Shakesville

Pop Quiz

Which one of these things is not like the others?

Conan O'Brien's Nov. 8 TBS debut is drawing ever-closer, and boy, what a doozy of a first week he's lined up.

Deadline Hollywood reports that within four days, Coco will host Tom Hanks, Seth Rogen, Michael Cera, 'Mad Men' hunk Jon Hamm, 'Modern Family' star Julie Bowen and '30 Rock' comedian Jack McBrayer. White Stripes rocker Jack White will hit the stage as the first musical guest on 'Conan.'

O'Brien is hosting a poll online for another special guest, with personalities ranging from (we think) jokey -- Pope Benedict XVI, Vladimir Putin -- to probably serious, like Jack Nicholson and Justin Bieber.

If you answered: "Ten of the 11 names are white men, and only one of them is a woman, also white," give yourself 1,000 points.

Team Coco 1, Diversity 0.

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Two-Minute Nostalgia Sublime

Pet Shop Boys: "It's a Sin"

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WHAT. THE. EVERLOVING. FUCK.

[Trigger warning for suicide, homophobia, and Christian supremacy.]

Officials on college campuses across the nation are alarmed at a wave of recent suicides involving Christians who have been harassed by homosexual activists. The main stream media isn't covering the story so, as usual, I have taken it upon myself to do their jobs for them. None of the following eight cases have been covered by any of the three major news networks.

Thus begins an article titled "Eight Straight Suicides" by conservative writer Mike Adams at the cesspool known as Townhall.com. He then goes on to describe the details of these cases, in which straight Christians purportedly killed themselves after being "harassed by homosexual activists." The details, I assure you, are not important, because this is the final paragraph:

These eight cases are all true except for one thing: The Christians who were bullied by gays and gay activists are all still alive. Not a single one has committed suicide. That is because they have centered their lives around Jesus Christ, rather than their sexual identity. And no amount of bullying can change my mind about that.

Psych! They didn't kill themselves after all! And it isn't because the entire culture in which they reside is structured to assure them in every conceivable way that being straight and Christian is superior to being not-straight and not-Christian; it's just because they're inherently better people, stronger, blessed.

This is vile even by Townhall's execrable standards.

I will leave it to you to dissect in comments everything that is wrong with this pile of fetid shit, from disappearing gay Christians, to pretending there's no such thing as straight or Christian privilege, to appropriating the suicide of bullied teens for a breathtakingly inappropriate literary conceit all in the name of playing another round of Poor Persecuted Christians. (See also. And here. Among many others.)

I will instead just make this one observation...

You know, I know a lot of straight people and a lot of gay people (and a lot of people who fall somewhere in between), and no one—but no one—centers their lives around their sexual identity more than straight conservative Christians, whose identities as man/husband/father and woman/wife/mother are inseparable. They speak of procreation as their purpose, and assert that procreation must be between one man and one woman, only, ever.

Being straight, getting married, making babies, raising those babies to be straight, get married, and make more babies, quivers full of them, is the essence of conservative Christianity.

To assert that it is gay people who "center their lives" around their sexuality is just another example of conservative Christian projection. (See also. And here. Among many others.)

And their genuinely pathetic campaign of self-pity would be thoroughly hilarious, if only it weren't contributing the the environment in which the suicides of gay youth really, actually happen.

[H/T to Shaker Rachel.]

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Today's Edition of "Conniving and Sinister"

See Deeky's archive of all previous Conniving & Sinister strips here.
[In which Liss reimagines the long-running comic "Frank & Ernest," about two old straight white guys "telling it like it is," as a fat feminist white woman (Liss) and a biracial queerbait (Deeky) telling it like it actually is from their perspectives. Hilarity ensues.]

