O.K. Girls and Boys, pay attention to Mother Calhoun. The Tribune yesterday had further details on one recent Cal Poly rape case that indicates how badly things can go south. The young “victim” in this case reported to police that she went to a frat party at 11 pm, scarfed down a dozen shots of Jagermeister liquor and a shot of some other kind of booze. She cannot recall what happened after about 1:30 a.m.. She wakes up in some kind of pain and, as the Tribune notes, “believed she’d been raped.” Police go to the frat house and find her panties “hanging from a palm tree in the courtyard.”
A few days later, a guy called “Joe” called her to see how she’s doing and the police set a phone trap and record the calls, the jist of which is these two young idiots were drunk and had some kind of sex and at this point in the story, it’s not at all clear whether the victim herself can remember what the hell she did or didn’t do or when she did or didn’t pass out. And “Joe,” also drunk, concluded that when the young woman took him aside and said “let’s do it” and got herself undressed, he foolishly thought that implied consent.
And being a drunk young 23 year-old male at a frat party nuzzling up a drunk cute young woman, he went along with that implied consent and ended up with his face and name all over the front page of the local paper and the word “rapist” stuck next to it because the young woman in question “believed” she’d been raped. And even if this particular case is dropped, the rapist brand will stick to “Joe” forever in the world of Google. Even years from now when “Joe” is a successful professional and is perhaps being considered for a job promotion that involves an extensive security background search. Well, you get that picture, don’t you?
And the drunk young woman in question who can’t explain how her panties got up that palm tree? A police report is filed. Just because the newspapers don’t print “victims” names, she’s undoubtedly going to end up immortalized in Google and/or Facebook as well since nowadays, nothing seems to remain a secret for long. And years from now, when she’s being considered for a job promotion involving an extensive security background check?
THAT’s what 12 shots of Jaegermeister will get you in a world where the law can be used as a blunt instrument in dealing with the incredibly complex and fraught world of human sexuality. That's where our politically correct inclinations and our desire to level a playing field in a distinctly unfair natural world and our unwillingness to honestly deal with our complicated and often hidden sexual selves will lead: two lives publicly derailed with consequences that may last a lifetime.
If drunk young boys and girls are going to do what drunk young boys and girls will do, surely there has got to be a better way to handle these cases? Better definitions of just what constitutes “rape” in a real world where random hook-ups by total strangers apparently are the norm? Or even some better way to hold both parties fairly accountable for the crime of walking while stupid?.
Or perhaps in cases like this, we should make it legal to redact both parties’ names until indictments come down. That would be better than what happened to these two idiots that resulted in “Joe” branded forever as a rapist on a “belief” by a drunk young woman who didn’t know how her panties got up that palm tree.
Speaking of Walking While Stupid
Here’s the truly amazing thing about the Congressman Weiner’s wiener. Our political landscape has been turned into a killing ground: No quarter given. It’s swarming with political operatives constantly searching for any chink in anyone’s armor, a relentless 24/7 stake-out using the most sophisticated sneak & peep tools, including hacking and purloined emails. In short, if you’re a Pol you KNOW that there’s a whole army of operatives just gunning for you and that anything and anyone is fair game.
Yet there’s Weiner sexting away with perfect strangers who lose no time contacting various bloggers and networks in order to cash in and get their 15 minutes of fame. In today’s political world, in today’s Facebook, YouTube world, there are no confidences: everybody will sell out everybody else for that 15-minute spotlight.
Yet Weiner still sends dirty pictures and has phone sex with complete strangers? All of which tells me that (1) he can’t help himself, which means (2) he’s out of control, which means he’s (3)unstable and heading for a crash & burn. OR, it means (1) he thinks he’s untouchable and above the Laws of Consequences that govern the rest of us, which means(2) he’s seriously out of touch with reality, which means(3) he’s unstable and heading for a crash & burn.
Which he did.
Two stories, both sad as hell train wrecks for the participants, and likely funny as hell to the passersby. And both stories as old as the hills. As Willa Cather noted, “There are only two or three human stories, and they go on repeating themselves as fiercely as if they had never happened before.”
