Do I wake or sleep?

Jesus, this Penn State story is unbelievable.  What happened was terrible enough: how do you hear--HEAR--a child being raped and walk away, even if you do inform your boss later?  And how, upon hearing of this, do you not move heaven and earth to get to the truth and do everything imaginable to protect the children going forward?  I can't even imagine what these poor kids and their families are going through.  Jesus Christ, this is sad.

But WTF is up with these students?  Rioting?  Are they fucking nuts?  He's a FOOTBALL COACH.  He fucked up and he and his boss are both paying the price.  But he's just a football coach.  Why are you more concerned with a football coach than for those poor kids--the ones he knew were being raped and did very little to help them?

Want to see some klassy Penn State rape apologists showing their asses on the internet?

Gothamist (all overwrought formatting in the original)

JacksBack72
Why does this 'horrific snowball' land on Paterno?!  This man is and was an exemplary football coach for 45-years! He reported this terrible incident to the hierarchy at Penn- what else was he expected to do- become a one-man crusade against pedophilia?!?Paterno fired in disgrace?!?  THAT is the true disgrace of PENN STATE! Yes- The University should do something. . . just not the WRONG thing!!

OKHNYC
He had a moral obligation once he saw that the University was covering up one of his coaches using his facilities to groom and rape little boys to notify the police. That you don't see this is stunning.

Michael
He had NO MORAL OBLIGATION to do anything more than he did.  He is not the cops.  He is not the GC of PSU.  He is a coach!  The school chose not to do anything.  The WITNESS chose not to go to the cops outside of the campus cops.  This was NOT paterno's duty, morally or legally.

JacksBack72
Coach Paterno DIDN'T SEE THIS INCIDENT. . . it was merely reported to him- and he passed this (uncorroborated) report on up the 'chain-of-command at Penn State which was/is the right thing to do! What does he know if it's true or not- and is being 'covered' up?!?! He's a football coach!

My friends, THIS is the rape culture, on full display.  They deny a moral obligation to follow up accusations of CHILD RAPE. Why? because it interfered with their love of a fucking GAME. Like I've said before, people get all up in arms about predatory sexual behavior...until it involves one of their worthless heroes. Then they will find a way to denydenydeny and spin. Examples: Roman Polanski, Kobe Bryant, James Barbour, etc.

At least one rapist cop goin' to jail.

But Supreme Court Justice Gregory Carro told Moreno on Monday he considered his testimony at trial "incredible."

"By your own admission, while you were supposed to be performing your duty, you were in bed with an intoxicated and naked young female," he said.

"You wanted to get into that apartment so badly you committed a crime in order to do so."

And more:

Moreno still faces heroin possession charges for drugs that were allegedly found in his police locker following his arrest. Moreno is expected back in court Sept. 12 when a trial date for those charges could be set.

Class act, huh? Rape AND drug possession? New York's finest! Oh wait--not anymore, because the NYPD fired his sorry rapist ass and that of his shit partner (who faces sentencing later today).

And another article.

It's not enough. But it's something. I hope this guy gets everything he deserves in prison.

Edited to add:

Another update. What's fascinating is that the judge's words make it completely clear he strongly disagrees with the verdict--he's essentially calling the cop a rapist and a perjurer without coming right out and using the word.

They caught one of the thugs who raped a woman in Washington Heights a few weeks ago.

Caught

GOOD.

Friday evening I went down to the Gene Frankel to see the last Planet Connections show I could, Doug's (our Tom in Sweeter Dreams) other show, Hummingbirds. Not bad at all--his performance was great, as were the two women. One of them (the two women) buttonholed me two weeks ago after Sweeter Dreams, raving about my performance and...touching me?! Not inappropriately but flirtatiously. I certainly wasn't offended but was wondering if I'd interpreted that correctly and later Duncan said "oh yeah, she was all over you." Okay, then! Anyway, she and the other woman, whom I'd seen in another PC show, Loose Women... (she was great) were both very strong. I couldn't hang out to compliment anyone afterwards, as I had to book way back uptown to catch the end of Jason's "Take Back the Park" viewing--I guess I'm sort of a mascot now!

I got there and it was a bit of a bust, due to the clouds. There were about 5 other men besides Jason--he introduced me and then he and I talked for a bit. After the interview came out the day before, Jason had emailed me, calling me "very brave" and he followed up on this. I demurred a bit--I'm not traumatized, and nothing lasting happened to me, other than radicalizing me even MORE about rape and violence against women. It's not brave, it's just facts. At any rate, he told me that he thinks the interview was not just on local radio, but on "All Things Considered"--which is national! Wow! He thinks this because some friends of his heard the interview in New jersey, out of range of local NYC radio stations. Pretty cool!

