A Tale of Two Stories

GO train assault haunts victim:

It was 16 years ago when Debbie, then 17, was … on her way from her Oakville home to a George Michael concert in Toronto. She was sitting by herself in the upper level of an otherwise empty car between Oakville and Port Credit when a man came up behind her, choked her and dragged her into a washroom. He sexually assaulted her and knocked her unconscious. She needed dental work and suffered permanent partial paralysis in her right eye.

…But Debbie is not without blame in this tortured journey through a legal maze.

As part of its defence, GO Transit said Debbie was a non-paying customer and that she was caught without a ticket that day. In effect, she was a trespasser and GO Transit and CN said they don't knowingly permit non-paying passengers to remain on board their trains [and] they aren't liable for the attack on Debbie.

Says Shaker Megan, who forwarded me this story: "If these asshats are serious about this, it means that either they let her stay on the train knowing that she didn't have a ticket (unlikely), or they checked to see if she had a ticket after she was assaulted. WTF? Seriously? Sorry about the sexual assault and beating, sweetheart, but can we just check your ticket to make sure you're all paid up, just before we call 911? Gah!"

Meanwhile, as I briefly mentioned yesterday in the round-up, eight young men who filmed themselves orally raping a 17-year-old young woman, setting her hair on fire, and spitting and urinating on her, then disseminated the tape as a porn film called "Cunt the Movie," were given probation and ordered to "participate in a rehabilitation program for male adolescents about positive sexuality."

I'm routinely called (variations on) a crazed, evil, delusional feminazi for not obediently genuflecting to the Totally True Story about how legions of women just falsely cry rape willy-nilly to ruin men's lives and oh you don't even KNOW how the courts are just stacked against legions of poor, unfairly accused men, but the reason I fail in perpetuity to bow at that particular altar is because I'm a member of the reality-based community, and reality just doesn't bear that shit out.

In fact, it pretty much bears out the exact bloody opposite. KTHXBYE.