This was actually published in a real newspaper

Seriously, this was actually published in a real newspaper!

Richard Cohen

Opinion Writer

Miley Cyrus, Steubenville and teen culture run amok

Now, what with you being a sane person and all, you're probably wondering what a second-rate pop singer has to do with a horrific rape case. Silly normal person, let Richard Cohen explain how it's all connected:


Miley Cyrus twerked. I had to look up the word since my indefatigable spell checker had no idea what I meant. . . That’s precisely what Cyrus did at the recent MTV Video Music Awards, for which she has been amply and justifiably criticized. She’s a cheap act, no doubt about it, but for me her performance was an opportunity to discuss one of the summer’s most arresting pieces of journalism — a long New Yorker account of what became known as the Steubenville Rape. Cyrus should read it.


Why would you need an "opportunity" to discuss a news story in a news paper? Has Cohen been aware of the case for the last year or so, but felt unable to discuss it in his column until he could find some sort of half-assed pop-culture tie-in?
So what take-aways does Cohen think we should get from this horrible case?

The first thing you should know about the so-called Steubenville Rape is that this was not a rape involving intercourse.

 Oh my God!
So I guess it's okay that this girl was horribly sexually violated because none of the perpetrators actually stuck his penis in?  So it's  a "so-called" rape? What the fuck?

The next thing you should know is that there weren’t many young men involved — just two were convicted

.

Oh, well, only two. What's everyone even so upset about?
Also, only two being convicted (convicted of RAPE by the way) does not mean only two were involved. Watch a Law & Order sometime, geez!

 

 

MORON

 

 

Then he starts talking about a New Yorker piece about the Steubenville case and kinda starts to seem like he's going to start making sense. Don't worry, it doesn't last long.

 

 



The New Yorker piece was done by Ariel Levy, a gifted writer. When I finished her story, I felt somewhat disconcerted — unhappily immersed in a teenage culture that was stupid, dirty and so incredibly and obliviously misogynistic that I felt like a visitor to a foreign country.

Okay, good. You've realized that rape culture is a thing that exists, that's the first step.

That country, such as it is, exists on the Internet — in e-mails and tweets and Facebook, which formed itself into a digital lynch mob that demanded the arrest of the innocent for a crime — gang rape — that had not been committed.


Wait, what? You were immersed in a culture of misogyny and you think that the misogynistic culture is what caused innocent young men to be charged with rape? How does that even make sense?

It also turned the victim into a reviled public figure, her name and picture (passed out, drunk) available with a Google query.

I don't think both can be true. I don't think the same societal factors that slimed the victim could also demand that the boys be punished for violating her. It's kinda gotta be one or the other.

And yet what indisputably did happen is troubling enough. A teenage girl, stone-drunk, was stripped and manhandled. She was photographed and the picture passed around. Obviously, she was sexually mistreated. And while many people knew about all of this, no one did anything about it. The girl was dehumanized.

So what's your problem with the perpetrators being arrested and convicted, exactly? And what the hell does any of this have to do with Miley?

 

Yeah, when do we start talking about Meeee?

Well, we have to skip ahead all the way to the very last paragraph for that:


So now back to Miley Cyrus and her twerking. I run the risk of old-fogeyness for suggesting the girl’s a tasteless twit — especially that bit with the foam finger. (Look it up, if you must.) But let me also suggest that acts such as hers not only objectify women but debase them. They encourage a teenage culture that has set the women’s movement back on its heels. What is being celebrated is not sexuality but sexual exploitation, a mean casualness that deprives intimacy of all intimacy. Cyrus taught me a word. Now let me teach her one: She’s a twerk.


I've read that paragraph over and over, trying to see the connection between Miley and the Steubenville case. I don't get it.
I guess it comes down to a bit from a little earlier in the column, when Cohen refers to

 . . . a teenage culture that was brutal and unfeeling, that treated the young woman as dirt. “ ‘She’s deader than O.J.’s wife. She’s deader than Caylee Anthony,’ ” one kid exulted in a YouTube posting. “ ‘They raped her harder than that cop raped Marsellus Wallace in “Pulp Fiction.”. . . She is so raped right now.’ ” Yes, I know, they were all drunk, woozy and disoriented from a tawdry cable TV and celebrity culture.

So I guess Richard Cohen is saying that women dancing suggestively on the television is what causes young men to commit rape? Because it can't possibly be their fault. There were never any bad people who committed horrible crimes before the invention of television and the young women dancing on it.  And this is honest to God printed in a real actual newspaper.

Things that seem too horrible to be true

A couple of stories caught my attention this week. I just saw mentions of them on various websites and thought I must be mis-reading or mis-understanding because these are too horrible to possibly be true.

Sadly, they are not.