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Immediate Action Item

An Anonymous Shaker emails (which I am publishing with permission):

Liss:

NPR fired Juan Williams this morning [after he made negative comments about Muslims on Fox]. The right wing response has been immediate, intense, and cruel. I answer the phones at Listener Services, and we answer emails, too; so far the names I have been called are very similar to what I imagine trolls call you daily. I have no idea how you stand up under constant abuse from screaming people (textually or telephonically), but I'm drawing a lot of strength from your example.

If you have the ability or energy, I'd really appreciate it if you could ask Shakers to either call 202.513.3232 to give me and my colleagues some idea that there's someone in the universe out there that thinks journalists following an ethical code is a good idea. We have received so many angry, vitriolic, and vicious comments that our email system has collapsed; and I myself have received over fifty furious calls from self-described conservatives who believe that Mr. Williams' comments were protected under the Constitution and that we are evil liberal censors.

We have received zero positive calls. The phone is ringing off the hook. We'd really, really, really like the support.

Please pick up the phone and make a call to let NPR know that you support their decision to require their employees to refrain from engaging in overt bigotry against marginalized populations.

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DADT Update

Another setback in LGB equality, but a big win for the president who once claimed to be a "fierce advocate for equality for gay and lesbian Americans," which would be hilarious if it weren't so tragic:

A federal appeals panel on Wednesday temporarily blocked a lower court ruling that halted enforcement of the "don't ask, don't tell" policy banning openly gay and lesbian soldiers from the military.

The ruling by a three-judge panel of the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals gave the government the delay it sought in challenging a federal judge's order last week to stop enforcing the policy around the world.

"The order is stayed temporarily in order to provide this court with an opportunity to consider fully the issues presented," said the appellate panel's ruling, which gave parties in the case until October 25 to file further documents.

Aubrey Sarvis, an Army veteran and executive director of the Servicemembers Legal Defense Network, said the appeals court panel's ruling "means that 'don't ask, don't tell' is once again on the books, and is likely to be enforced by the Defense Department."

...The administration argued that changing it abruptly "risks causing significant immediate harm to the military and its efforts to be prepared to implement an orderly repeal of the statute."

Such bullshit. If they were arguing that "changing it abruptly" (as if this hasn't been coming for nearly a year now, anyway) could put LGB soldiers at risk, that would still be bullshit, but at least it would put them on the bullshit side of the bullshit angels. But they're just going full-tilt garbage.

The military reportedly wants time to consider, and possibly implement, sexuality-segregated housing into which straight soldiers can voluntarily opt-in, if they don't want to live with gay soldiers. Personally, I believe that housing already exists: It's called civilian life.

After hundreds of years of LGB soldiers not being allowed to serve openly, the least they're owed is the requirement from their fellow soldiers to like it or lump it. LGB soldiers shouldn't be required to fight for separate but equal.

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Top Chef: Just Desserts Open Thread

[Image from last night's episode: Pastrytestant Danielle, taking the elimination challenge a bit too literally, plates cat turds for her dookie pie.]

Last night's episode will be whipped and folded, so if you haven't seen it, and don't want any spoilers, pack your liquid nitrogen and go...

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Tea Party Racism

The Tea Partiers continually deny that they are motivated by racism, that their leadership promotes or facilitates racism, that their members are disproportionately racist, that racism has anything at all to do with their movement.

Well.

David Neiwert reports: "The NAACP has now fully backed up its accusations of racism within the Tea Party movement with a meticulously documented report on the Tea parties' multifarious connections to racists and various far-right extremists."

The report, "Tea Party Nationalism," looks at the relationships and differences between the six major Tea Party organizations -- FreedomWorks Tea Party, 1776 Tea Party, Tea Party Nation, Tea Party Patriots, ResistNet, and Tea Party Express -- and the various ways that each group has established connections with, and empowers, outright racists and white supremacists, as well we far-right "Patriot" extremists of various stripes.

