
Tim
@Nerull:
OK, now it is clear that you are dishonest and a complete liar. Nowhere in this thread have I said LL was not raped. I have stated repeatedly that no on here knows WHAT happened or did not happen to her. The weakness of your position is betrayed by your constant need to twist the words of those who disagree with you.
Do YOU know that she WAS raped? What evidence are you basing this on? As I’m sure you know, “sexual assault” covers a huge range of crimes, from butt patting to forced intercourse. Why don’t you please tell the class exactly what happened, in detail, and how you know this? thank you.
Paula
@Nerull:
The point of this argument seems to be that there are quite a few people who misunderstand that being a war reporter and knowing risks is a conversation that can be separated from being concerned about the specific danger of sexual assault that any
womanone, anywhere can be subject to and how “danger” and abuse take on gendered forms. (Male rape and/or any sexual humiliation inflicted on men also count, obv.)The “resentment” here is less about LL being a victim of assault so much as she allowed her employer to publicly name it “sexual assault”, and the “conversation” on BJ began w/ a post from a woman talking about life in the US being dangerous for women. It makes people (both men and women) uncomfortable to hear that women are subject to some specific forms of abuse in this “civilized area” of the world, to think that people not too different from them are capable of this kind of violence. Hence you have the OVER THERE, OVER THERE, IN THIS SITUATION — because it’s more comfortable to believe that it comes from some place alien to you.
sukabi
@Kathryn: the thing you don’t seem to understand is that rape is about power and control, not about sex… what you’re suggesting is that to stop the rape women needed to stay home and hide.
What was needed, and was apparently in the article you cited and quoted, was organized citizens (both men and women) standing up for the rights of women, children and men to be safe in their homes and neighborhoods… that they armed themselves with clubs and knives says volumes about the level of support they had from the local police force… which was partly why they were out in the streets protesting/demanding a change of leadership in the first place…
here’s a question for you… how much of the thieving and rape was an organized terror campaign by Mubarak’s thugs designed to keep people home? And what would the result of folks staying home have been?
the question becomes, is the risk of bodily harm worth overthrowing a dictator and gaining freedom for yourself and your family? Many, many Egyptians decided freedom was the most important thing.
fraught
DANGER, TOXIC THREAD, KEEP OUT
Thread totally hijacked by Wil, Tim and Katheryn who have all twisted themselves into a single pretzel which spells out the words “women cause their own rape.”
icuryy
@Tim: Amen
Midnight Marauder
@Tim:
I did not realize that it was a guarantee and a given that all female reporters who insert themselves into dangerous conflicts will be raped and savagely beaten. I did not realize that this is how it is supposed to go if you have a vagina and decided to be a legitimate journalist:
Yeah, I totally blame Logan for that.
This is would be laughable if it was not so pathetically contradictory. You are thinking that it is not about blame, it is just about “personal responsibility.” As in, Logan is responsible for the actions of an angry mob that decided to savagely rape and beat her. You say it is not about blame, and yet you continue to write loaded statements like “made the choice to value her journalistic attention-seeking over her safety and well being.” Because, hey, it totally isn’t blaming someone for getting raped if you say they were an attention whore who valued a good story over being safe!
Pretty sure we have a lot of particulars from CBS (and Logan herself) about her time there, including this tidbit here:
But I’m sure only pretty, attention seeking, reckless female journalists get beaten and detained by Egyptian police, right?
Critical reading skills. Look into them.
Tim
@Phyllis:
Phyllis, my beloved pitchfork rapist, is it your position that poor, weak little LL has no personal agency in what happens to her? That she in no way bears responsibility for the actions she chooses to take?
My god, how infantilizing and degrading to any person, man or woman, to hold such a position.
My guess is LL would argue she DOES have agency, she makes her own goddam choices, and accepts the responsibility for that choosing. Which in no way, other than in your tiny mind, negates the crimnal responsibility of anyone who allegedly hit, smacked, touched, grabbed, poked, kissed, beat, or forcibly raped her? Get it?
No? Didn’t think you would.
Tim
@Nerull:
It’s always funny how people screaming about their “rights” to say things always do it in the context to telling other people to shut up.
AGain, with your lies: where did I tell you to “shut up?” I’m guessing you WISH I had done so, which would feed your righteous victim self image. Oh, and you’re projecting. Oh, and you’re using violent sexual rape imagery (pitchfork!) to fill in where your intellect fails you. Rapist.
Nerull
@Tim: And which part of that makes rape jokes okay?
Jeanne ringland
@Paula: @Paula: People do try to separate themselves from the bad stuff happening in order to convince themselves that it can’t happen to them; they do it by finding a difference between their situation and that of the victim: neighborhood, country, religion, gender, and race.
Tim
@Jeanne ringland:
Just as I believe egomaniac Anderson Cooper was unnecessarily attention seeking, which led to him being attacked TWICE. His desire to propel the AC brand and get TV face time outweighed his common sense and fear of violence and death.
I don’t call that brave, I call that stupid.
And his “beatings” already have resulted in even MORE face time stateside where he gets to tell his story on Jay Leno.
That is what Anderson Cooper is ultimately interested in, not the “story.” good god, how naive can you people be?
Wil
@FlipYrWhig:
Because a massive crowd of hundreds of thousands in the midst of a government overthrow of a decades-old repressive system might behave a little differently and less predictably than aging hippies at a Dead show? Just a guess…
Nerull
@Tim: So what you’re saying, then, is that people criticizing your comments are acting as “word police”, but the inverse does not apply?
Sorry, people being mean to you does not equal censorship. And some might argue that, by putting yourself in that situation, you brought it upon yourself.
DougJ®
@Tim:
This comment makes me mad. I guess those 12 journalists Putin killed should have known they known better too.
To me, they’re all courageous.
Tim
@fraught:
Yes, that is EXACTLY what I have been arguing. Not. You are a liar, as are several of the other commenters here who seem completely lost without false inferences and outright whoppers.
Nerull
@Wil: How about Seattle?
http://i.imgur.com/tl9EX.jpg
Woodrow "asim" Jarvis Hill
Some of you on this comment thread are nothing but showers of assholes.
I’m a belly dancer. I have a LOT of female friends who go to Egypt, to Cairo and elsewhere, regularly to study, or just to watch dancers. I know more than a few Western dancers who have, or are currently, in Egypt, currently performing.
Yes, Egypt can be unsafe. Yes, the unwary can get in serious trouble. Yes, there were and are cultural differences about the role of women there that Western women find useful to be familiar with — and, yes, dangerous to be unaware of.
But if Egypt was the cesspool of hell some of you are making it out to be, none of the Western women I know of who publicly belly dance would be able to go a day in safety. None of the many women dancers I know who have traveled there would be safe as they shopped, or ran around Cairo clubs — ones hardly the bastion of tourist stops — at night, if Egypt was as bad as you make it out to be.
I don’t understand you people. AT ALL.
WarMunchkin
Where do I go resign from the human species?
Woodrow "asim" Jarvis Hill
@Tim:
—CBS News Official Statement on Laura Logan’s assault (as taken from here).
Paula
@Jeanne ringland:
Well, I dunno, but I suppose people who talk about race-based job discrimination are being attention-hogs, too, right? if you can’t do x, it must be something you did wrong.
The “special” thing about being the victim of a sex crime, as someone else here said, is that it often results in the shaming of the victim rather than the perpetrator. This is why we keep the identity of these victims private unless they explicitly say otherwise. I doubt that Lara Logan is the first or the last female reporter to be subjected to this, so that she seems be “alone” in her public announcement is telling.
So given that she now has many people who will question her judgment, will question her objectivity, will treat her like a victim, will hesitate before giving her assignments of this sort ever again — exactly what is the “advantage” of the attention that she’s getting in this context?
Shoemaker-Levy 9
@Medicine Man:
This comes closest to answering my question and I thank you for your thoughts, but I will disagree here with something:
Do you really think so? I think some things that would qualify for my list are joked about frequently with no adverse consequences at all. I put what I thought was a gimme on the list, lawyer jokes, but I can think of other examples as well.
On the general question I’m with George Carlin, everything is context dependent. Might as well relate my own personal “rape joke” story at this point. Way back in the old college days, before the internet, a fellow student and I were reading a photocopied compilation that a grad student had put together of humorous mistakes that undergrads had made in papers and on essay tests. The other fellow read a few aloud and we’d laugh at the stupidity. One of the items was advice that one should “rape the victim in a blanket” in the event of shock. Now, it just so happens that another individual was present who was appalled and acidly noted, “there’s nothing funny about rape.” The two of us quieted down in order to avoid a scene, but after she left the room we said to one another that of course we didn’t find rape funny, we found an idiot who didn’t know the difference between “rape” and “wrap” funny. And to this day I find it funny that someone could get into college without knowing the difference between “rape” and “wrap”, though maybe I should be appalled instead.
(Let me also state that I’m not convinced the list of errors I’m referencing wasn’t entirely apocryphal, but they were funny nonetheless).
Now for the tasteless joke story a friend of mine used to tell. Many years ago he was working a summer job at a pizza joint and would exchange jokes with a teenage co-worker. The co-worker asked him what the most tasteless joke he ever heard was. My friend demurred but the co-worker was persistent and finally my friend suffered a lapse in judgement and told the joke. I won’t repeat it here but suffice it to say it was about the Holocaust. Sure enough, the teenager went and retold the joke to others, and my friend felt like a complete idiot. The Holocaust joke was horrific, the story of its telling I still find funny. Is there something wrong with me for thinking so?
I found the way this whole thread started odd. John told us that rape jokes are never appropriate, except for one. Just struck me as strange. I’m not a young person but I’m still puzzled by much of what offends people and what doesn’t.