The first story:

 

---

Montana judge won't resign over 30-days-for-rape ruling

Now that can't possibly be true, can it? A judge giving a rapist a 30-DAY sentence? Not 30 years, 30 DAYS?

But yes, that's exactly what seems to have happened.
How does this judge justify giving a slap on the wrist to a rapist?

In 2007, a Montana teacher named Stacey Rambold raped a 14-year-old girl who later ended up committing suicide. On Monday, Baugh gave him 15 years in prison for his crimes — but suspended all but 30 days of that sentence. And when arguing the case, Baugh noted that the 14-year-old girl was acting “older than her chronological age” and “as much in control of the situation” as the 49-year-old teacher who raped her.

A 14-year-old girl was just as much in control of the situation as the teacher who raped her? When has a 14-year-old kid ever been in control of any situation? Much less a situation involving an adult, and an authority figure at that?

Montana District Judge G. Todd Baugh reads a statement apologizing for remarks he made about a 14-year-old girl raped by a teacher in Billings, Mont., Wednesday Aug. 28, 2013. But Baugh defended the 30-day prison sentence given to the teacher as appropriate.

(AP Photo/Matthew Brown)

The Montana judge has defended his sentence, however, saying that he believes Rambold is at a low risk of becoming a repeat offender

.

Well, sure, now that he knows he might have to spend an entire month behind bars, I'm sure he won't make that mistake again!

Well, I assume that this defendant's history must have been in some way reassuring to Judge Baugh that he was not likely to again break the rules, right?

The prosecution entered into a “deferred prosecution agreement” with Rambold after Cherice’s death — which means the charges against him would have all been dismissed if he had successfully completed a sex-offender treatment program and met other terms, like avoiding contact with children.                                                But he broke some of those terms, and that’s why his case ended up before Baugh.

Jeezus Christ! He couldn't even follow the terms of his sex-offender program, terms that would have allowed him to get away scot-free, and you think he's not likely to re-offend?

As of this writing, some 41,000 people had signed on to a petition demanding Judge Baugh's resignation. Personally, I don't think he should be given the option to resign, I think he should be frog-marched out of the courthouse, tarred, feathered, and run out of town on a rail, but if you're interested, you can sign on here: http://petitions.moveon.org/sign/resign-judge-g-todd-baugh.fb29?source=c.fb&r_by=817567


Story # 2:

Mother accused of torturing daughter takes witness stand

 

 



Carri Williams is accused of beating and starving her 13-year-old adopted daughter to death in May of 2011.

Williams described how the young girl was not given meals as punishment, and detailed the final moments before she found the child's lifeless body in her backyard.

The day Hana died, prosecutors say she was banished to the back yard. It was raining hard, and the family found her unconscious in the mud a short time later.

"My daughter was completely naked, and just her shoulders and head were on the patio face down," Williams said. "Her face was completely flat in the mole hill."

Although Hana died of hypothermia, there were other contributing causes to her death, including severe malnutrition and chronic gastritis, doctors said.

This monster left a naked 13-year-old girl outside in the rain. There are no words.

She used boot camp methods for discipline, and on numerous occasions forced Hana to sleep in a shower, nursery closet, and a barn for stealing food.
Stealing food? STEALING FOOD? You're her mother, you're supposed to give her food! She is entitled to food and shelter at a bare fucking minimum from her parents. If you are withholding food from your daughter, you are the one committing a crime, you sickening piece of shit.

The Williams' other children told investigators that Hana sometimes was beaten with a switch for standing more than 12 inches away from where she was told to stand or for speaking without permission.
And of course Carri Williams  did not act alone. No, of course there is also an adoptive father who is no less a sub-human cockhole.

When asked by an attorney what he felt most responsible about, Larry Williams replied: "I'm the dad... my daughter died... possibly I could have done something to stop it. And I didn't."
Oh, "possibly?" You "possibly" could have done something? Your number one responsibility in your entire fucking life is to protect your children. It's not like your daughter was kidnapped and murdered in some secret location beyond your control. It happened in your home. You and your wife are completely responsible you murdering piece of shit.

Now, when first I read this, I immediately thought "religious fanatics." No one would torture a helpless child to death unless they were doing it in the name of the Lord! Well, sure enough:

A witness told investigators that the Williams got their ideas for the disciplinary measures from a book, "To Train Up Your Child," which recommends switchings with a plumbing tool, cold water baths, withholding food and putting children out in cold weather as forms of punishment, court documents say.

Of course. of course they did. I don't know what is worse, the fact that these two monsters murdered this little girl or the fact that there is an instruction manual for how to do it. And of course, it's a religious-based book.