Which is why the price of stock in Kleenex will never drop.
Thursday, June 09, 2011
Tuesday, June 07, 2011
O.K. Poly Dollies, We Gotta Talk
A few days ago, Raymond James of Atascadero, wrote a letter to the editor regarding the recent spate of rapes at Cal poly wherein the young women had apparently been drinking at a frat party, etc and, well, you know the rest. Here’s Mr. James:
“As long as the view persists that the victim of a sexual assault is never at fault, they will most assuredly continue. Generations of men have been brought up with the belief that if you are looking for sex that “candy is dandy, but liquor is quicker.” Any young woman who goes to a party with a bunch of horny young men with the belief that she can drink all she wants without there being a risk of consequences is simply misguided.
“I believe the reason that authorities are not prosecuting recent cases of so-called date rate of three drunken women is that a jury will conclude that the women involved gave implied consent for whatever happened. When a woman lets herself get so drunk that she can’t say “no,” she must accept responsibility for being a fool. The general public may be outraged by this comment, but this is a fact of life in the real world.”
By coincidence, shortly after reading Mr. James letter, I was catching up on my reading and picked up a January/February issue of The Atlantic. There were two essays discussing several recent books about boys and girls behaving badly and the issue of the impact of pornography in our culture and sexual mores. Both articles should be required reading by all Cal Poly undergrads. As a matter of fact, the school administration and the various PC “Rape is Bad” activist groups should make these essays required reading.
In a nutshell, here’s Natasha Vargas-Cooper (“Hard Core, The new world of porn is revealing eternal truths about men and women,” p. 97) what too many young men and women either don’t know, weren’t taught by their mothers and fathers, or have simply forgotten:” Men, so the conventional wisdom goes, tend to desire more than women are willing to give them sexually. The granting of sex is the most powerful weapon women possess in their struggle with men. Yet in each new sexual negotiation a woman has with a man, she not only spends down that capital, she begins at a disadvantage, because the potential losses are always greater for her. A failed or even successful single encounter can be life-altering. Whatever ‘social construct’ you might impose upon the whole matter, nature imposes much more rigorous consequences on women than on men.”
And no matter how evolved we humans like to think of ourselves, when it comes to sex, the psyches of both males and females contains some all too dark realities: Men rape; women bleed and die. And both are simply mother nature’s indifferent drive to ensure that the species survives. For males, a successful breeding strategy is to impregnate as many females as possible any way he can: Candy, a movie, a bottle of Jack Daniels and/or a club over the head.) For a female, every sexual encounter has the potential for far more danger: A delightful encounter, a successful pregnancy or rape and/or death in childbirth.
And no matter how we would like to rise above our biology, there is no way around mother nature. As Ms. Vargas-Cooper notes: “nature imposes much more rigorous consequences on women than on men.”
Which is why the young women of Cal Poly who think they can behave like drunken frat boys with no more consequences than a ferocious hangover, are seriously mistaken. If they’re lucky they may walk away “date raped” and much sadder but wiser. If they aren’t so lucky they’ll walk away with an STD or an unwanted pregnancy. And if they are really, really unucky, they’ll never walk away anywhere, ever.
Which is why, Mr. James of Atascadero hit the nail on the head by reminding young women that in the real world, things can operate in far more dangerous fashion than it does in FantasyVille and they alone are responsible for keeping themselves safe and alive, which means they are going to have to accept responsibility for not being used as a piece of Kleenex for a gaggle of immature, horny Drunken Jerk-Boys.
Speaking of Immature, horny Jerk-Boys
Ah, so it WAS Congressman Weiner’s wienie after all. Let me ask again: Are we going to have to only elect eunuchs in order to get anything done in Washington?
So, should Weiner resign his Congressional seat? Hmmm, let’s think here: Here’s an immature lying, ego-riddled, self-involved, headline-grabbing Jerk-Boy Jackass who gets paid big bucks to jerk off on the public’s dime. Hmmm, where should such a guy go to be surrounded by other lying time-wasting idiots, all playing with themselves while Rome burns?