I got home and heard the AMAZING NEWS!!!! YAAAAAAAAYYYYY!!! So, so happy for all my gay friends and family--we truly are all brothers and sisters in the eyes of God! So happy that the New York legislators did the right thing. It is TIME! I started weeping, reading the explosion of joy of Facebook. Then the historian in me was even more moved reading what the legislators had said to explain their affirmative votes--this especially got to me:

Republican Senator Mark Grisanti then spoke about his struggle before coming to his decision to vote for the bill. "A man can be wiser today than he was yesterday," he said.

This is literally bringing tears to my eyes. This is how progress is made. This is how we make things better, not just for us but for those around us. This is the difficult, incremental process of social evolution. There has seemed to be so much anger and hatred for the past 20 years in politics--so many wedge issues, so much pointless divisiveness, so much cruelty. (Specifically, I'm thinking of shitty, godless Pat Robertson blaming 9-11 on feminism and homosexuality. That's not partisan, that's not ideological or true to your religious beliefs, that's just being a nasty, cruel piece of shit.) I'm not kidding myself that it's all ended--I know it hasn't. But by God, in the past 3 years, we've elected a black man to our highest office, and we've just doubled the number of gay people in this country who can be married. Even the setbacks are being nullified, like when Prop 8 was overturned in the courts. I love reading about the '60s--there was so much incredible heroism in the civil rights and anti-war movements, and so much history was made. It happened so quickly. My friends, these are our sixties. This is our time, our chance to change the world for the better. To grow, to accomplish--to change the world.

By the way, I just called my state senator and thanked him for voting yes on Friday. His assistant was thrilled, thanked me and told me also to email him, which I will.

Saturday was the final performance of Sweeter Dreams--Christine was there, as was my friend Linda, as well as Jason and Caroline. Jason was right up front laughing at everything, it was great. I had a little fun with the interview scene and finally FINALLY got a laugh on my throwaway snark on Joanna Remarque. I made two small adjustments--I emphasized my criticism of her in my first monologue just a little bit more, to set it up, and then in the interview I made the eye roll bigger and FINALLY got a laugh! I also added a new obnoxiously correct pronunciation--Spielberg is now Schpeelberg, the way the Germans would say it. Heather told me they all laughed backstage when they heard that.

After the show Jason and I got Mexican food and just had a nice long convo. I had plans to have dinner with Tim so I raced hom and got ready, then I met him at Houston's by the Lipstick Building (one of my favorite buildings in the city). We talked forevs, had a lovely time. He thinks the cop rape verdict is complete bullshit, BTW. We went to a bar for a nightcap and the Yankees game was on--they showed a guy sliding headfirst in slomo and I commented that I'd done hook slides (and of course regular slides) but I'd never slid head first, I was too nervous about messing up my face.

Sunday I slept quite late--finally got up and cleaned and got ready for my Sunday softball game. We played the Northwestern team and HAMMERED them. The final score was 12-1. Yikes! I hit .500, plus a sacrifice grounder. And I was part of a double-play--there was a runner at 2nd who was caught between the bases when our center fielder caught it. I yelled "Throw it here, he has to tag up!" And when I got the ball, ran his ass down, even though I could've just ran back to 2nd base. But what fun would that have been? :) It's more fun to tag them!

At one point I was on 1st base and someone popped it up to the infield--the 2nd and 1st base players weren't communicating too well, so I gambled, thinking they wouldn't catch it. Well, the 2nd basewoman DID catch it so I was in trouble since I hadn't tagged up! I DOVE back to 1st base just under the tag--so now I can say yes, I HAVE slid head first!

After the game 5 of us hung around for batting practice and then we went over to a bar when the Northwestern team told us they'd be. And--I think one of my teammates was flirting with me? Sometimes it's hard to tell. But he seems to direct a lot of attention my way--he's always teasing me or asking me questions, and then he was comparing our gloves (his is huge and expensive, mine is very old--I've had it since I was 8-9--and NOT-expensive) he said something like "I'll only buy her a good one if she goes on a date with me." Um, what?! I'm just saying, my female radar is pinging. He is cute, though. Anyway, we all had pitchers and maued wings. Nom, nom, nom...