Omnes Omnibus
@FlipYrWhig: I think I might just be done reading these Logan threads. Too many unrepentant assholes coming out of nowhere to somehow argue that it was Logan’s fault for any of a variety of reasons and/or saying what else can you expect from the Egyptians, after all they are just a bunch of wogs. Those of you who are keeping up the arguments here have stronger stomachs and lower rage threshold that I do.
Church Lady
@Tim: I was in Egypt last March. I have blonde hair and blue eyes. In your book, does that mean I deserved to be raped when I stepped out onto the streets of Cairo and Alexandria?
You are a complete and utter dick.
Tim
@Nerull: @Nerull:
Are you claiming that wishing me fucked with a pitchfork, which would probably cause a lot of pain and maybe blood, and, oh…death, is you “criticizing” my comments? lol
I love to be engaged on my thinking, but you don’t get to tell me HOW to express my thinking, and what words are approved or disapproved. got it? didn’t think so.
Woodrow "asim" Jarvis Hill
@Omnes Omnibus: It’s mostly that I a) just got to this, b) skipped most of the wanking, and c) haven’t had a chance to vent my rage around this.
Fuckers gonna know, though.
Fuzz
To me one of the more repulsive things about this is that Rosen wasn’t just being some juvenile idiot and saying she deserved it because of how she dressed or was dumb for being there or whatever, he was saying she deserved it because of her coverage of the Iraq war, which he believes was too positive and pro-war. So because she expressed opinions contrary to his, and because she got into an argument with Hastings on TV, her being beaten and raped is something to take pleasure from. He wasn’t just laughing about it, he was enjoying it and saying she deserved it, which in a way is even worse.
Jeanne ringland
@Tim: I’m not a “you people”, and I’m not naive. I was pointing out that your choice of words may be fanning the flames, but now I see that you chose them to represent what you believe so what can I say, other than that I don’t agree with a great deal of your premise.
Tim
@Nerull:
And some might argue that, by putting yourself in that situation, you brought it upon yourself.
Yes, absolutely. I completely accept responsibility for partaking in this thread which made it possible for you to rhetorically rape me with a pitchfork and misrepresent almost everything I’ve said. If I was reading a book offline you wouldn’t be able to do that.
Which isn’t that same as saying I MAKE you do the stupid things you do.
So, much like LL, I refuse to be run off from doing what I consider to be my job, by cretins such as you. OMG! LL and I are compadres! And you, Nerull, are at one with the Egyptian hooligans who allegedly attacked LL!
Nerull
@Tim: And you still can’t say it it in a way that doesn’t involve telling someone else what they can or cannot express.
eemom
I propose we all ditch this thread and leave it to the rape apologists to, um, “pleasure themselves” without “censorship.” Perhaps they’ll have the decency to mop up after they’re done.
Nerull
@Tim: Seek help. You’ve some some serious obsessive issues with rape.
Jeanne ringland
@Paula: I hope you know that my post was directed at Tim, but it didn’t show up that way. I strongly disagree with his comments.
Church Lady
@Wil: So if my daughter goes to something like Bonaroo and gets raped, it is somehow her fault? I hope to God you don’t have a wife, girlfriend or daughter, since you are a member of the They Deserved It group of people that excuse rape. You are just as big of a dick as Time.
Tim
@Church Lady:
And you are a complete and utter moron. And yes, obviously you deserved to be raped because that is exactly what I have been arguing. How much easier for your small mind to pretend I said one thing instead of what I really said. fuck off.
Wil
@Nerull:
Thanks for making my earlier point that a mob can behave like a ‘mob’ anywhere, and while there may be certain cultural factors at work here vis-a-vis being blond, female, western in a situation that everyone already knew was dangerous, any cultural factors do not tell the full story. The story here happened in Cairo, but it could have been anywhere with a massive emotionally-charged mob of people.
A giant mob of people is a giant mob of people, and if you’ve ever been in one, you know that it can turn ugly. The term “mob-mentality” did not arise in a vacuum, you know.
A picture of a woman being attacked by a crowd in Seattle does not change my point that any large crowd is going to have its own personality and its own risks, lower or higher as the case may be, and you have to use your own judgment.
A Dead show is a different crowd than you’re likely to find at an Eminem concert, or an Insane Clown Posse event, or a baseball game, and it’s not really a very hard point to grasp.
And of course, an actual mob obeying no rules at all is different still than the relatively organized crowds at a concert or ballgame.
Paula
@Shoemaker-Levy 9:
If you punch, punch UPWARDS. Art will stand the test of time (I guess that includes hindsight) if, like good journalism, if it afflicts the comfortable and comforts the afflicted. (Maybe it’s also why you cannot makes jokes about any given group UNLESS you are part of said group — you can punch laterally.) I agree with Medicine Man that if you’re gonna make a tasteless joke, you’d better know what you’re doing and make clear who the targets are.
Dave Chappelle and Carlos Mencia told jokes about race, many that were deemed tasteless and offensive. The problem w/ Mencia is that his jokes took the “edge” of racial humor w/o trying to understand or questioning the systemic racism that makes those jokes possible. Dave Chappelle had some fundamental observations about how Blacks were treated in America w/ the “Niggar Family” sketch. When Carlos Mencia joked about how Blacks and Latinos were targeted in the past, and now it was Arabs’ turn (that was the entire joke), exactly what was he trying to accomplish there? That everyone gets a turn on racism wheel, it’s all good? That Blacks and Latinos are no longer victimized by racism? That Arabs should just sit there and accept it?
Tim
@eemom:
fuck yourself, rat fucker
Tim
@Nerull:
pot, kettle
Paula
@Jeanne ringland:
No, I got that, and I agree that this is what certain people are being distracted by.
Tim
@Church Lady:
MY name is TIM, thank you very much. It’s my big dick they call TIME.
Dan.
I think it is important to call out what it means to say, in general, that she should have known better. Largely, that not just she but all women cannot engage in hazardous careers, as their vaginas will get in the way. That this is natural risk of being female- that they are a high commodity and that the risk of being abused, in any sense, is also natural because that is how it is if you are born female.
This misogyny – as it is misogyny – suggests that (a) women are weak and fragile and should be and need to be kept away (b) it is okay for men rape because that is just how it is, no need not to blame the victim because it’s okay for men to do this and (c) she should have known.
So congrats! Awards should be given away for this!
Nerull
@Tim: Yes. You’re dreaming about being raped with a pitchfork, and it’s other people who are obsessed.
icuryy
@Tim: Amen
Barb (formerly Gex)
So basically this thread is as nasty and contentious as many of the gay ones. Quelle surprise. There’s nothing white men hate more than being told they can’t joke about the violence they inflict on out groups. Why can’t I say the N-word? Why can’t I joke about rape? Why can’t I use faggot as an insult? Why does everyone want to tell us what to do?
Seriously. Being told to be thoughtful about what you say is just as bad as being enslaved, or raped, or beaten to death. Poor things. Being told by people that what you say is not appropriate IS NOT THE SAME AS BEING SUBJECT TO THOUGHT POLICE. The rape jokers get to say what they want. John gets to say what he wants. Some people seem to have a Sarah Palin level understanding about what having their speech suppressed actually means. Bug to say offensive things, then start yelling at people who comment back that they are trying to control the conversation is just bullshit. Again, they can joke, AND people can object. Quit whining if people don’t like what you are saying. BTW – if you make a joke about controversial subjects, like rape, EXPECT PUSHBACK. If you don’t expect it, don’t fucking make the jokes.
Omnes Omnibus
@eemom: Aside from Tim, who is a known commodity, the assholes all seem new here. One wonders what it is about rape that brings them out.
Wil
@Church Lady:
Is anybody actually saying “They Deserved It”? No, I don’t think that’s what anybody is actually saying, but I know you like to pretend that they are saying that.
Saying, “Lara Logan (Lois Lane?) was stupid to underestimate the risk in that situation” and/or not being exactly SURPRISED that something like that happened in that situation is not saying “she deserved it.”
But I guess you need to pretend that rather than acknowledge that reality bites and sometimes a pretty blonde reporter might still get her story if she chooses the better side of valor if the situation seems quite volatile and the story value (“Here in Cairo, people are celebrating”) can be just as easily told from a balcony overlooking the crowd as from within the crowd itself.
Church Lady
@Tim: No, instead, you are saying that it was her fault because she was somewhere she should not have been and she should have known better. Do you really not understand why the everyone here (except for Kathryn and Tim) thinks you are wrong? Take a hint and back off.
Omnes Omnibus
@Barb (formerly Gex): I am not going to disagree with the general tenor of your comment, but I will note that number of the people who have been involved in condemning what happened to Logan and condemning the rape apologists here and in other threads on the topic are, I believe, white males.
Paula
@Fuzz:
I found that worse, too, actually. For someone “left”, that’s a pretty fascist sentiment.
Church Lady
@Tim: Yes, we all know that it was “butt patting” that landed Ms. Logan in a hospital to recover from her injuries. Damn, quit digging.
Tim
@Dan.:
My god, are you retarded?
Tim
@Omnes Omnibus:
Ah…more cogent argumentation from the self righteous.
Allan
Tim, the words “Assholes, General Stupidity” at the bottom of John’s post are what are known as “tags.” They are not stage directions. Just thought I’d clear that up for you.
Tim
@Church Lady:
Ah…more deliberate false inference or complete stupidity.
For about the fiftieth time, both of these things appear to be true: 1. LL made a choice to place herself in a very dicey situation. 2. Cretins assaulted her and should be brought to justice.
Where did I say the incident was her “fault?” I have NEVER once said that. You and other willfully obtuse commenters here are the ones obsessed with words like “blame” and “fault” and “shame” and such. What are YOUR issues around this topic?
Again, please read the words I write. Please do not confuse them with the ones you hear in your head.
gwangung
@Tim: Well, that seems better than being without any righteousness at all, like you’re trying to do.