To Train Up a Child: Michael Pearl, Debi Pearl: 9781892112002 ...

www.amazon.com › ... › Christian Living › Family‎

 

I looked at a little bit of this book on Amazon, as much as I could stomach. They suggest placing tempting objects somewhere that a crawling baby can reach them, then smacking their little hand when they grab for it. It's sick! Of course, they claim to be following God's example. They say that God planted the one tree Adam & Eve were forbidden to touch in the middle of the Garden of Eden so that they would be tempted to touch it, and could therefore be trained not to touch it, which , if I remember the Genesis story worked out not so great.
It's pretty fucking insane.

You know, it's one thing for some insane couple to embark on a program of child abuse and murder, we've become sadly accustomed to hearing such tales of horror, but this book. . .
First, these two scumbags have to sit down and write it, then they have to submit it to a publisher. Editors, publishing assistants, I don't know how many layers of management have to read "how to torture a helpless child" and say "yes, this is the sort of book our publishing house should put its name on."  Then bookstore owners and mangers have to say "yes, this is the sort of child-murdering book I would be proud to have on my shelves!" How can this happen? It just seems all too horrible to be true.

P.S. If you want to read a good summary of this horrible horrible book, check it out here: http://awfullibrarybooks.net/train-up-your-child/

Well now I'm scared!

Two stories caught my eye today that are sort of related and together they have me just scared all to pieces!

Story Number One:

Bradlee Dean: Gays Commit Half Of All Murders

On this weekend’s edition of Sons of Liberty Radio, hosts Bradlee Dean and Jake McMillan claimed that gay people are responsible for half of all murders committed in large US cities, among other crimes. After Dean said that homosexuality and abortion are the “last two stages that a country takes before God judges that country,” McMillan charged that “half of the murders in large cities were committed by homosexuals

Okay, I'm not sure exactly who Bradlee Dean is except I know he's the guy who tried to sue Rachel Maddow for quoting his exact words which is obviously just textbook slander, so I typed him into the Google.
First off, he looks like this:

  

Credibility!

 



Secondly, he runs some gawd-awful organization called "You Can Run But You Can't Hide," which I assume is meant to sound that threatening.
According to Wikipedia: You Can Run But You Cannot Hide International (YCRBYCHI) is a United States Christian youth ministry that holds assemblies, including music concerts and discussions with students, in public schools. Founded by Bradlee Dean in 2008. . . YCRBYCHI's mission statement is: "To reshape America by re-directing the current and future generations both morally and spiritually through education, media, and the Judeo-Christian values found in our U.S. Constitution

Why a group that aims to direct children morally and spiritually would have a name that sounds exactly like a death threat, I don't know. But it's pretty safe to assume that Bradlee Dean is a huge asshole. The kind of huge asshole who would say things like Gays commit half the murders. Or:

Dean wondered if gay people are “thinking to themselves, ‘These people are really falling for this.” But of course gay rights are gaining ground, Dean claimed, since “they got their homo in office,” and have “infiltrated” the White House.

Aaaanyway. . . I was a bit skeptical about this statistic. Half the murders? That seemed impossible since if you add up all the murders committed by all the gay and lesbian folks I know, they total up to less than one. I couldn't understand how they were able to kill so many people, what with being such a small percentage of the population and what-not. Fortunately, Article Number Two clarified things for me.

Robertson: Gay People Deliberately Spread HIV/AIDS By Cutting People With Special Rings

Oh, now I get it! Thank goodness insane fuckwit Pat Robertson is around to explain these things.

Thinking makes my head hurt!

“You know what they do in San Francisco, some in the gay community there they want to get people so if they got the stuff they’ll have a ring, you shake hands, and the ring’s got a little thing where you cut your finger,” Robertson said. “Really. It’s that kind of vicious stuff, which would be the equivalent of murder."

Holy fucking shit, Pat Robertson is a vile little owl-casting of a human being. Who would say something like that?
Is this even worth refuting?
A: most gay men do NOT have HIV or AIDS.
B: People who do have HIV/AIDS do not want anyone else to ever have it ever. Just like people who have cancer don't want anyone else to get cancer or people with ALS don't want anyone else to suffer ALS. You've heard the expression "I wouldn't wish this on my worst enemy?" That's how people with HIV/AIDS feel about HIV/AIDS.
C: Name one. Name one incident where someone shook hands with another person and got cut with a special ring. There must be a police report somewhere, right? So go ahead. Name one.


**CRICKETS**

But maybe we should err on the side of caution. From now on, I'm not shaking hands with any gay guys. I'm going straight in for the hug. Can't be too careful!

Demons are after your kids? In the TV?



So apparently, there is a group called "Morality In Media." And also apparently, there is a new nominee for head of the FCC. I think you can see where this is headed.

 

 ACTION: Questions for Senate Commerce Committee

 for FCC Picks

CONTACT SENATE COMMERCE COMMITTEE AND REQUEST THEY SECURE A COMMITMENT FROM FCC CHAIRMAN NOMINEE TOM WHEELER TO ENFORCE BROADCAST DECENCY STANDARDS.