"In these ranks, an abiding obsession with Barack Obama's birth certificate is often a stand-in for the belief that the first black president of the United States is not a 'real American.' Rather than strict adherence to the Constitution, many Tea Partiers are challenging the provision for birthright citizenship found in the Fourteenth Amendment," write authors Devin Burghart and Leonard Zeskind of the Institute for Research & Education on Human Rights, which produced the report for the NAACP.

The heart of the report is the section titled "Racism, Anti-Semitism and the Militia Impulse," which includes some previously overlooked facets of the movement and revealing details:

-- James von Brunn, the white supremacist who killed a Holocaust Museum guard last year, posted on Tea Partner Express partner websites.

-- Mark Williams, former chairman of the Tea Party Express, not only wrote racist screeds, he made death threats against President Obama,

-- Billy Joe Roper, a member of the ResistNet Tea Party who also happens to be the founder of the overtly racist White Revolution organization, indulging in "Nazi glamorization" with his eulogy for William Pierce, author of The Turner Diaries, the notorious race-war blueprint.

There's more at the link.

Naturally, the Tea Partiers are dismissing out of hand the demonstrable proof that there is an ugly thread of racist extremism running through their "we're just good patriots and totes condemn racism, we swears" quilt:

"Here we go again," said Judson Phillips, founder of Tea Party Nation. "This is typical of this liberal group's smear tactics."

Yes, "facts" are indeed typical of the NAACP and the Institute for Research & Education on Human Rights.

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The Overton Window: Chapter Eighteen

Chapter eighteen is notable for two reasons. First, it opens with a single word. A paragraph unto itself:

Bacon.

Secondly, Noah and Molly get their first kiss:

Molly looked into his eyes, and what he saw in her was a perfect reflection of a wanting that he also felt, so there was no delay of invitation and acceptance. It was a different sort of desire than he'd known before, an understanding that something now needed to be said that no language but the very oldest could possibly convey. He bent to her, closed his eyes, and her lips touched his, gently, and again more urgently as he responded. He felt her arms around him, her body yearning against his in the embrace, a knot like hunger inside, heart quickening, cool hands at his back under the warmth of his jacket, searching, pressing him closer still.

Still with us? Good. I wouldn't blame you if you'd given up after that. My only hope here is that there is no sex scene waiting for us down the road. Because if it's anything like the kiss, it's going to be brutal. I promise you, if there is a sex scene, I will warn you ahead of time. You've my word on that.

Anyway, back to the opening paragraphs.

Bacon.

Scent appeals to the most primitive of the five basic senses. Unlike a sight or sound or even a touch, an aroma can rocket straight to the untamed emotions with no stops required at the smarter parts of the brain. You like it or you hate it; that's the designed-in depth of raw stimulation the nose is built to deliver. So amid all the other deeper thoughts that should have come to Noah's mind upon awakening, it was bacon that crowded them out to come in first across the finish line.

I'm going to need your help here. I can't make heads or tails of this sentence: "Scent appeals to the most primitive of the five basic senses." What is the author saying here? That scent appeals to our sense of smell? I'm pretty sure most of us know that. Even if I didn't know that, I think I'd pretty easily deduce that scent does not appeal to one's sense of hearing. Or is he saying the sense of smell is the most primitive of the senses? If that's what he meant, maybe that's what he should have written. Because "scent appeals to the most primitive of the five basic senses" is nonsensical, no pun intended.

The rest of the paragraph ain't exactly Dostoevsky either, what with all the rockets of raw stimulation and whatnot going on there.

So, Molly has made Noah breakfast and the two of them sit in the sunroom (huh?) and enjoy a moment with the NYT Sunday crossword. Noah knows lots of big words and Molly soundlessly mouths letters as she writes. I guess this is characterization.

Then Molly drops the proverbial bomb. (Real bombs later.)

"I've been meaning to talk to you about something," Molly said. She got up and took his empty plate and silverware to the sink.

"Okay. Let's talk about it."

"I'm not going to be in town very much longer."

"Why?"

I'm just not. There were some things I wanted to do here, and I've done them now, so I'll be leaving."