But go ahead. Sustained periods of assholeness facinates me.
Shoemaker-Levy 9
@Paula:
I think there must be something more to it than that, because by this standard alone Rosen’s comments about Logan would be justified.
That anti-Arab racism is equivalent to that suffered by those other groups? Just guessing, you’d have to ask him. I’ve seen some of both Chappelle’s and Mencia’s shows and I don’t detect the difference that you do, but I could be wrong.
Tim
@Church Lady:
Again, and again, and again…where did I say that butt patting is what “landed” her in a hospital? Please show me that. I roughly described the parameters of the term sexual assault. You are the one making all the assumptions here because, well, darn, it is just so much more FUN for you if you get to imagine her having been brutally and forcefully made to submit to intercourse with numerous men.
I’m not saying that ISN’T what happened, just that none of us knows? Do you know? How do you know? Could you please tell us all exactly what happened? No? Because you DON’T know and are shooting out of your ass here? Ah, I see…
gwangung
One can reasonably infer that from your statement, “LL was a dumbass to be where she was.”
We are reading the words you write. Perhaps you should take better care with composing them.
fraught
We are the hollow men
We are the stuffed men
Leaning together
Headpiece filled with straw. Alas!
Our dried voices, when
We whisper together
Are quiet and meaningless
As wind in dry grass
Or rats’ feet over broken glass
In our dry cellar
Wil
@Church Lady:
I am thinking this was addressed to me since you mentioned Tim in the post.
You are getting two things mixed up.
“She did something stupid and something bad happened” is not the same thing as “she deserved what happened.”
Simple, really.
sukabi
@Wil: “She did something stupid and something bad happened” is not the same thing as “she deserved what happened.”
while not technically the same thing, you are placing a good bit of blame on the victim… ie, if she hadn’t done that (her job, in this case), she wouldn’t have been raped.
there is no way to prove that… thugs could have hunted her down in her hotel room…
it also places the majority of responsibility of an attack on the victim, because there will ALWAYS be some asshole that will argue that “if she hadn’t been there, worn that, said that… she wouldn’t have been attacked”…
how about putting the blame where it belongs, solely on the perpetrators of the attack… they are thugs, doing thuggish shit. period, end of story.
eemom
@Tim:
keep right on playing with your tiny little dick, jerk off. Who knows, if you keep pulling on it at that rate you might someday be able to find it without that cumbersome magnifying glass.
Tim
@eemom:
hmmm…excellent rhetorical skills on display. Awesome, really. You claim to be a lawyer. Is this an example of your argumentation?
Is it ok to ask how big your alleged clit is? Is that out of bounds for any reason? How about your taint? Asshole? Vag itself? Shaved? Let me know.
eemom
@Tim:
methinks the little dick-puller doth protest too much.
Odie Hugh Manatee
@Wil:
I am sure this is what you meant, right?
You ‘she deserved it’ women haters are some really sick, disturbed fucks who are a waste of oxygen.
Wil
@Tim:
Reminds one of when Rosanne was making cracks about Tom Arnold’s tiny dick when they were getting divorced. Then he said that even a 747 looks small in an aircraft hanger.
Villago Delenda Est
@Allan:
I believe the thread has been won.
Wil
@Odie Hugh Manatee:
I think if an actual soldier did something stupid that put him/her and his/her men at unnecessary risk, and did not take the proper precautions, his/her disciplinary hearing would not be talking about how he/she “deserved” whatever happened as a result, but about whether or not he/she had used good judgment, assessed the risk properly, took adequate safety precautions, and so forth.
The concept of whether or not the soldier “deserved it” would not even be on the table.
It seems to be only you folks who insist on making everybody take one particular view without nuance–your dogmatic view, that are trying very hard to insist that any deviation from your view is automatically a “she deserved it” point of view, when of course that’s not the case at all.
Really, you “progressives” here are giving the right-wingers a run for their money when it comes to dogmatic insistence on a particular viewpoint.
TooManyJens
Why does it piss some people off so much when a conversation about rape doesn’t involve questioning whether the victim brought it on herself? Why does that make you so mad that you have to put a stop to it?
Church Lady
@Villago Delenda Est: I’ll give you a Heh Indeedy for that one. :)
Tim
@eemom:
“methinks?” rilly?
You are some weak bullshit, ratfucker
sukabi
now THAT’s ↑ some pretty convincing dialog… ¬ µ
OneTwo
1) John, I know you’re trying to make the point that rape should never be joked about, but making that point humorously (both in the snarky tone of your post and the clip you highlighted, which I’ve always found offensive, genius movie or no) defeats your purpose.
2) I am scared to actually agree with anything Tim says because of his odious, hostile trolling and contemptible cynicism, and the understandable rage it has provoked, and because of the visceral revulsion I felt for this reporter when I first heard this story.
But if we agree that rape is an act of violent, dehumanizing assault, then we need to consider it in the context of other violent, dehumanizing assault. I don’t feel it’s unreasonable to say that if your work requires you, woman or man, to be in dangerous places where violent assault is a possibility, then there’s a certain threshold of risk in your life that you are willing to assume, and all the more so if your work lets you opt out of being in a specific risky situation and still keeping your job.
That doesn’t make it less of a horror if the worst outcomes of that risk come to pass. It also doesn’t make you at fault for assuming that risk. But the decision is still yours that you made. That doesn’t mean you deserved it. It means you calculated wrong, however regrettably. I don’t think there’s a double-standard here — I’d say the same thing of a man in a similar situation, and I think it’s profoundly unfair that women are that much more likely to be subject to this particularly traumatizing, invasive form of assault. But, as Emily Hauser eloquently explained, that’s the awful truth for women.
I think that Lara Logan has every bit as much right to be on the street reporting as a male counterpart, however she wants to. Unfortuantely she has to consider that much more risk because she is a woman. She does risky work, and she’s brave for doing it, and that much more brave for doing it as a woman. Whether or not she’s self-promoting, or a good reporter, or a nice person, or anything about her motives or character at all is totally immaterial (and the part of Tim’s post that I find particularly disgusting; there is an implication that she deserves it for her allegedly craven act of self-promotion above all else). She does what reporters do. She took a risk to do her work. It ended tragically, and she should have all of our sympathies.
But we shouldn’t act as if she had no agency in making the decision to be there. I feel the same way about the other reporters who were violently assaulted. I think rape is unique in its gender dynamic and extent of emotional violation, but just because women should have the same rights as men doesn’t change the reality that they endure greater risks than men, and each woman has to, sadly, factor that into her daily actions.
I don’t know how else to say it. I’m a male who considers myself a feminist and wince when I hear of any woman (or man or boy or girl) being raped. But I am uncomfortable with the idea of saying that Lara Logan bears no responsibility for the decision — the risk assessment — that she made. If I knowingly visit a part of a city known for high incidences of violent crime, I have every right to be there. And if I suffer an assault, I in no way deserve for that to happen, as a citizen and as a human. But I also have to own that I knowingly incurred that danger into my life and had to be prepared for the possible negative consequences of doing so. I know this is a subtle distinction but I don’t think saying “I did something risky” implies “I deserve to be a victim because I did something risky.”
You don’t wear a helmet on a motorcycle — it’s a really stupid risk to take, but it makes it more fun, so you accept it. You wipe out, and sustain serious injury. You don’t deserve that to happen. But you need to accept that you incurred that risk. There’s a difference.
Please don’t flame me. I’m trying to take this topic as seriously and respectfully as I can while still taking what I know will be an unpopular position. I’m never of the opinion that a woman deserves to be raped, under any circumstances, in any context, and I think that women have every right to do what men do. If you somehow hear me suggesting that Lara Logan in any way deserved what happened to her, please let me know specifically where you hear that in my words, so that I can consider it openly; because if I am in fact saying that, without conscious intention, I’d like to identify that for myself, or clarify otherwise.
Paula
@Shoemaker-Levy 9:
Well, Rosen’s joke, as it were, was not about Lara Logan in the process of being victimized by someone for doing a bad job being a big-time reporter. The butt of his joke was Lara Logan being victimized in a specific way that other women are victimized by men, and which can be argued had nothing to do with her being a big-time reporter and had everything to do with her being a woman. So the dynamic here is male/female, not big media reporter/freelance activist.
As for Mencia’s joke, yeah, I agree that that’s what he’s saying, but do you think that the joke illustrates something unique and/or was presented uniquely by Mencia? Who do you think he’s making fun of, and why? Also, realize that I’m not saying that only Dave Chappelle-type humor is acceptable or that Mencia (or anyone else) can’t write his own racial-issue jokes his own way. I’m just saying that your political humor/art is going to hold up (or not) based on how sharp you are about social dynamics. And Mencia was … not particularly sharp.
chmatl
@Wil: I haven’t read through all the comments and this thread is probably dead now, but I have to comment. I read you on ABL’s post about this, and I have to say, you really seem invested in the idea that LL was STOOPID to have waded into this crowd. When you say that over and over again, I think it’s not unreasonable to conclude that you think she somehow deserved what happened to her because of her rank stupidity.
So, how ’bout we just concede that LL was stupid to be there in that place at that time? Not that I agree with that, but just for the sake of argument. You then think that GANG RAPE (oh, excuse me, “sustained sexual assault”) is an appropriate punishment for her stupidity?
Tim
@chmatl:
My two cents: NO, and no one in this thread has argued that to be the case. Again, I think you EVERYTHING IS RAPE SHUT UP fetishists are projecting big time. Your own sick thinking shows itself in what you fantasize others to have said.
Odie Hugh Manatee
@Wil:
There’s risk in most every job that anybody does but women have the additional burden of ‘occupational rape’ to deal with. If this was a fireman who lost his life entering a burning building to save someone and perishes in the attempt, I am sure that you would be talking about what a hero he was. If this was a police officer who lost their life in the line of duty then we would hear the same.