Oh, I know. Congress!
Now, seriously
Understand that the NRC will be in town at the Embassy Suites Wed. June 15th at 7 pm. to listen to the public regarding the re-licensing of Diablo Canyon. If you have anything to say, you might want to show up. It’s likely to be a lively evening.
And, The Board of Supervisors is scheduled to review and approve the Climate Action Plan this summer. That’s a plan that outlines various ways the County can go green. But, apparently, that plant DID NOT include a plan for “Community Choice.”
From the Sierra Club’s newsletter: “Community Choice Aggregation (CCA), established in 2002 by California Assembly Bill 117, is a major policy innovation that gives local governments new and important rights to take major roles in achieving the state’s most important clean energy and climate protection mandates. It empowers local governments and citizens to address many destructive impacts from the way we generate and use electricity. Only the state’s community choice law gives cities and counties the right to purchase electricity from a source other than the utility and determine the sources of their electric power.
"Basically, SLO County can become its own energy distributor and increase the amount of non-polluting, renewable energy available to residents, providing energy to local residents and businesses at rates that, in successful CCA’s across the country, have been about 20 percent less than what investor-owned utilities charge.”
If you think that plan should be included in the final draft of the SLO County’s Climate Action Plan, let your supervisor know.
“As long as the view persists that the victim of a sexual assault is never at fault, they will most assuredly continue. Generations of men have been brought up with the belief that if you are looking for sex that “candy is dandy, but liquor is quicker.” Any young woman who goes to a party with a bunch of horny young men with the belief that she can drink all she wants without there being a risk of consequences is simply misguided.
“I believe the reason that authorities are not prosecuting recent cases of so-called date rate of three drunken women is that a jury will conclude that the women involved gave implied consent for whatever happened. When a woman lets herself get so drunk that she can’t say “no,” she must accept responsibility for being a fool. The general public may be outraged by this comment, but this is a fact of life in the real world.”
By coincidence, shortly after reading Mr. James letter, I was catching up on my reading and picked up a January/February issue of The Atlantic. There were two essays discussing several recent books about boys and girls behaving badly and the issue of the impact of pornography in our culture and sexual mores. Both articles should be required reading by all Cal Poly undergrads. As a matter of fact, the school administration and the various PC “Rape is Bad” activist groups should make these essays required reading.
In a nutshell, here’s Natasha Vargas-Cooper (“Hard Core, The new world of porn is revealing eternal truths about men and women,” p. 97) what too many young men and women either don’t know, weren’t taught by their mothers and fathers, or have simply forgotten:” Men, so the conventional wisdom goes, tend to desire more than women are willing to give them sexually. The granting of sex is the most powerful weapon women possess in their struggle with men. Yet in each new sexual negotiation a woman has with a man, she not only spends down that capital, she begins at a disadvantage, because the potential losses are always greater for her. A failed or even successful single encounter can be life-altering. Whatever ‘social construct’ you might impose upon the whole matter, nature imposes much more rigorous consequences on women than on men.”
And no matter how evolved we humans like to think of ourselves, when it comes to sex, the psyches of both males and females contains some all too dark realities: Men rape; women bleed and die. And both are simply mother nature’s indifferent drive to ensure that the species survives. For males, a successful breeding strategy is to impregnate as many females as possible any way he can: Candy, a movie, a bottle of Jack Daniels and/or a club over the head.) For a female, every sexual encounter has the potential for far more danger: A delightful encounter, a successful pregnancy or rape and/or death in childbirth.
And no matter how we would like to rise above our biology, there is no way around mother nature. As Ms. Vargas-Cooper notes: “nature imposes much more rigorous consequences on women than on men.”
Which is why the young women of Cal Poly who think they can behave like drunken frat boys with no more consequences than a ferocious hangover, are seriously mistaken. If they’re lucky they may walk away “date raped” and much sadder but wiser. If they aren’t so lucky they’ll walk away with an STD or an unwanted pregnancy. And if they are really, really unucky, they’ll never walk away anywhere, ever.