Kind of cool thing is happening out of a terrible thing. As I posted a few days ago, a man raped a woman two weekends ago in Inwood Hill Park. Jason Kendall has twice-weekly astronomy viewings in the park, and the PTB were less than enthusiastic about after-dark activity in the park, and Jason was putting together a Take Back the Park event.

This actually led to a contretemps between me and someone on the FB list for Jason's Astronomy Viewings, some guy named John who just HAD to weigh in on how "irresponsible" the victim was for being alone in the park after 10:00. I responded politely at first, saying that kind of language was victim-blaming, and none of us know why that woman was there at that time (she could've been abandoned by her boyfriend, she could've lost her life-saving medication at the park, etc. etc.). He got defensive and responded with this long-ish, sarcastic diatribe, ending with "Oh please. Be serious." I saw red. My response went along the lines of "No, YOU be serious. And save your lecturing about a terrible possibility which will almost certainly never happen to YOU but which every woman fears and worries about. I assure you, every woman here knows what she needs to do to avoid rape, we don't need YOU to tell us. Again, YOU don't know why that woman was there. The time to talk about 'responsibility' and prevention is beforehand, to your kids, not right after a horrible rape. And better yet, talk to other men ABOUT rape. What are YOU doing to make the neighborhood safer?" He replied "I refuse to argue with you" and I got even more sarcastic--I wrote "*pat, pat* You just keep on, keeping on. Although I find it impossible to believe this is the first time you've received this reaction when lecturing a bunch of women about responsibility in the aftermath of a rape."

WTF is it about some men who feel the need to lecture us about our responsibility for not getting raped? What the HELL could you possibly have to offer a discussion about rape? Are you a likely victim of rape? No. Are you a likely perpetrator of rape? No. So shut the hell up. WE KNOW WHAT WE NEED TO DO. Namely, not be born a woman. Because talking about irresponsibility just enrages me. The line keeps moving. In New York City, the line is apparently being outside by yourself in the park after dark. In Saudi Arabia the line is an unveiled face. In Egypt apparently none of these things matter--women suffer very high rates of harassment and rape, even thought they're mostly veiled. So the common factor is just BEING A WOMAN. So don't talk to me about "irresponsibility," don't lecture me, don't mansplain. If you want to express concern, that's different--that's sweet, that's not condescending, that's just being a friend, or a human being. But the lecturing--unless you're tackling the problem at its source (MEN WHO RAPE) you're just talking to hear yourself. When you use the word irresponsible, you are saying women are responsible for getting themselves raped. They're not. The rapists are responsible. Talk to THEM. And don't buy into that crap about how rapists are all beady-eyed strangers, Others--they're sons and brothers and people you know. The cop rapist, Kenneth Moreno, has a wife and children. His partner Franklin Mata, the guy who abetted him, has a mother. Look at the Our Guys case in Glen Ridge NJ, when a bunch of beloved athletes, the town's fair-haired darlings, raped a developmentally disabled girl who hero-worshipped them and then witness-tampered. And the father of one of these thugs defended his son's actions by saying any "red-blooded American boy" would've done the same. Rape is a product of human society, not some kind of aberration. Otherwise it wouldn't be so common.

And please don't mention men who get raped, either by other men or by women. The first is another phenomenon entirely--it has little in common with date rape or stranger rape, that is about male shaming and other issues. And women-on-men rape is so rare, it's off the charts, and again has nothing to do with the issues behind men-on-women rape. It happens from time to time, and its victims have my sympathy, but it doesn't belong in these discussions.

Okay, got sidetracked there. Back to Take Back the Park--Jason wants volunteers to escort people to and from the astronomy viewings. He needs two at every viewing--it's a bit of a time commitment, 7:30 or so to the end of the viewing, around 11:30, but I'd like to help out, so I said I would look over the dates and tell him which ones I could do. So now today I find a reporter has emailed me, wants to interview me about this. Jason gave him my contact information. So the guy is calling me tomorrow at work, and I'm going to be interviewed!