Hero. Even if they made a mistake that cost them their lives, hero.
But a woman gets raped in the course of doing her job and it’s her fault for putting herself in that situation? That’s the position you’ve staked out on this?
Let me guess; you aren’t too popular with the ladies, are you?
Shoemaker-Levy 9
@Paula:
Right, so I guess we agree that it’s not as simple as “punch[ing] upwards.”
I’m probably not qualified to judge ethnic humor of this type.
As always, the dominant culture for propagating the prejudice in the first place. But that’s an assumption, you’d have to ask him if he intended something else.
Tim
Ahhh…I want to thank everyone who participated in this…thread. That was fun.
I’m going to have a cigarette now…
sukabi
annnnnnd that’s ↑ the sound of one hand fap, fap, fapping… don’t let the door hit you.
gwangung
Dude, if you think EVERYONE ELSE IN THE WORLD are the ones with with problems and you’re the only sane one….maybe you’re the one that got things backwards.
phoebesmother
John, I request that you remove Tim’s comment 266 as you removed a comment in another thread that called another commenter “c u n t”. Or leave it to emphasize this guy’s repellent dirty soul. These two rape threads have been hard on a woman’s spirit.
Jeanne ringland
http://feministing.com/2011/02/16/a-handy-questionnaire-for-street-harassers/
gil mann
No, do.
suzanne
I’m late to the thread, but thanks to all those who are doing their best to stem the flood of stupid woman-hating coming from Wil, Tim and Kathryn.
And, once again, I’d just like to remind whoever’s still reading that Wil is the winner who wrote this: “Ah, but as I said, I don’t “truly care about women.” After my experiences dating some of you, I care about the one I finally found, and a few close and select female friends. The rest of you can be sold off as chattel and sex slaves and spend the rest of your lives being beaten and raped for all I care.”
I bet he likes pie.
Mnemosyne
@OneTwo:
Logan went into the crowd with bodyguards and her camera crew. She was separated from them and attacked. She did not go out there alone, naively believing that nothing would happen. She took precautions and, as sometimes happens in this world, those precautions failed.
So what level of protection should she have had to make you not blame her for the situation she ended up in? Should she have doubled the number of bodyguards? Had a larger camera crew? How many people should she have had with her that she got separated from before you would think that it wasn’t her fault?
Tim
@phoebesmother:
Are you really this dumb? #266 would be the comment where eemom the ratfucker waxed poetic while speculating on the size of my special member, something I’m sure you’d agree is sexually degrading and assaultive, regardless of the sex of the person who is being attacked. Comment #267, in which I reply to eemom’s gentle queries with queries of my own, surely must be assessed in context, yes?
I defy you to point out where I called anyone a C-word or anything else equivalent.
What woman? Which one? Who? Are you presuming to speak for all women? Are your fee fee’s hurt by rough and tumble debate? Too bad.
eemom
to be sure, “Call your opponent a ratfucker” is Lesson 1 in any course of instruction on “excellent rhetorical skills.”
Keep digging, sickfuck. Eventually you’ll emerge in China which is a really dangerous place for loose bile-spewing cannons who are stupid enough to end up there.
Wil
@Odie Hugh Manatee
No, that’s the little straw man you’ve built, not what I said.
If the firefighter ran into a building when he could have evacuated anybody inside out a back window that wasn’t burning, is he still a hero, or a dumbshit?
If a cop dies in a firefight because he didn’t call for backup when he should have, we still call him a hero in our society, but in fact he did something stupid and died for it.
Unless Lois Lane here was required to go into the crowd and did not have the choice of reporting on the celebration from somewhere a little safer, like a few blocks away or from a rooftop, you are making a false analogy that she was “doing her job” and had no choice in the matter. Since she was a ‘star reporter’ and apparently had some status, I’m guessing she had near carte blanche on how she reported on events, and from where.
Omnes Omnibus
@Mnemosyne:Had she stayed home in the kitchen like she should have, nothing bad would have happened… unless she did something at home that she shouldn’t have.
/idiot
Tim
@OneTwo:
Dear sweet OneTwo…haven’t your learned? Don’t you know? It makes NO difference what words you write, how you express yourself, or what your meaning is. ALL that matters is how others pretend to have heard you!
P.S. I will ignore for now your OWN deliberate twisting of my words. And pay you back for that by supporting you with this post, said support which will no doubt bring down the wrath of the EVERYTHING IS RAPE SHUT UP freaks on this post.
Wil
@eemom:
Well, so much for the idea that place and context don’t matter, eh?
eemom
Ah, but you were stupid enough to show up in a thread where degrading and assaultive commenters such as myself were known to reside. I believe the phrase is “made a choice to place yourself in a very dicey situation.” So don’t come whining to us cuz your pee-pee’s fee-fees got hurt.
Tim
See what happens, OneTwo. Despite your best efforts in your very well written and clear post, to specify you are NOT blaming LL and that this is NOT her fault, you have now been accused of saying just those two things.
How say you in return, man. You are clearly a RAPE APOLOGIST!
Tim
@eemom:
you drunk?
eemom
@Wil:
you’re kind of dense, aren’t you?
Tim
@Omnes Omnibus:
My god, the projection here is astounding. The things that go on in your head are stupifying…
Mnemosyne
By the way, ladies, if you ever naively believed that gay men are our natural allies, all you have to do is read Tim’s comments to be disabused of that notion. Hatred of women is not reserved to straight men.
Tim
@Wil:
omg, touche!
Odie Hugh Manatee
@Wil:
If the firefighter survived but was horribly scarred for life (not unlike rape victims), they would be a hero.
Aww fuck it, it isn’t worth the time trying to reason with asshats who are stupid fuckwits. You can’t, it’s impossible because their heads are firmly up their asses and they are deeply into oxygen deprivation. Sometimes you have to call a fuckwit a fuckwit.
You are a fuckwit, just like Timmeh. That’s the most you will get from me from now on.
@Tim:
Shorter Timmeh!: “High five dude! Righteous!”
You fucks are funny, I’ll give you that. Funny like syphilis.
Omnes Omnibus
@Tim: Quoi?
chmatl
@Tim: No, none of you has come out plainly and said she deserved what happened to her but you walk right up to the line by saying over and over how stupid she was. If you’re not trying to suggest that her stupidity in some part caused this, why mention it again and again? And if that’s not blame-shifting, what is it?
I also don’t think it makes much difference whether there was rape per se or “merely” sustained sexual assault. She was sexually abused by a gang. In no way did she deserve this, and in no way was it her fault.
cs
Just curious: did any of you, at the time it happened, pour blame on Anderson Cooper or call him a “dumbass” at the time he was beaten?
There’s never this level of the ‘victim fucked up’ when a male journalist (or even a female one) is killed or beaten in the line of duty. Is rape so terrible that you cannot imagine that it could happen in any way where it was not the victim’s fault?
And if this is all just pointless trolling, can we get these fine people banned and bring back BoB? At least he was rather funny at times. This intense level of misogyny is just absolutely idiotic and a bit exhausting.
Tim
@Mnemosyne:
do you speak for AlL women everywhere? Do you assume all are as dogmatic and limited in their thinking as are you? Do you think most women deny their own agency as do you?
I love and respect many women. You, if indeed you are a woman, would not be one of them.
Your HATE implication is beneath contempt.
Tim
?
Yes, absolutely, both in at least one thread here on BJ and in several conversations in the real, physical world.
Just like LL, AC is all about his ego and the Anderson brand. As if walking around in a dangerous and unstable situation in Egypt during a revolution with your Anderson Cooper white hair ablaze, just might not get you in hot water with Arabs who despise many aspects of American culture, the press among them. Anderson, like LL, made a choice. He paid for it. And he will be rewarded for it also, with the press tour which has already begun, and with the book and movie sure to follow.
TooManyJens
@suzanne: Jesus Christ, that link. Where’s the brain bleach?
Tim
@Omnes Omnibus:
you calling me a queer?!
Mnemosyne
@Tim:
It’s okay, Tim. You don’t have to pretend to have female friends. You’ve already made it very clear how you feel about women. Own your misogyny. It’s not like you’ll ever have to fuck one of us anyway, so what are you clinging to?
Nerull
@suzanne: Somehow I’m not surprised. It always comes back to hating women.
Just Some Fuckhead
@eemom:
Actually, he’d have to live in South America to dig to China. Since he lives in Boston he’d wind up in the ocean about 500 miles southwest of Australia.
Find out where you’d be if you dug a hole straight through the earth and survived the molten core.
Tim
@Nerull:
somehow it always comes back to your fantasy that men who disagree with you hate women in general…that and your fantasy of fucking me with a pitchfork.
Tim
@Mnemosyne:
blah, blah, blah…is this where I am supposed to respond in kind by accusing you, because you disagree with me, a penis-bearing American, of hating ALL men everywhere?
you speak for no one other than yourself. and that not very well, which is why you resort to all these broad brush sexual categories and claim to speak for all of vagina-kind.
your weak bullshit may give feminism a bad name
cs
So anyone who takes a risk, goes into a dangerous situation where things end badly, is really the one to blame? Must be a very comforting view of the world. And a rather terribly empty one as well.
Omnes Omnibus
@Just Some Fuckhead: Cool site.
WyldPirate
This thread is particularly amusing.
You have the usual suspects that just make shit up and claim that others said something when they didn’t say it at all. Then there’s the hyper-aggressive female or two that wishes she had been born with a set of testicles playing her typical role as the blog badass and the three or four usual suspects from the politically correct BJ speech enforcer crew in full poutrage. All of them duking it out with a trio of people who doggedly disagree with the aforementioned BJ thought police, shit-pot stirrers and sociopathic liars.