What? What things did she have to do? Get arrested? Hang up flyers in Noah's office? Go to a Libertarian poetry slam? And she's been meaning to tell him since when? Since they got out of jail? Since he woke up and ate her bacon? Huh?

Nevermind.

Molly cleans up the kitchen and asks about something Noah has framed in the apartment. He describes it as "a penmanship exercise, from the fifth grade, dad's favorite poem."

It wasn't quite right to say it was his father's favorite poem; more like the old man's justification of his life set in verse. He'd directed his young son to study it so he'd always know the way things really worked in this world.

Noah picked it up, let his thumb brush the dust from the corner of the glass, and read each metered line aloud.

Then the Gods of the Market tumbled,
and their smooth-tongued wizards withdrew
And the hearts of the meanest were humbled
and began to believe it was true
That All is not Gold that Glitters,
and Two and Two make Four
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings limped up
to explain it once more.

As it will be in the future,
it was at the birth of Man
There are only four things certain
since Social Progress began.
That the Dog returns to his Vomit
and the Sow returns to her Mire,
And the burnt Fool's bandaged finger
goes wabbling back to the Fire;

And that after this is accomplished,
and the brave new world begins
When all men are paid for existing
and no man must pay for his sins,
As surely as Water will wet us,
as surely as Fire will burn,
The Gods of the Copybook Headings
with terror and slaughter return!

Ummm... Okay. I'm no poet laureate or anything, so I'm not going to pass judgement on the piece. Rudyard Kipling wrote it, and he's respected as a writer, and aside from that I know next to nothing about him. He wrote Rikki-Tikki-Tavi, and that cartoon used to give me the heebie jeebies as a kid, so this poem seems to fit.

Noah and Molly discuss the poem.

"And what do you think he was telling you with this, your father?"

"He told me the poem meant that history always repeats itself, that the same mistakes are made over and over, only bigger each time. The wise man knows that if you can't change that, you might as well take full advantage of it. But to me it meant something else. It's a warning, I guess, about what happens when you forget common sense. I think it means that there really is such a thing as the truth, the real objective truth, and people can see it if they'll just look hard enough, and remember who they really are. But most of the time they choose to give in and believe all the lies instead."

I see. Really. I do. Darthur's philosophy is that history repeats itself. Not exactly profound or anything. But Noah is sure there is more to the world than that: there is Truth to be seen, if only everyone would look. I guess there are worse philosophies to adhere to.

I think my favourite part here is how Molly's sole purpose has developed into facilitating Noah's Awakening. And cooking bacon. Nice. She's there to serve. Perfect, Beck, just perfect.

After breakfast, Molly and Noah go for a walk in Times Square. Like they're in a Meg Ryan movie.

They'd talked some along the way, though for the most part it had been a quiet walk. But there was nothing tense or self-conscious in those wordless stretches. He found himself at ease in her company, as if a conversation was always in progress, only spoken in other forms. She stayed close to him, at times with an unexpected gesture of casual intimacy: an arm around his waist for half a block, a finger hooked in his belt loop as they crossed a busy street against the light, a palm to his cheek as she spoke close to his ear to be heard over the din of the traffic.

See? Just like a Meg Ryan movie. And like a Meg Ryan movie, the two kiss in Times Square. (EIther there or Central Park, right? Because those are the only two places in NYC.) See above if you'd like a replay.

If this were a movie, do you think Molly would be played by Meg Ryan? The role seems against her type, but I bet Sarah Michelle Gellar would be up for it. That being said, I am positive Tom Hanks would not be Noah. Maybe Hanks' weird little cousin, Colin.

With everything to see and hear around them there at the very crossroads of the world, soaring billboards, scrolling news crawlers, bright digital Jumbotrons that lined the tall buildings and blotted out the whole evening sky, it all disappeared to its rightful insignificance, flat as a postcard. That place was left outside their small circle, and if asked right then he might have stayed there within it forever.