Okay, let me start off by saying I do love Griffin. He is a dear friend, a wonderful person and I love him. But he can be quite tone deaf sometimes, and right now I'm pretty annoyed with him. He came to see the show Saturday night and joined us afterward when we went to an Irish place nearby for food and drink. The subject of The Verdict came up. Griffin started off by saying "I haven't been following this case that much"--okay, right there you need to just stop talking then. You don't know much about the case, so you probably don't have that much to contribute to this extremely sensitive subject. So since he doesn't know that much about the case, he just repeated his brother's opinions. (Griffin's brother is a lawyer, and when I first posted on FB about The Verdict, initially responded with a long mansplanation about Why He Agreed. I posted back "you are seriously misjudging your audience and the timing." To give him credit, Austin immediately agreed, took it down, and apologized, both on my wall and via private email.) Griffin kept saying "it's terrible, but..." and "you need to respect the law" and "our law says..." GAHHHH!!! What does that even mean, "you need to respect the law"--how does that possibly contribute to the conversation?! I'm not standing in front of the guy's house with a pitchfork, I'm airing my opinions! Saying "you need to respect the law" is just another way of saying "you're overreacting, calm down, settle down" which is what women hear ALL THE EFFING TIME. MOST OF THE CITY, *including lawyers* think the jury got it way wrong! It's not just us emotional wimminz with our irrational, overreacting wombs who think this way--I have been monitoring every media message board I can find and nearly EVERYONE thinks this is bullshit. There have been several articles about the so-called CSI-effect, how juries seem to think you HAVE to have DNA now to convict. How do you think they got a conviction with Abner Louima?! Broomsticks don't have orgasms, you know!

One especially enraging thing about the "it's terrible but--" was that I specifically said to him "do NOT rationalize this. I don't want to hear 'but.'" Partly this is because I think the verdict is indefensible but also partly because this is not some sort of theoretical discussion in a law school classroom--this is LIFE. This verdict is real life for every woman in the city. It is personally offensive to me, here and now, to hear you or your brother trying to rationalize this. Maybe at some point in the future, but not now, when I'm still so angry about it. I said this to him several times--he wasn't even listening, he just kept giving me his opinions. Griffin, if you don't know anything about the case--maybe you should just listen. What is so hard about that? Why do you think you have something to teach me about this? I've served on a Manhattan felony-crime jury, I know what they're told, I know the parameters. Griffin has this blindness where he thinks he needs to teach people--last fall he got into some kind of FB argument after seeing The Social Network and posting "Is it so hard for people to understand that just because you show misogyny on screen, it doesn't mean you endorse it in real life?" Quite understandably, a female friend of his, who'd also seen TSN, was irritated, and responded. At the time I could only respond to Griffin's tone since I hadn't seen that movie yet, but I told him "when you start off 'Is it so hard for people to understand...' right off the bat you're dismissing everyone who doesn't agree with you about a subject [a movie's subtext] which is impossible to quantify. Don't be surprised if people take offense to that." Having since seen TSN, I want to say to him--Griffin, you are a young man in his twenties. I think I am safe in saying that there is almost nothing you have to teach me or any other female about misogyny. Stop trying to teach other people about this sort of thing and just start listening.

I'm...devastated. Man, I just cannot believe this. I can't believe it. I can't believe it.

Fuck the jury system. People are pigs. These fucking pieces of filth ADMITTED it. The victim taped the guy admitting he'd done it. So much evidence against them.

Jesus. It's open season on women now--read this comments section on a Salon article for a taste of how much free-floatng fucking HATRED there is for women. Way to go jury, you've just convinced every woman who is raped NOT to come forward. Why bother? When there's as much evidence as with this case--when the guy ADMITS IT--Jesus, I hate people.

HATE. Thank God that asshole in 2007 didn't actually stick around--clearly he would've been acquitted. Oh wait, he was a black thug, not one of our shining wonderful policeman who are here to serve and protect. BULLSHIT. Fucking bullshit. Fucking rot in hell, you rapist animals.

I hope I meet them on the street so I can spit in their rapist faces.

I am no expert on Arizona politics but I have visited there several times and my father and stepmother go to their house there all the time. It's...sad, I guess, that Arizona has been cast in the role of this super-conservative, xenophobic area. I can't say how accurate that is but I will say at least the Sedona area is a mixture of very conservative and very liberal, hippie-ish, New Age. And they all seem to get along just fine. I'll also say, regarding their draconian response to illegal immigration--they're on the front line. Arizona has to deal with that situation is a very different way than most of the rest of the country. I don't agree--AT ALL--with demonizing or otherizing illegals, and I think demanding to see their papers smacks of Nazi Germany and is ridiculous and racist. But they're desperate. I strongly support legal immigration--in fact, I think it should be easier to get citizenship--but you have got to wait in line.