I can’t believe this sort of entertainment is free on the Internets.
Svensker
@WyldPirate:
Really? Projection, kiddo.
WyldPirate
@Just Some Fuckhead:
Ah, bullshit, Fuckhead. Who’s to say he hasn’t taken drilling lessons from Halliburton and learned to drill at the appropriate angle to end up in China?
TooManyJens
I am idly wondering how large the intersection is between “people who always have to find a way to make victims of rape responsible for what happened to them” and “people who always have to find a way to make victims of police brutality responsible for what happened to them.”
WyldPirate
@Svensker:
No, not really. My testicles are just fine, thanks. How’s that shoe fit, sister Svensker? They look mighty comfy on you.
Nerull
@Tim: Got no reply, do you? Getting desperate?
Mnemosyne
@Svensker:
I’ve never really understood the whole “women secretly want to be men!” thing. Except for the sucky societal bullshit I have to put up with, I’m pretty satisfied with being a woman.
Ash Can
Threads on racism draw the racists out of the woodwork, threads on rape draw the misogynists out of the woodwork. Lather, rinse, repeat.
@TooManyJens: I’m sure that, for a conspicuous few on this thread, the situation of (male) victims of police brutality is completely different than that of (female) victims of rape.
TooManyJens
@Mnemosyne: Well, if only men deserve to be treated as full human beings, and some of those uppity b|tches insist on being treated as full human beings, then it follows that they must want to be men. QED.
Tim
@Nerull:
Hardly. I’ve been put into MODERATION, as the BJ THOUGHT AND SPEECH POLICE have their say, so thought I’d wait to see how that turns out before expending more energy on your limp and listless babblings.
Perhaps Tunch and Rosie are holding Cole’s testicles hostage somewhere…?
suzanne
@Mnemosyne: Word to that. The external genitalia thing alone kills it for me. Every single dude I know over the age of 18 has at least one story in which he got hit in the junk so hard he puked. That sounds deeply unpleasant.
TooManyJens
FTFY.
(UN-altered REPRODUCTION and DISSEMINATION of this IMPORTANT Information is ENCOURAGED.)
Tim
Actually, Cole sent me into this thread with instructions to distract the usual suspects from the fact that he inserted a rape joke into his own post/thread on the awfulness of people who make or post rape jokes.
Have I made any rape jokes in this thread? No. Does that matter? No, I am the one who takes the fall, all so that Cole can get away with this massive, obvious in your face mindfuck of a post. :D
It may be that all the ladies in this thread who hate me (and by extension, of course therefore, ALL MEN), are like me, in love with Cole and don’t wish to call him out on his rapey joke posting, because then their cyber fantasies of being Cole-lated will be threatened.
Me, much as I do wish to be Cole-lated, am not afraid to call out the Collater himself.
Ash Can
@suzanne: This is why the whole idea of Truck Nutz slays me. What kind of male hangs an effigy of an ultra-sensitive, ultra-delicate anatomy part on the back of his vehicle? Does he get the least bit oogie if he backs into something or someone bumps him from behind? To me, it just screams “my truck is delicate!”
Tim
Ah…I’m back. Love you gals.
FlipYrWhig
@OneTwo:
When you heard about black men getting shot and killed by white vigilantes in Louisiana after Hurricane Katrina, were you anxious to gauge the extent to which they had some responsibility too? I mean, by choosing not to evacuate in the first place, they made a rather poor “risk assessment,” so they clearly bore _some_ responsibility for ending up in a situation where redneck racists felt like shooting them.
Allan
@WyldPirate: And then you have the misogynistic prick who was put on time-out by our esteemed host for dropping the “C” bomb. Yes, it’s quite a clusterfuck in here.
Tim
@Allan:
the C bomb was never used once in this thread, by anyone. But don’t let that get in the way of your fantasies.
Raoul
So “how apart from the shooting, how was the play Mrs. Lincoln” is only acceptable after she died? I learned in film school that the difference between tragedy and comedy is time-so someone try to bridge the gap and it failed, so what- frankly, I do not care much for all this political correctness, let it be crosshairs or whatever- people try to be funny and fail a majority of the time- even with “color” commentary. Let it rest. BTW, I do wonder whether the press should have even said that Logan was raped.
Allan
@Tim: You’re not the only misogynistic prick participating in this clusterfuck. You’re not even the misogynistic prick at whom my comment was directed. And this is not the first time BJ threads have been derailed by misogynistic pricks, as the person at whom my comment was directed can attest.
Here’s your song.
SHOOZ
Guster called it at #28.
Louis CK made the only funny joke about rape ever. Mel Brooks’ weren’t funny. Louis CK’s was, and it was funny because it subverts rape culture. Brooks’ didn’t.
Church Lady
@suzanne: I feel like I need to bathe after reading that. If he is really married (doubtful), I feel very, very sorry for his wife.
cs
@FlipYrWhig:
Clearly the black men shot in Louisiana bear some agency for what happened to them. This doesn’t mean I condone what happened to them. But they should have known better. They were black men in Louisiana and they knew how dangerous white men with guns could be. Rather than going out and looking for food, they should have stayed in their flooded homes until either rescued or some other safe passage was provided to them.
For them to think they could escape consequences just shows how narcissistic and short-sighted they were in such an environment. This doesn’t mean they deserved to be shot. No one is saying that, so don’t call me a racist. I’m just saying that while the full blame lies on the heads of the violent white guys, the black guys should have thought things through and not been as stupid to think they could move around a disaster zone in a racially polarized area without something bad happening.
Jeanne ringland
@cs: You missed the part about them being attention whores.
Paula
@Shoemaker-Levy 9:
Well, to be honest, I don’t think that highlighting the difference between making fun of Lara Logan the reporter vs. Lara Logan the woman who was sexually assaulted in Cairo is ALL that “complicated” to figure out, esp. given that not knowing the difference was apparently enough to mandate resignation (which was overkill, I think) and a public apology. So the difference is between a freelance activist making fun of a reporter because she got herself in a situation that somehow highlights his personal disagreements with the way she does her job (which is presumably why Rosen would even make the joke), and a person making fun of a woman for being a situation that, as a woman, she may not have been able to help.
You know how conservatives like to make jokes about the poor and the brown? How funny is that?
In general, though, humor based on gender, ethnic, and racial difference are complicated. But Carlos Mencia’s humor from your interpretation appears to be promoting the most dead-obvious ideas about race and is making me wonder why that mofo ever got his own show to begin with, given that he is deeply uncreative and inspires nothing but deeply uncreative interpretations. To that end, why risk the controversy of ethnicity- and race-based humor if you’re not going to actually, um, do something interesting and thought-provoking with it?
Church Lady
I went back and read the Valentine’s Day thread that had the comment from Wil that Suzanne linked to. Ugh. Two points:
How did Will become Wil later in those comments (as he is here on this one)?
I am struck by his anger towards and seeming hatred of women. I don’t doubt he blames Ms. Logan for her assault, as he sounds like the kind of man that would assault/rape a woman, and feel justified in doing so, as a “the bitch deserved it” type. He seems to be one really sick puppy.
Allan
@Church Lady:
A Freudian would have a field-day with such a symbolic act of self-mutilation, targeting the most phallic letter of the alphabet, especially one that is dangling superfluously (impotently?) at the end of his name.
Then again, it could be an allusion to his fictional role model…
Wil
@Church Lady:
Are we back to the “he says negative things about women—he’s probably a RAPIST!” thing again? Jeebus, what a stupid leap of a stupid mind. Go back to church, Church Lady, and pray for a better brain. Hey wait….you go to church? Well, I guess you must be a CHILD MOLESTER, right? I mean, as long as we are playing the ‘lets make up wild speculation’ game. So, when did you stop molesting children? Because that is what all church folk do, right? Molest children? Seems like it’s in the papers all the time.
Blame Lois Lane because she was attacked? Nooooo…..
Make the quite sensible suggestion that maybe she showed poor judgment by being in the middle of a mob instead of someplace safer? Yesssssss.
Problem with you folks in the thought-police squad here is that you refuse to see things in anything other than your black-and-white view, and you not only won’t listen to anybody else who has a different view, you twist and distort their views.
It’s sad to see such inflexible dogma coming from so-called progressives and liberals.
Wil
@Allan:
Sounds like you are projecting, boyo. After all, you are modeling yourself after this guy.
Wil
@WyldPirate:
I know, pretty funny, eh?
Wil
@Church Lady:
Glad I could help, but Lawd knows, you probably needed to bathe before reading it as well.
Allan
@Wil: A swing and a miss. Strike one.
A chainsaw is such a crude implement, and a poor analogue for the surgical precision with which I wield words.
A more thoughtful comparison would be to a character whose foppish exterior provides cover for the devastating thrust of his razor-sharp blade.
Wil
@Allan: Zorro? Weak.
Besides, I thought we were comparing each other to psycho killers.
You could be Hannibal Lecter. You get to be a genius AND you get to feed Ray Liotta his own brain. Who could ask for more?
Allan
@Wil:
We were, but only mine was funny, because it’s true.
cs
@Wil:
You’re right. Why does this fucking blog have to be so black and white? For us to be nuanced, we need to condemn an entire group of people, numbering in the billions. They’re all bitches. Fucking whiny too. Bros before ho’s, bro!
Don’t know why they’re getting so mad and stuff. A man’s just got to speak the truth, even if some chick gets her fee-fee’s hurt. I know it’s not politically correct, but they gotta realize how stupid they all are. Once we can start a discussion on that level, we’re rocking the nuance baby.
Wil
@cs:
The ‘blog’ is not black-and-white, usually. However those insisting that their interpretation of this Lois Lane attacked by mob incident is the only one allowed are certainly taking a very black-and-white position.