It was a really good kiss. I think that much can be said. Noah really really likes Molly. I really really dislike the author of this dreck.

Then it starts raining again and the couple ducks into a coffee shop to warm up. As they are sipping their Folgers Gourmet Selections (with Flavor Crystals™), Molly asks Noah for some advice. She wants to know what the PR whiz would do if the teabaggers were to hire him.

"What is it you want to accomplish again?"

"We want to save the country."

Noah thinks for a while and basically tells Molly that the teabaggers need to get their shit together. And through him Glenn Beck basically tells the teabaggers to their shit together. Noah tells Molly they need a platform.

"Start with the tax code, since your mom is so passionate about that. How about a set of specific spending cuts and a thirteen percent flat tax to start with? Get that ridiculous sixty-seven-thousand-page tax code down to four or five bullet points, and show exactly what effects it'll have on trade, and employment, and the debt, and the future of the country. And I'm winging it here, but how about real immigration reform? The kind of policies that welcome people who want to come here for the right reasons, and succeed."

Ah yes. A flat tax! That'll fix everything. Know what else fixes things? Bullet points! And immigration reform. The kind that lets people into the country for the right reasons, like being white!

"And what did you mean, save the country, by the way? Save it from what?"

She looked at him evenly. "You know what."

Heh. Yooouu know! Seriously, these are adults? These are adults trying to save this great nation from the talon grip of the NWO? No. Adults don't talk like that. Has the author ever spoken to another adult? I don't think he has.

She clarifies, sort of.

"I know there was a meeting at the office yesterday afternoon," she said, lowering her voice but not her intensity. "I saw the guest list on the catering order. I know who was there. I know you were in it. And I think I know what it was about."

"Okay, yes, big surprise, there was a meeting, but I wasn't there for all of it. And do you want to know something else? I don't even know what it was all about, so how could you?"

"Then let's both find out."

Okay, so the NWO might be undone by a catering order? These are the people who have spent fifty years implementing a plan to take over the world, or whatever, and they can't keep the menus out of the hands of spies? "Oh em gee, John Aschroft ordered a tuna melt! Do you know what this means?!" Actually, I don't know what that means. He always seemed more the egg salad type to me anyway.

Molly demands Noah prove her wrong. What? Prove what? You haven't said anything!

"Let's go right now and find out."

"I can't do that."

"Yes, you can. We'll go to the office right now, and you'll show me that I've got nothing to worry about. If that's the case then that'll be the end of it."

Okay, this is straight getting on my nerves now. What the fuck is she expecting to find? The plans for the NWO right there in the offices of Doyle & Merchant? It's not like there was a Powerpoint and a hand-out explaining everything. Whoops! That's right, there was a Powerpoint and a hand-out explaining everything. Okay, so even if there was, why can't Noah just bring home a copy? And why can't a VP visit the office on Saturday? It seems like someone in his position would have run of the place, no questions asked. Oh well, not that it matters anyway.

Molly gets a little creepy too and tries to blackmail Noah. What the fuck is with everyone in the fucking book? What a bunch of manipulative, mendacious turds. Even the people we're supposed to like are assholes. This whole book is garbage.

"Do you want me to leave?" Her voice was tight and there were sudden tears in her eyes. "Do you never want to see me again? Because that's what this means."

So. Yeah. Molly. Blackmailing a man you know has feelings for you. A man you just kissed. Now you want him to break into the offices of the NWO, like Old Mister Bullet-In-The-Head Churchill, and do I don't know what exactly, or you'll split. Wow. Everyone in this book is a douche.

"That is so incredibly unfair," Noah says. And rightly so. But it's too late. She's out. And Noah is left alone in a Times Square coffee shop. (Bubba Gump's? I hope it was Bubba Gump's.) And it's then that Noah decides what he must do.

If he's going into the office on a Saturday, I'm not going to be impressed. I've done that very thing countless times, and I'm not even a VP trying to stop the New World Order.