I probably could've written that a few months ago, but it came up again when I was at the gym watching Nightline last night. They showed this...sea, this beautiful sea of flowers, balloons, notes outside the hospital where Congresswoman Giffords and some of the other wounded are, all well-wishers, all Arizonans who came together to unite. I especially loved seeing the Native Americans chanting. You see a lot more of those cultures out there--we've pretty much eradicated that here on the East Coast :( but there are reservations and stores and constant reminders over in the Southwest. It's really lovely. I thought that chanting was as great a response as praying or writing a note.

And this is sad (from the Post):

While federal lawmakers debate how best to increase safety for themselves and their staff, some Arizona Republican party officials are choosing to leave office in the face of threats.

A conflict that has been going on between local Arizona Republicans came to an end in the wake of the shooting in Tucson on Saturday when Arizona's Republican District 20 Chairman Anthony Miller and several others chose to resign.

The Arizona Republic reports that Miller, 43, a former campaign worker for Sen.John McCain who was re-elected to a second one-year term last month, has been concerned for his family's safety by constant verbal attacks and blog posts from some local committee members with tea party movement ties.

I can't blame him for not wanting to die but--yeah, way to stifle debate through threats of violence.

Well, the good news is they caught the vile piece of filth who beat that poor woman at Social. He's a Moroccan construction worker who lives in Pennsylvania who's working here on a job. They also caught him on camera later that night shoplifting a beer. He's being charged with 1st- and 2nd degree assault, attempted rape, and attempted murder, because her injuries are so severe.

The bad (well, more insult-to-injury) news is that, if you can believe it, he's actually trying to claim self-defense. He also grinned at the cameras during the perp walk, because hey! What a great story to tell all of your construction buddies back home, how that bitch turned you down but you sure showed her!

Let's go over this:

*He asked her to dance, she turned him down
*He followed her into the ladies' room
*He attacked her in the stall
*and fractured her skull and broke her eye socket, leaving her unconscious on the bathroom floor with her pants pulled down.

The good news is, 98% of the comments are overwhelmingly supportive of the victim, and harshly critical of the piece of filth who attacked her.

The bad news is, there is the occasional dickless loser who says things like "well, why did she have to turn him down so harshly? If she hadn't been such a bitch..."

But I did love the one commenter who said "you guys are f-ing garbage. you never get laid for obvious reasons; you are scum. Death to scum." That is definitely hitting them where it hurts--obviously they don't believe that woman are worthy of respect, you're never going to raise their consciousness, but if you say "WOMEN HAVE AGENCY. THEY WON'T SLEEP WITH YOU IF YOU'RE A DICKLESS LOSER" that might actually sink in.

Some guys are predators. Nothing will sink in--there's a Nietschean abyss where a normal person's soul would be. For whatever reason--circumstances, upbringing, culture, religion (but ALWAYS by choice, no criminal ever pulls that "I couldn't help myself" crap around me, you always choose to commit a crime)--they are soulless, they exist to prey, to hurt, to defecate on, to kill women. Read about exactly what Ted Bundy did to Lisa Levy and Margaret Bowman at the Chi O house in Florida--he's the perfect example (I won't go into details, it's pretty horrific). He literally chewed them up and spit them out. The evidence tied him to them through the bite marks. Read about Winston Moseley, the "man" who murdered Kitty Genovese and then raped her as she lay dying, who woke up that night and literally said "I want to kill a woman." (He'd already killed two other women.) It's always women. These guys always turn to women--women are weaker, less able to fight of, and for some reason, we're always to blame for--something. Not dancing with the guy, we're stand-ins for the mother, we're...I don't know. But somehow we're always to blame for some loser's problems.

I hope this guy never gets out of jail. And I hope this poor woman is able to heal.

Woman Brutally Attacked in Hell's Kitchen

SOCIAL--Duncan and I have been there. Abby Katz had a birthday celebration there a few years ago. Jesus.

This dickless piece of shit loser asked her to dance, she said no, so he followed her into the women's bathroom and:

*fractured her skull
*broke her nose and eye socket
*and possibly raped her.

This is why I'm so cold to strange men who approach me in nearly any situation. Any one of you could be this monster. Get the fuck away. Unsolicited attention is not a compliment, stop seeing women as public property for you to mark, and get the hell over your threatened male psyche--learn to take no for an answer.

God, I effing hate people sometimes. And by people I mean strange men who cannot--will not--be ignored.

(And what the hell is going on in Midtown? A few days ago a guy was stabbed on the 53rd St./7th Avenue BDE stop, yesterday two teens were stabbed at the Columbus Circle stop, and Tuesday a gang fight broke out in hell's Kitchen, at 49th & 8th.)