Wil
@Allan:
Well, anythings true if you just repeat it to yourself enough, right?
Zorro’s lame, sorry. You should be this guy instead. Way more depth of character and you still get to wear a mask and be an expert with the blade.
Ija
I just want to say that Wil, Tim and Kathyrn can all go to hell together. Douches all of them.
Ija
And WyldPirate too. Go join them.
phoebesmother
OK, I’ll go all in. Remove both 266 and 267. This anatomical shaming feels so biker bar/Jersey Shore to some of us older women. And thank you Allen for remembering that it was Wyld Pirate that got detention for anatomical name-calling. Can’t figure out if Mr. CS is fer real about that N.Orleans hypothetical, snark or not snark (close to the edge).
As I have said plainly that I don’t run in macho circles, I do have a point of education. What’s a “taint” (in the offensive paragraph of 267); is that a Southronism? Short objective definition and derivation please.
chopper
@WyldPirate:
then, like clockwork, wyldie comes in to remind the world that everyone is stupid except for him.
Tim
shortstop
@Mnemosyne: There is the bladder thing. I have always wished for one of their capacious bladders.
Between his comments on this thread and Wyld’s habit of calling women he’s arguing with “bitch” and “c.unt,” we can make some inferences about who’s got serious problems with the other sex.
RedKitten
For starters, her name is Lara Logan. Your cutesy insistence upon calling her Lois Lane comes across as very disrespectful.
Secondly, in case you haven’t noticed, she’s a JOURNALIST. So let’s say that she had been “smart” and had reported the story from several blocks away, or from a rooftop, unable to actually get any interviews with any of the people celebrating, and just getting wide crowd shots. Contrast that with other networks’ coverage, where the reporters are in the thick of the crowd (as they should be), talking to people, getting interviews about how these people feel, and just really giving viewers a fantastic sense of what is going on.
How long do you think she’d be a star reporter, if she constantly stayed 300 meters away from any possibly dangerous situation?
Maybe every reporter should just stay far away from ANY situation that might turn dangerous or ugly…just in case. It’d be stupid to do otherwise, right?
Plus, as many other people here have pointed out to you, repeatedly, Logan took some very sensible precautions by having a security detail with her. They likely didn’t sense any danger in the jubilant crowd until those scumbags were upon them and separated her from her security people. And then it was too late.
Situations like that can go from perfectly fine to perfectly ugly in an instant, and there is often no way of predicting it. So I guess, in your view, it’d be smarter for Logan and other female reporters to just never get within a few hundred meters of those situations in the first place. And you know, if they wind up never getting any decent assignments again, due to their insistence upon being “smart”, well, I guess that’s just the price they have to pay for having been born with a vagina.
Tim
@RedKitten:
Regardless of the sex of the reporter, it has always been the case that those man or woman on the street interviews, whether in Baghdad or Wichita, tell us NOTHING valuable about the big picture and what is really going on behind the scenes.
I guess if you are into cheap “drama,” and faux “interviews,” they might do something for you, but from a hard news perspective, they are a joke.
I long ago gave up on CNN and all the other so called mainstream news outlets for this and similar reasons. You should too.
1. Lara Logan and Anderson Cooper made career, fame, and money-oriented choices that played key roles in putting them in physically vulnerable positions.
2. Cretinous criminal thugs apparently assaulted them and should be brought to justice for it.
Numbers 1 and 2 are both true facts, and remember, facts have a known liberal bias. They do not cancel each other out.
Only in your mind do numbers 1 and 2 add up to a scenario in which it is these reporters’ “fault,” or in which they should be “blamed.” They are not responsible for the acts of violence, but they are responsible for the choice THEY made that left them vulnerable to it. I don’t think either one of them would argue with that.
eemom
@phoebesmother:
just for the record, fellow mother, I don’t usually go in for that sort of thing.
But when a misogynist, rape-apologist scumbag contaminates an entire thread with his fucked-up filth, accuses the rest of us of “pleasuring ourselves,” and repeatedly calls me a “ratfucker,” I kind of think his fixation with his own, obviously inadequate, er, “manhood,” is fair game.
Tim
Good morning, eemom!
Doubling down on the defense of your abusive, demeaning, and deeply, deeply hurtful, MISANDRIST (learned a new word because of you! thanks!) sexist imagery again today, I see? I mean, I could hardly sleep last night, as your hateful insults to my little, teeny weinie from last night kept running thru my mind. I thought surely you’d be here bright and early to apologize. Alas…no. Just more
Anyone who disagrees with and dares to vigorously oppose your dogmatic, black and white thinking, especially if they stubbornly refuse to capitulate and slither away from a thread you are trying to shut down, must be DESTROYED, we get it.
RAT FUCKER – Politics: Formerly known as “the double-cross,” it refers to infiltration and sabotage of the opposition party, particuarly during (but not limited to) an election campaign. The second half of “All the President’s Men” describes ratfucking done to 1972 Democratic presidential candidates by employees of the Committee to Re-Elect Nixon.
Ken Clawson, Nixon’s communications director, confessed to a ratfuck when he told how he forged a letter making it look like a Democratic candidate was a racist.
Yeah, when it comes to your vicious attacks on anyone who dares to criticize Obama at BJ, your comments definitely fit the rough definition of RATFUCKER I posted above. They are so over the top insulting and hateful from the get-go that I often speculate as to your true identity and origins. You’re probably a penised-American ratfucking for the right wing.
Hugs.
FlipYrWhig
@Tim: Ward Churchill had similar reasoning for why people who worked at the World Trade Center weren’t innocent. You’re being deliberately provocative about the nature of the word “responsibility.” On one level, all of us are “responsible” for every choice that we make. I decided to drive to work this morning. If someone fleeing a bank robbery in another car smashes into me, am I “responsible” for that? I did make the decision to get into a car, knowing that cars are dangerous and people have accidents. But no rational human being would say that I bore responsibility for that crash.
What you’re doing is, when challenged, saying that you only mean that everyone who chooses to do anything has “responsibility” for what happens next. But the word “responsibility” also connotes _guilt_ and _blame_, which is why you started using it in the first place. You just pretend that’s not what you _really_ mean because it’s obviously reprehensible.
eemom
dish it out but can’t take it, eh?
how very typical of the cyber-bully.
Tim
@FlipYrWhig:
It is so awesome that you can read my mind.
Tim
@eemom:
OMG, you really have no sense of the ironic or tongue in cheek, do you?
Here, I’ll help: I WAS MOCKING YOU.
And believe me, you are readily mockable.
eemom
hmm….the comment I was responding to has vanished.
Tim
@eemom:
you might want to go back thru this thread and see which commenters actually tried to BULLY, attack, and silence those who disagreed with them into shutting the fuck up. The “bullying” included threats of rape with sharp instruments and all manner of vile name calling, to which I responded in kind only after numerous infractions. Hint #1: it wasn’t me. Hint #2: you’re one of them.
It’s early in the day for your projection to override your thinking again.
FlipYrWhig
@Tim: It ain’t that hard.
eemom
@Tim:
as is your tiny little dick.
Tim
@eemom:
It is strange that you never mentioned this when you were choking on it night before last. Is all this hate just because I didn’t call you yesterday?
Ahhh…your feelings were hurt. How cute.
TooManyJens
@RedKitten:
Pretty sure Tim considers that a feature, not a bug.
Tim
@TooManyJens:
Hey, 2ManyJens, she was maligning a different poster, not me. I have never referred to Lara Logan as Lois Lane. Pay attention.
TooManyJens
@Tim: Sorry. I get the assholes mixed up.
Tim
@TooManyJens:
You weak-ass haters who can’t intellectually support your position so readily relapse to the name calling and insults. And it’s rarely even CREATIVE. Come on, you can do better.
TooManyJens
@Tim: You act like I should expend effort on a person whose first response in a thread about rape was, “hey, we don’t even know if she was REALLY raped, and anyway, the problem here is that we’re not talking enough about what she did wrong.” You’re manifestly not worth it. “Asshole” will do nicely.
Tim
@TooManyJens:
Do we even have an answer to that today? No, we don’t.Don’t you like to know the facts of the matter about which you are debating and/or discussing? Isn’t that kind of a given?
Why do you get to just ASSUME you know the details, when you don’t? Does it matter to you at all whether LL was groped or vaginally penetrated or all of the above? Don’t you care?
Why would anyone take a vague term such as sexual assault to be all they need to know before attacking others in the discussion as “rape apologists?” First wouldn’t you want to know if there was a “rape?” Is there no difference in your mind between nipple twisting and fucking?
Here is a link to an excellent Village Voice short piece on just this subject:
Tim
Here’s the link that did not make it into my last comment:
http://blogs.villagevoice.com/runninscared/2011/02/lara_logan_was.php
Mrs. Polly
@Tim:
Tim, from your evident pleasure in trolling a thread about rape by enumerating women’s genitals and asking your female antagonists if they’re “pleasuring themselves,” it’s obvious that you’re a nasty piece of work and not worth engaging. I’m already cursing myself for bothering with you, but you’ve painted yourself into such a stupid corner that I had to make note of it.
Man-on-the-street interviews add nothing! No, in-studio analysis of the Big Picture is never enhanced by eyewitness reporting.
Of course, without the camera there to back up the eyewitness reporting, how does Tim know it really happened? Taking Logan’s, and her crew’s, word for it? “Extended sexual assault”–if it turns out a woman was only multiply “sexually assaulted,” that’s not rape, and makes a world of difference, somehow.
Tim, this is the only comment I shall address to you; you’re not worth expending breath on.
Wil
@FlipYrWhig:
You folks are really big fans of creating analogies that don’t actually fit the situation.
If you saw cars fleeing a bank robbery, you could watch from a distance or get in the middle of it.