Because, yeah, that horse isn't out of the barn!


(Oh, and I just noticed that this article is from back in June which shows you how carefully I monitor the activities of the FCC)

Questions:

1.) The underlying federal criminal statute that prohibits indecency on the public airwaves is found at Title 18 U. S. Code Section 1464.  Have you read this law?
(“Whoever utters any obscene, indecent, or profane language by means of radio communication shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than two years, or both.”)

Okay, so I guess it's okay to shout "Fuck!" on TV?

 

Imagine the kerfuffle had this been on the radio!

 

 

2.) Are you familiar with the FCC’s working definition of the term “indecent”?
(“Language or material that, in context, depicts or describes, in terms patently offensive as measured by contemporary community standards for the broadcast medium, sexual or excretory organs or activities.”)


Are you familiar with what contemporary community standards are? I mean, outside of Amish country.

 

The standards of the community of Los Angeles



 

 

And do you think that "patently offensive" is a measurable standard?

 

 

 

adverb: patently

1. 1.

   clearly; without doubt.

   
   

   "these claims were patently false"

 

 In order to be indecent, something has to be "offensive" by "community standards" in a way that is "clear and without a doubt." How is that going to be enforceable?

 

And it must portray sexual or excretory organs? I watch a lot of tv and I don't recall ever seeing any penises or vaginas being portrayed on any show.

 

(Oh, wait I forgot about OZ. My God, the penises!)

 

Detective Stabler! Put that thing away!

 

 

 

Anyway, if that is the definition of indecency, you have nothing to worry about. Until someone starts broadcasting a show called "Will's Penis & Grace's Vagina," I don't think there is anything on broadcast TV or basic cable that approaches the standard of "indecency."

 

Of course I could be wrong. Maybe the FCC's mission is a lot more serious than I thought. Maybe they are the only agency that could prevent demons from raping our children, which they totally are doing, obviously, duh!

 

Klingenschmitt: The FCC Is Letting Demonic Spirits

 'Molest And Visually Rape Your Children'                        

Submitted by Kyle Mantyla on Thursday, 8/22/2013 10:38 am -

 

 

 

 

(via Right Wing Watch)

 

Citing a campaign launched by Morality In Media to ensure that Tom Wheeler, President Obama's nominee to head the Federal Communications Commission, will enforce decency standards, "Dr. Chaps" Gordon Klingenschmitt said on his "Pray In Jesus Name" show that demonic spirits are using lax FCC enforcement of these standards to "molest and visually rape your children."

 

See, I thought that TV companies put on risque' programming in order to make monies because they're running a business and don't really care who's offended as long as they're selling ad time, but no! It's demons! I should have known!

 

 

"Dr. Chaps" said that former FCC chairman Julius Genachowski failed to adequately enforce the decency standards during his time in office and that was because there was a "demonic spirit of tyranny or immorality inside of him."

 

Because when I think of "tyranny," I think of "lax enforcement!"

 

And even though Genachowski outwardly appears very polished and successful, "the demonic spirit influences him to abuse and, dare I say, molest and visually rape your children.

 

You know, I think that if you're really serious about wanting to enforce decency standards on TV, I think the first thing you have to do is be realistic about who your nemeses are. You're going to have to go up against huge multinational media corporations who have unlimited resources and own more Congressmen than I own socks. It's not going to do you any good to pretend that it's "demonic spirits" who are to blame for shows you don't like. I don't think you have any chance of affecting the change you want, nor do I wish you luck in that endeavor, but if you're going to try to fight this battle, you at least have to take to a battlefield located in the real world.

 



Give it up, Bill Kristol

Sarah Palin is never, ever, ever going to go out with you. She doesn't like you like that.  Plus, she's a married woman. And I know, I know, there's a good chance she'll quit the marriage halfway through, but still, every red-blooded tea-bagging male is crushing on Palin, she's not settling for you.

I mean, I assume that Bill Kristol is hopelessly in love with Sarah Palin, how else do you explain this?

August 18, 2013 12:45 PM

Bill Kristol: Palin Can 'Resurrect Herself' With Alaska Senate Run

Bill, Bill, Bill. . .
Sarah Palin is not going to run for Senate. Oh, sure, she may do a half-assed pseudo-run just to keep her name out there, but she is never going to be a Senator. Senator is a job you actually have to show up for. Sarah Palin is not going to be a Senator because the Senate won't build a studio in her house and let her legislate by Skype. Also, everyone hates her, so how is she going to win an election?

Bill, for some reason, there are still people who take you seriously. There's no reason you should have any semblance of credibility, having previously been wrong about everything, but there you are. Why would you want to squander this inexplicable  credibility that people pretend you have on Sarah Palin? Again? How'd it work out the first time, hmm? Yeah, not so good. Give it up, Bill, She's not going to go out with you.