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Open Thread

Hosted by the Theremin cello.

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Question of the Day

We've done this one before, but not for a long while, and it's always fun... How did you find Shakesville? (Or, if you're a long-time Shaker, Shakespeare's Sister.)

Space Cowboy's got a wonderful and very detailed answer to this one, btw. He even remembers the exact post that brought him here, via a link at Crooks & Liars!

Since I can't really give an answer to this question, instead I'll just say: However you got here, I'm glad you found your way.

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It's the End of the World as We Know It, Baby

So, the local paper has a section called "Quickly," where people write in one- or two-line comments about random shit and the paper prints them. As you can imagine, this provides me with endless amusement on a constant basis.

There were some real doozies this week, especially as there was an ongoing battle between people who love writing to Quickly, some of them every day (!), and people who think writing to Quickly is a waste of time. Which they wrote to Quickly to say, without a trace of irony.

This was my absolute favorite of the meta-Quicklies, though:

I'd like to know why some people get in the Quicklies day in and day out. I can't get one comment in there. Please reply and let me know.

When the correspondents aren't busily arguing about the value of Quickly, they're complaining about shit. Lots of excellent complaints this week, but this was by far my favorite, for sheer zuhzability:

I don't understand why they do not teach students in school about what is going on today. My son is learning about the past history. I agree that some part of past history should be taught, but I believe that today's history should also be taught.

Nice.

But this was the one that really made me LOL today, a fine example of the ever-popular "What is the world coming to?" variety of Quickly:

Why would a young heart-throb like Justin Bieber have a line of nail polish out? What has become of our society?

I'm not even sure on what basis the objection is being made. Something along the homophobia-transmisogyny spectrum, no doubt, but I wonder if our dear Quickly author would be all right with an old heart-throb putting out a line of nail polish...? Probably not.

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Sure

Corporate America already owns the executive and legislative branches; why not the judicial branch? Makes a swell matched set.

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Daily Dose o' Cute

Sophie, aka Lady Titchington

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Happy (Belated) Blogiversary to Us!

I totally missed our six-year (!) blogiversary, which was October 5. I am a terrible blogmistress—which everyone already knows, so: Phew!

I almost can't believe it's been six years since young bones groaned and this blog was born, originally under the banner Shakespeare's Sister, from Virginia Woolf's essay "A Room of One's Own," by way of one of my favorite Smiths' songs. Because I am the heir of all the Shakespeare's Sisters before me, who carved out rooms of their own, tiny pieces of space and time, in which they formed the habit of freedom and mustered the courage to write exactly what they thought, I took up their legacy with breathless gratitude and compelling need, and I created a room of my own, built of 1s and 0s, where I tried, and try still, to honor them, as best I can.

When a community started to grow up around this blog, and other writers began to join me in this space, Shakespeare's Sister, which was also my handle when I started in anonymity, seemed too personal somehow, and so we became Shakesville.

I am a better person than I was when I started. I know more about myself, both the good things and the things that need changing. I've made great friends and had great teachers. I've been challenged not to settle into the well-tread grooves of my socialization, and exhorted to deconstruct the vast and varied prejudices and myths with which I'd been socialized. I have been urged to expect more of myself and persuaded to believe in the possibility I can be the change I want to see.

I've learned more in this space than I ever could have imagined, and this is, by far, the toughest job I've ever had. I am forever changed because of Shakesville, and the people who visit or come to stay.

I'm going to continue to try to make this a space you enjoy visiting. I'm going to screw up and disappoint you and piss you off once in a while, but I'll endeavor to balance that with some good stuff, too. The truth is, I'm just fumblefucking my way through every day and don't know what the hell I'm doing most of the time, so we're all pretty lucky when it seems like I do.