That’s an analogy that fits the situation more than your “la la la, I am just driving to work and a random event happened….how is that my fault?” Which is simply not an accurate representation.
Wil
@Tim: Pleeeease stop making references to anything sexual about eemom. She seems like a woman in her fifties or possibly sixties, and that’s just freakin’ gross.
Tim
@Mrs. Polly:
Oh wait a minute! There is film of the alleged assault?! Excellent. Now there will be no doubt as to what happened!
Wait, there’s not film and you don’t know what you’re babbling about? Oh…
…and sorry to point this out, but you ALREADY expended your royal breath on me. And the experience was Heavenly, I might add. :D
Hugs.
eemom
@Wil:
it’s even grosser than that. I’m 87.
But kicking little sexist fucktards out of my way keeps me young.
Will
@eemom:
Don’t break a hip.
OTOH, you’re probably not using them for much these days anyway.
cs
@phoebesmother:
You’re probably not reading this thread anymore. Any sane person should probably not be here, but here I am, so that says something, I think.
At any rate, it was pure satire. Blaming the victim while loudly protesting that I was not blaming the victim, with a touch of racism thrown in (as an analogue for the misogyny in this thread).
Tim
@eemom:
cool. I’m 93, so we’re all good.
OneTwo
@FlipYrWhig:
Apples and oranges. Being a paid on-location reporter (which I have no truck with, btw) is not the same as literally fighting for survival when your entire neighborhood has been destroyed. In the former situation, you have much greater agency than you do in the latter. But if you want to see if that way, then, sure. The risk assessment for a flooded Louisianan was there was more danger in staying home doing nothing than there was going out and facing savages. That anyone in our country should have to make that kind of choice is a tragedy and an affront to to us all.
@Mnemosyne:
I’m actually upset by this response. I tried everything in my power to explain that I don’t think it’s her fault, I don’t think she deserves blame, and I don’t think that she should receive any less sympathy or support for her suffering than any woman raped anywhere under any circumstances for any reason.
I also specifically requested, as openly as I could, that if you see me saying otherwise, that you explain to me how I am doing so, so that I can better consider whether I’m somehow conveying something I’m not intending to, or unconsciously harboring attitudes or prejudices that I don’t want. Accusations don’t help further understanding of the issue, or each other.
I’m not trying to antagonize. I’m not trying to trivialize the horror of rape. I’m trying to understand why it is that Lara Logan, or anyone else, is automatically absolved of any responsibility for any negative outcome from voluntarily being in a highly volatile situation, regardless of how large or capable a security crew she had with her. I am arguing for assuming responsibility for taking risks, as each and every one of us must to a greater or lesser extent every day. If I cross a street on a red light and get hit by a car because someone was texting, that driver is still responsible, and I still don’t deserve to be hit. But I have to own that had I waited for the light to change, it might not have happened.
If this is different than Ms. Logan’s situation, I’d like to understand how. Rape is inhuman and never excusable. That doesn’t mean it, or something else horrible, wasn’t a possibility under the circumstances. I admire that she had the courage to go out there anyway. I wouldn’t have. But it bothers me that the prevailing attitude is that she should be entirely, instantaneously absolved of any responsibility for the decision that she made. Taking responsibility for having taken a risk is not the same thing as being blamed! Her perpetrators are to blame. But she knew she was entering a dangerous situation, and so I think that should be evaluated differently than if she’s taking a stroll in a stateside suburban park, and I don’t understand why saying that means I’m really saying it’s her fault. It bothers me that that assumption gets made.
If a reporter gets killed in a war zone, it’s a tragedy, but a possibility due to the choice s/he made, and no one suggests otherwise. Why the double standard here?
Tim
@OneTwo:
OneTwo, thank you for such a succinct summary of your thinking on the LL matter. I believe you are absolutely correct. We live in a world made of infinite shades of gray.
You engage the dogmatic freaks here much more personably than I ever would, but I learned from experience that dispassionate engagement gains one nothing from them; they want nothing less than full capitulation. Anything short of that will get you wished a violent death by pitchfork butt rape.
Please do not kid yourself that the black and white “thinkers” who tried so very, very, very hard to shut down opposing views on this thread will make any attempt to accept your view as reasonable and logical.
They are not interested in learning and growing, at least in this area of discussion.
cs
@OneTwo:
Many here get upset at your line of reasoning because of thousands of years of people telling women that their rapes were their own damn fault. “you shouldn’t have been in this crowd”, “you shouldn’t have worn a short skirt”, “you shouldn’t have been around men who were not your relatives”, “you shouldn’t have made eye contact with him”, “you shouldn’t have gone out drinking”, “you shouldn’t be out walking alone at night”, “you should have kept your head covered”
All this second guessing in this way is essentially putting the blame on the victim, no matter how many qualifiers you want to give. She took precautions in a crowd which was not considered hostile. If you read any of the blogs or twitter feeds of women from Tahrir Square after the net was turned back on, you would have seen them talking about how wonderful it was. They could move around by themselves with no harassment, no fear. There was a lot of shock from these women about the rape because their experiences had been so very different.
I’m sure Ms. Logan read these same reports and perhaps had been in the crowd herself previously with no issues. She took the precautions that she and her producers thought were reasonable. They weren’t going into a crowd howling for blood. They were covering what was thought to be a peaceful and joyous celebration.
And there is no double standard. When a journalist gets beaten, imprisoned, or killed while in pursuit of a story, he or she is usually lauded for their courage and you won’t hear too many people trying to figure out if the reporter had any responsibility for what happened. They take risks. If we care about the news and the free flow of information, we celebrate those risks even when things don’t work out well for them.
Take a hypothetical as a thought exercise: As we know, Al Jazeera was officially told to leave Egypt at around the mid-way point of the revolution. They had their equipment confiscated and they were told at gunpoint to stop any further coverage. They kept reporting anyways with unnamed reporters trying to blend in with the crowd and giving reports via cell phone. Had those reporters been caught by Mubarak agents in the crowd, vanished without a trace, and their mangled bodies found later, do you really think there would have been people here second-guessing their actions?
No.
There would have been a flurry of posters trying to outdo the each other in their praise of these incredibly brave people.
Or to take a non-hypothetical, I don’t remember too many people second-guessing Daniel Pearl. He took a chance on making a new contact to expand his story and that chance obviously didn’t end well. Perhaps he felt justified in taking such a risk since previous risks had been successful. But there was not much in the way of direct or indirect phrasing trying to paint him as being partially responsible for his own murder. Again, he was praised for his courage in trying to get the story.
This discussion over “agency” is useless and only serves to reinforce the old sexist idea that a “careful” woman is never raped. The only way this discussion is even remotely interesting or useful is if the situation could be analyzed in such a way to make future deployments safer for reporters, to organize the security layout so as to be more effective in a crowded situation.
But since we don’t have the details to make such an analysis, and because few of us are in a position to take the analysis to make improvements in the future, this discussion really just boils down to ‘blaming the victim’. And because this involved rape, the one crime where blaming the victim is as common and as old as dirt, you’re going to get a very emotional and unpleasant response.
Tim
@cs:
Weird, how you continue in the vein of responding not to what OneTwo wrote, about a very specific incident that has been up for discussion here, but to what the voices in your head tell you about other matters elsewhere and what you believe other people said at other places and at other times about other incidents.
Your emotions, projections, and dogmatism prevent you from engaging in a rational discussion.
Regarding this:
Was LL also trying to blend into the crowd with her long, blonde hair, security entourage, cameramen, and blazing camera lights? Do you see a difference there? I suppose a better question is “will you ADMIT to seeing a difference there?”
OneTwo
@cs:
Thanks for your respectful and reasoned reply. Some of it I agree with, some I don’t, and some I need to think about more; so I’ll give it some thought and respond in a bit. But I appreciate your taking the time to respond thoughtfully.
OneTwo
@Tim:
If I’m ignoring you, it’s not because of the substance of what you’re saying (some of which I agree with, some of which I don’t, and some of which I find offensive), but more because you are so antagonistic; it’s just not what I respect, and it’s true that I’d rather engage than repel. But thanks for at least getting what I am saying. As for your earlier comment about twisting your words, I don’t think that I did, but I acknowledge that the implication I accused you of is a similar slippery slope to what I’m being accused of, so I’ll retract that.
cs
@Tim:
Al Jazeera was considered the most troublesome, for obvious reasons, of all the international press operating in country. Had Mubarak’s agents made a serious effort to find the AJ journalists in the crowd, I’m sure they could have caught at least one or two. They knew who was still in country. They knew their faces.
But the question remains. Had some of Al Jazeera’s reporters been imprisoned and murdered, would you be so gleefully second guessing their actions? When you heard of Daniel Pearl’s demise, were you happily thinking “What a fucking moron”? To answer my own question, I somehow suspect you did. You do seem to have a particular enjoyment of the misfortune of others, especially if they have a degree of fame.
As for blending in: the assault happened in the middle of a victory celebration. I’m not sure what the American networks were doing, but for Al Jazeera there was no further need to be furtive. They were in the crowd with cameramen. Some of AJ English’s reporting team are female, some of them are white, some of them are even Americans. They didn’t feel the need to hide or to cover up. I have no idea about their security arrangements. My gut level suspicion is that they typically don’t operate with much of one, if any, since they seem to enjoy a more stripped-down approach compared to the US networks. This would be an interesting detail to find out.
So, considering neither Al Jazeera nor the (presumably since I didn’t watch their coverage) other networks attempted to blend in on this particular night, why single out Logan’s actions as being unusual or incompetent? And why the focus on the blonde hair? You seem to be hinting that this crowd of men were driven to rape and violence because they had such a delectable (and well-lit) morsel in front of them? If only she had covered up her beautiful beautiful hair would things would have ended differently? Even though this is Cairo where women routinely go about uncovered? Even though other female journalists were conspicuously out in the square, uncovered, with cameramen, lights, and possibly security with them?