Which is why, Mr. James of Atascadero hit the nail on the head by reminding young women that in the real world, things can operate in far more dangerous fashion than it does in FantasyVille and they alone are responsible for keeping themselves safe and alive, which means they are going to have to accept responsibility for not being used as a piece of Kleenex for a gaggle of immature, horny Drunken Jerk-Boys.
Speaking of Immature, horny Jerk-Boys
Ah, so it WAS Congressman Weiner’s wienie after all. Let me ask again: Are we going to have to only elect eunuchs in order to get anything done in Washington?
So, should Weiner resign his Congressional seat? Hmmm, let’s think here: Here’s an immature lying, ego-riddled, self-involved, headline-grabbing Jerk-Boy Jackass who gets paid big bucks to jerk off on the public’s dime. Hmmm, where should such a guy go to be surrounded by other lying time-wasting idiots, all playing with themselves while Rome burns?
Oh, I know. Congress!
Now, seriously
Understand that the NRC will be in town at the Embassy Suites Wed. June 15th at 7 pm. to listen to the public regarding the re-licensing of Diablo Canyon. If you have anything to say, you might want to show up. It’s likely to be a lively evening.
And, The Board of Supervisors is scheduled to review and approve the Climate Action Plan this summer. That’s a plan that outlines various ways the County can go green. But, apparently, that plant DID NOT include a plan for “Community Choice.”
From the Sierra Club’s newsletter: “Community Choice Aggregation (CCA), established in 2002 by California Assembly Bill 117, is a major policy innovation that gives local governments new and important rights to take major roles in achieving the state’s most important clean energy and climate protection mandates. It empowers local governments and citizens to address many destructive impacts from the way we generate and use electricity. Only the state’s community choice law gives cities and counties the right to purchase electricity from a source other than the utility and determine the sources of their electric power.
"Basically, SLO County can become its own energy distributor and increase the amount of non-polluting, renewable energy available to residents, providing energy to local residents and businesses at rates that, in successful CCA’s across the country, have been about 20 percent less than what investor-owned utilities charge.”
If you think that plan should be included in the final draft of the SLO County’s Climate Action Plan, let your supervisor know.
Monday, June 06, 2011
Sic Transit Gloria Mundi
On Friday, the mallow was in its glory, larger than I'd ever seen it in the 20-some years it has queened it over the back yard with its blaze of pink massed and glowing in the spring sun. So I took a picture of its blooming beauty and posted it before dawn on Sunday morning. When the sun came up and I went out into the back hard, its cascade of flowers were drooping alarmingly. Peering more closely, I could see the mass of branches covered with water-catching blooms had simply caught too much of the rain and the added weight of the water had caused the entire plant to shift in the soggy sand and fall over on it's side, with some of its notoriously weedy and weak branches already split and drooping.
I quickly got out the pruning shears and harvested as many blooms as I could, putting several vases full on the dining room table and dropping off several huge bouquets at the neighbors. Then it was out with the lopping shears. There'll now be several hours worth of branch chopping for the green recycle bin and a few prayers that the root system wasn't ruined and the pruned back mallow will rise again.
Sic transit gloria mundi. Or, The Mallow Plant That Was Too Big To Fail.
Dang.
Sunday, June 05, 2011
Rain Daze
But the 25++ year-old pink mallow plant has run amok this year, which is what I guess it does when it's cut back severely and then gets rained on. And I discovered wonderful something quite by accident. Mallow flower stems, in all their hollyhock look-alike glory, make wonderful cut flowers. Toss a little powdered flower extender/preservative into the vase and they'll last for well over a week. Which was a surprise since I figured they'd wilt and croak within hours.
Given the massive bush in the back yard, I'll have lots of vases of beautiful mallows in the house all summer while I stand in the middle of the livingroom in a sweater and look out at . . . all the rain.