Thanks, Shakers. Thanks to the other contributors and mods, for everything you put on the page and everything you do for me behind the scenes. And thanks to my beloved Iain, who first suggested I start this blog, and who makes Shakesville possible in every conceivable way.

Onward...

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ASSHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOLE!!!

What. A. Fuckhead.

Bush said he misses certain aspects of the presidency.

"I miss being pampered; I miss Air Force One; I miss being commander in chief of an awesome group of (people)," he said.

I miss gettin' them piggy-back rides from Scottie McClellan, and I miss playing craps on office time with Turd Blossom, and I miss rolling around my optimistic rug with Barney, pretending to be a dog named Mr. Woofington, and most of all I miss playing pranks on Dick Cheney, like the one where I sealed his desk rifle in jello. Heh heh. Good times.

'Member that time he was being pampered in Air Force One while flying over the devastation in New Orleans...? I'm glad to know at least he got to combine two of his favorite activities while being obliged to sully his beautiful mind with the unfun presidenting parts.

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Today in Rape Culture

[Trigger warning for sexual violence.]

I read the following two stories back-to-back:

14-Year-Old Girl Raped in Bathroom After Being Used as Bait:

[T]eachers and administrators knew that one of their students had been sexually harassing and propositioning girls at Sparkman Middle School in Alabama. However, no action had been taken against him by the school. So one teacher decided on the same tactic as Upper St. Claire's principal: girl-as-bait. The teacher coerced 14-year-old B.H.J., an African-American student who had reported being repeatedly sexually harassed, into meeting her tormentor in a bathroom, assuring her that they would "catch him." But nobody followed B.H.J. into the bathroom, and nobody stopped her from being raped; the teacher simply went back to her classroom and waited. B.H.J. is reported as being severely traumatized and in an almost completely non-communicative state.

Cheerleader Required to Cheer for Man Who Assaulted Her:

High school football star Rakheem Bolton and two others were indicted for sexual assault of a child–identified only as H.S.–at a post-game party in 2008. According to H.S.–a fellow student and cheerleader at Silsbee High–Bolton, football player Christian Rountree and another juvenile male forced her into a room, locked the door, held her down and sexually assaulted her. When other party-goers tried to get into the room, two of the men fled through an open window, including Bolton, who left clothing behind. Bolton allegedly threatened to shoot the occupants of the house when the homeowner refused to return his clothes.

In September 2010, Bolton pled guilty to a lesser charge of Class A Assault and was sentenced to one year in prison, a sentence that was suspended by the judge in lieu of two years probation, a $2,500 fine, community service and an anger management course.

Silsbee school officials had two responses to the incident. First, they urged H.S. to keep a low profile, such as avoiding the school cafeteria and not taking part in homecoming activities. With the support of her family, she refused to do so, rejecting the notion that she had anything to be ashamed of. Secondly, school officials kicked her off the cheerleading squad for refusing to cheer for Bolton. No kidding.

Bolton had been allowed back on campus during a brief period when one grand jury withdrew the charges before another grand jury reinstated them. During a basketball game, H.S. cheered for the entire team but refused to cheer "Rakheem" during his free-throws, so she was off the squad.

There are, at each link, action items for allies to take in order to support the two girls.

When I was raped by a high school athlete, "school officials" were first dubious that he would do such a thing, since he was a letterman and an honor's student. (So was I.) Then they wanted to make sure I knew I was a real asshole for causing distractions to someone whose team depended on his clarity of thought. Then they locked us in a room to "work out our differences." And that was that.

That was 20 years ago. And nothing has changed.

I long for the day when the best many "school officials" have got isn't just trying to shut up victims of sexual violence by making them feel like pieces of shit.

Support BHJ.

Support HS.

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Quote of the Day

[Trigger warning for rape culture.]

"Let me put it to you this way. Rape culture is a culture in which people who have survived a violent crime are asked to laugh about it because other people think it's funny."—Shaker everstar, in comments, on troll-watch in the wee hours, hitting the nail on the head like whoa.

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