Based on what we know of Logan’s actions, and of what we know of how the other networks operated, there doesn’t seem to anything in their plan of action which would put her more at risk than the other news teams which did “man-on-the-street” interviews without incident. Could it be that she ended up in the wrong place at the wrong time, and the other reporters were fortunate enough to not do so?
The more interesting questions would be: why did this section of the crowd react violently when the rest of the crowd was apparently peaceful? Was the peacefulness of the Tahrir Square crowd overstated and thus similar assaults happened elsewhere? Is there any reason to suspect that Mubarak dead-enders were in the crowd getting their last moments of revenge? What would drive these men into thinking this was an acceptable course of action? Something in the culture, in the status of women in Egypt? Is this typical behavior for crowds of men in Egypt? What are the rape statistics in Egypt as compared to the United States? Did the crowd attack without warning or were insults and slurs given first?
There’s also questions to be asked regarding the conduct of the security team hired by CBS. Where was their point of failure? Why did they get separated from Logan? Did they make any attempt to find their way back to their client? Were they unable or unwilling to fight the crowd of men attacking Logan? Since I assume someone on the security team could speak Arabic, did they provide Logan with any warnings as to the stated intentions of the crowd?
This line of inquiry would have actually been an interesting discussion rather than the laser-like focus you wanted solely on the victim. And I think the discussion would have ended much better since the actions of all concerned would have been considered.
OneTwo
@cs:
This makes sense to me and I can think of similar analogues where the weight of history is part of the context of what’s being discussed in the moment.
Well, I understand that to mean that because of the historical (and still present) blaming of women for their rapes (c.f. Georgia state legislature), that the issue of risk assumption and other contextual details effectively become non-considerable for this topic. Unfortunately, context is part of how we move things from the realm of the absolute to the complex actual world in which we live, and that was what I was trying to say. So I can understand and even accept that this cultural moment perhaps requires an absolute and unyielding defense against even the faintest whiff of victim blaming, as it is a battle far from over, though I think then that also limits the possibilities for better understanding of how we think and act towards one another.
If this is true, then it changes my perspective. I confess to not having followed the issue all that closely, only to being caught up in a thread. My understanding is that the crowd could be considered dangerous based on past events. If the crowd was not considered dangerous enough to incur reasonable chance of bodily harm, then there’s still a risk assessment, but it is perhaps above the threshold of “reasonable safety.” As I’m only really operating on thirdhand information here, I’ll suspend judgment as to where that threshold actualy falls in this case, but the state of the crowd at that moment is obviously a relevant detail.
So here’s a case where I think context matters. All the cases of what you’re discussing might be, for lack of a better term, “hero journalism,” and you’re right that when a journalist dies in the line of this sort of work, there is no second-guessing. And I would posit that if a female journalist were doing the kind of work that Daniel Pearl was doing, and was brutally sexually assaulted in that line of work, I’m sure there would still be many troglodytes asking what she hell was doing there, but I don’t think there would otherwise be much “second guessing” as you put it. But most news journalism, especially on television, is “entertainment journalism.” These journalists are not without merit or value, but they’re not heroes. I realize that that these distinctions are as subjective as they come, but I think they’re relevant. And even worthwhile journalism has its second-guessing. I mean, when I heard about those reporters who were caught by North Korea — which I have been to, and as you can imagine those people do NOT fuck around — my first reaction was “what the hell were those people doing on the border? filming?” (And that was before I found out they were women, in case you were going there.) And that’s not to say that I don’t enormously respect what they were trying to do, which was actually important. But they took a pretty gigantic risk, IMO an crazy one, to get their story, and while I sympathized with their plight, I did in fact ask myself how much responsibility they had to assume for the possibility of what might happen. I don’t think it’s an unreasonable question to ask in any context.
Well, that makes sense. I understand that. I think it is dangerous, however, to think that there is never any context in which a victim might not bear some responsibility for their plight. If I enter the tiger cage at the zoo and get mauled, I get what I deserve.
What I am hearing you say, however, is that rape in particular is such a wounding topic that consideration of victim agency is simply not up for discussion, because the historical and current-day weight of blaming the victim presses so heavily that the door cannot be opened even a crack; the absolute principle that a woman can in no way be considered to have any responsibility for a rape must be defended unyieldingly and with a united front.
And you know what? That makes sense. I can accept that, and appreciate your bringing it forward. I think at some point in the future victim agency can and should be considered as it is with all things. But I can see why now is not that time.
cs
@OneTwo:
Thanks too for your thoughtful reply.
I’m surprised the nature of Tahrir Square didn’t come up more often in this discussion. The protesters called it, fondly, the Republic of Tahrir for a reason. They created, in miniature, a new society without the restrictions of the old one. The people made the sort of society they wanted to see in Egypt at large. They organized clinics and pharmacies to provide free care for the sick and wounded. Garbage collection and cleaning duty was maintained. They even set up recycling bins, which was something not normally done in Egypt. Christians guarded the Muslims when they prayed, and the Muslims returned the favor in kind. And, as I said, the women in the square were treated as equals in the revolution and could move about free of the harassment which might befall a woman in Cairo normally. The Egyptian women I follow on Twitter already express nostalgia for that brief moment and promise to make the ideals of Tahrir mainstream throughout Egypt.
So, for an outsider, you wouldn’t get the impression you were walking into a tiger’s den. It’s not like you were covering a hostile crowd in Baghdad. I would imagine the general thought amongst the western journalists was that the danger was over. With Mubarak out of power, you’re not going to be attacked by the secret police. The protesters were a very media-savvy bunch and they’re going to be happy to talk to you. There might be some worries about street crime from being in a large crowd in a large city, but I would think an attack of this nature was probably one of the last things they would worry about.
So I say all of that just to set up the background of what the reporters were walking into. And for most of the reporting teams, as far as I know, these weren’t unreasonable expectations of safety since there wasn’t any significant incident that night for most of them.
I’ve changed my mind slightly. It would be possible to analyze the behavior of the victim without falling into the “blame the victim” mentality Tim and Will seem to enjoy. The trick is to examine the behavior and motivations of all who were involved, and not just focus on the victim’s potential mistakes. As I mentioned in the earlier, overly-long reply to Tim, there’s a whole host of questions to be answered. Not just of the victim, but the choices of the rapists and the crowd around them, the security team, the producers and CBS management, and Logan’s handlers and guides. A discussion of that sort might have dodged the emotional minefield surrounding rape and might have left the trolls and misogynists bored. Besides, it’s always fun to play armchair detective.
My personal thought regarding blame is that the security team, after the rapists, probably bears most of the guilt. You don’t let a crowd separate you from your client. I know, for ordinary people, it’s easy to have the crowd unexpectedly surge and separate a group. But for the professionals, this should never happen. Oh well, I’ll probably never know if I’m correct or not.
I understand what you’re saying about ‘responsibility’ but, to me, that cheapens the self-sacrifice, the choice to leave safety behind to pursue the story. In some ways, it’s treating them as children, telling them “Didn’t you know it was too rough out there? What were you thinking?” There’s risk but they assume that willingly and therefore I’m not going to second guess them on that point, even if at times I should. I would rather see reporting done at the front lines or as close as possible rather than from the hotel bar or balcony. Of course, if a reporter thinks the situation is too dangerous outside and they’ll do a better job typing away while perched on a stool and drinking a delicious mai-tai, I can respect that as well. It’s their personal choice and one I don’t usually question.
Wil
@cs:
This makes you mad and upset, because in a perfect world, such things should not matter. I agree with you…in a perfect world, such things as short skirts, where you walk, definitely should not matter.
However, we do not live in a perfect world.
For all your protestations about short skirts, walking alone at night, things that in a perfect world would not matter, in the real world they DO MATTER.
If you ask any father of a teenage daughter, who orders his daughter back upstairs to put more clothes on, this is not even a subject that needs debating. The context matters. The clothing matters. The amount of suggestive skin matters. The sexy clothing matters. To try to pretend that it doesn’t is nuts. If that hot sixteen-year-old daughter goes out with her tiny skirt and tiny top looking like a fuck-me doll, and takes risks she shouldn’t, the chances of something bad happening to her increase exponentially, AND EVERY FATHER KNOWS THIS.
Sometimes I think there is a weird blind spot among women…because when it comes to protective fathers and protective male friends, we are not telling you to cover up because we think something random might happen….there is always the chance that something random might happen to anybody, but because we look at your behavior and your clothing, and WE KNOW MEN. You may think you know men, but you really don’t because you are not one. WE KNOW MEN, and we know how some of them will react to your behavior and your clothing.
It doesn’t matter how you “think things should be”….we are not living in your little happy fantasy world, we are living in the real world.
Ija
Oh my God, Tim is not done with his rape apologia and victim blaming yet. Seriously, SHUT THE FUCK UP Tim. Idiot.
Ija
SHUT THE FUCK UP, DOUCHEBAG. Seriously. GOD.
Tim
@Ija:
THIS is the essence of the SHUT UP RAPE IS EVERYTHING EVEN IF I DON’T KNOW IF IT HAPPENED OR NOT SHUT UP YOU HAVE TO SHUT UP IF YOU DISAGREE WITH ME SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP argument pursued throughout this thread.
More excellent rhetorical argument. No, I won’t shut up you stupid twit. SHUT UP is the best you got, and it ain’t enough.
Tim
@OneTwo:
Pffft. What a beautifully written load of horseshit. So reality and debate/discussion must be bent out of all recognition to soothe the delicate fee fees of certain…people. Stupid, weak, and intellectually indefensible. You have been effectively SHUT UP.
OneTwo, you are a serious disappointment.