Friday, June 03, 2011
Palinov's Dogs
Calhoun’s Cannons for June 3, 2011
Humans are the only animals who will follow unstable pack leaders
Cesar Milan, The Dog Whisperer
The political silly season – summer – started early. First we got the full-throated press pack baying after Donald Trump every time he popped his fox-red furry noggin up past the petunias. La Donald was flogging his TV show by pretending to run for the Republican presidential nomination. “ I’d be yOOOge, yuOOOge!” promised the Donald. But the only thing yOOOge was La Donald’s ego, his hairpiece and, as most people guessed, his 60-million dollar “Celebrity Apprentice” salary which trumped even fake political ambition.
This delightful romp was followed by the next distraction: the mystery of who hacked his Twitter account and publicly posted a photo of a crotch that may or may not be Congressman Anthony Weiner’s weenie. (Oh, Dear God, plueeeze don’t tell me we have another Pesky Political Penis running amok again. Are we going to have to only elect eunuchs in order to get anything done in Washington?) Well, the vital national security issue of Weiner’s Weenie will carry the 24/7 news cycle for a few days until it’s time for the Next Pointless Thing to distract and amuse an ADD nation.
And that rumble you hear comin’ over the hill, diesel fumes in the mornin,’ fumes that smell like . . . Victory, by golly!, well that would be the Queen of Silly, who has and will continue to top them all: Sarah Palin’s Yes I’m Not Running For President ‘12 tour is on the road in a ginormous bus with a huge “One Nation” and a flag painted on it, with the press pack, like Pavlov’s dogs, tongues running out, baying right behind it. And already La Palin’s faux complaining that the press is harassing her, that she and her family are on a little vacation, just like any other heartland family.
Oh, absolutely. You see those heartland “real” Americans all over the road during summer: Dad, who’s been out of work for a year and Mom, who is working two jobs to keep their underwater house afloat, regularly rent a huge, incredibly expensive bus and then have it hand-painted with a flag so they can then take the family on a meet-‘n-greet celebrity photo-op tour vacation to eat pizza with La Donald in New York and make little impromptu stump speeches at various historical American sites. Just like all hard-working real American families do when they go on vacation, you betcha!
All of which, in Palin’s case, is reminiscent of Marie Antoinette who costumed herself and her ladies-in-waiting to look like milkmaids so they could all troop off to a newly created faux farm on the grounds of Versailles to play at being peasants.
And so the Silly Season Summer dance begins, as structured as a pas de deux: Palin pops up, the media bays. They can’t help it. Their jobs depend on it. To their corporate masters, La Palin is pure ratings gold. And to La Palin, those ratings translate into real gold as well. Fake political campaigns, as La Donald and La Huckabee and La Gingrich and the other assorted well paid La Pols on Fox News have discovered, pays waaaayyyy better than public service.
As for the public, well, they demand their daily dose of celebrity as well. It now seems hard-wired into our popular-culture psyche and we are helpless in its grip since the human eye is programmed to scan for and focus on novelty – that unexpected movement in the shrubbery that demands attention.
You see the phenomenon at work every time a TV camera is doing an on-the-street interview, for example. Invariably, somebody will pop into view making a face or yelling something or holding a dumb sign. And try as you might, it’s impossible to ignore that action. La Palin has that pop-up strategy down to a fine art form. Nobody knows how to effectively surf the 24/7 news cycle schedule better than she and her handlers do. Masters at the game.
Is our country on the brink of financial ruin? Default only weeks away? Are the effects of climate change already upon us and because we have dithered, we are totally unprepared and will pay a fearsome price for our folly? Is a nuclear-armed Pakistan riding the Taliban tiger and now can’t get off? Is an Al Qaeda-infested Yemen now on the brink of chaos and civil war?
Well, pay no attention. It’s not important. What’s important is fake news, Dancing With The Stars, missing wieners and now the constant novelty of pop-up, Wack-a-Mole celebrity political theatre. That’s what Americans want, and what Americans want, they get.
Meanwhile, Democrats, comedians and pundits are praying – praying – for a Palin/Bachman GOP presidential ticket. It couldn’t possibly get any better than that: Politics as Farce.
Humans are the only animals who will follow unstable pack leaders
Cesar Milan, The Dog Whisperer
The political silly season – summer – started early. First we got the full-throated press pack baying after Donald Trump every time he popped his fox-red furry noggin up past the petunias. La Donald was flogging his TV show by pretending to run for the Republican presidential nomination. “ I’d be yOOOge, yuOOOge!” promised the Donald. But the only thing yOOOge was La Donald’s ego, his hairpiece and, as most people guessed, his 60-million dollar “Celebrity Apprentice” salary which trumped even fake political ambition.
This delightful romp was followed by the next distraction: the mystery of who hacked his Twitter account and publicly posted a photo of a crotch that may or may not be Congressman Anthony Weiner’s weenie. (Oh, Dear God, plueeeze don’t tell me we have another Pesky Political Penis running amok again. Are we going to have to only elect eunuchs in order to get anything done in Washington?) Well, the vital national security issue of Weiner’s Weenie will carry the 24/7 news cycle for a few days until it’s time for the Next Pointless Thing to distract and amuse an ADD nation.
And that rumble you hear comin’ over the hill, diesel fumes in the mornin,’ fumes that smell like . . . Victory, by golly!, well that would be the Queen of Silly, who has and will continue to top them all: Sarah Palin’s Yes I’m Not Running For President ‘12 tour is on the road in a ginormous bus with a huge “One Nation” and a flag painted on it, with the press pack, like Pavlov’s dogs, tongues running out, baying right behind it. And already La Palin’s faux complaining that the press is harassing her, that she and her family are on a little vacation, just like any other heartland family.
Oh, absolutely. You see those heartland “real” Americans all over the road during summer: Dad, who’s been out of work for a year and Mom, who is working two jobs to keep their underwater house afloat, regularly rent a huge, incredibly expensive bus and then have it hand-painted with a flag so they can then take the family on a meet-‘n-greet celebrity photo-op tour vacation to eat pizza with La Donald in New York and make little impromptu stump speeches at various historical American sites. Just like all hard-working real American families do when they go on vacation, you betcha!
All of which, in Palin’s case, is reminiscent of Marie Antoinette who costumed herself and her ladies-in-waiting to look like milkmaids so they could all troop off to a newly created faux farm on the grounds of Versailles to play at being peasants.
And so the Silly Season Summer dance begins, as structured as a pas de deux: Palin pops up, the media bays. They can’t help it. Their jobs depend on it. To their corporate masters, La Palin is pure ratings gold. And to La Palin, those ratings translate into real gold as well. Fake political campaigns, as La Donald and La Huckabee and La Gingrich and the other assorted well paid La Pols on Fox News have discovered, pays waaaayyyy better than public service.
As for the public, well, they demand their daily dose of celebrity as well. It now seems hard-wired into our popular-culture psyche and we are helpless in its grip since the human eye is programmed to scan for and focus on novelty – that unexpected movement in the shrubbery that demands attention.
You see the phenomenon at work every time a TV camera is doing an on-the-street interview, for example. Invariably, somebody will pop into view making a face or yelling something or holding a dumb sign. And try as you might, it’s impossible to ignore that action. La Palin has that pop-up strategy down to a fine art form. Nobody knows how to effectively surf the 24/7 news cycle schedule better than she and her handlers do. Masters at the game.
Is our country on the brink of financial ruin? Default only weeks away? Are the effects of climate change already upon us and because we have dithered, we are totally unprepared and will pay a fearsome price for our folly? Is a nuclear-armed Pakistan riding the Taliban tiger and now can’t get off? Is an Al Qaeda-infested Yemen now on the brink of chaos and civil war?
Well, pay no attention. It’s not important. What’s important is fake news, Dancing With The Stars, missing wieners and now the constant novelty of pop-up, Wack-a-Mole celebrity political theatre. That’s what Americans want, and what Americans want, they get.
Meanwhile, Democrats, comedians and pundits are praying – praying – for a Palin/Bachman GOP presidential ticket. It couldn’t possibly get any better than that: Politics as Farce.
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