Hi Readers — Thanks to YOU I get a ton of cool links and stories every day. Since I can’t get around to blogging about all of them (and sometimes don’t even know what to say, beyond, “Wow!” and “Yikes!” and “Gah!”), I tweet them out. And since I know not everyone’s on Twitter, I’m just going to give you some of my recent tweets right here. Enjoy! Discuss! — Lenore
*Such a funny, weird sign. And think how it will affect USA kids’ self esteem (you darn Canadians)! http://bit.ly/celp9t
*John bznhhtzeah
Walsh coins term, “Bus Surfing.” Pervs following the school bus. Mwah ha ha! Danger everywhere! Be afraid! http://bit.ly/dypS3P
*I was about to snort, but in fact, I LIKE this safety device: A “Nap Alarm.” Alerts drivers when they nod off:Â http://bit.ly/arbKvH
*Ban adults without kids from playgrounds? My take, on ParentDish:Â http://bit.ly/ahJJx2
*Just what we need: Mini-TV screens on the supermarket shelves urging us to BUY:Â http://bit.ly/cti78y
*FASCINATING piece on myth of “date rape drug.” Women blame IT more than excessive drinking. http://bit.ly/bHplvi
*An airport security sign that says it all. (What have we come to?!!)Â http://bit.ly/a46To311:28 AM Aug 8th
Fascinating that an article about rape barely even mentions the word and doesn’t mention anything about the rapists who prey on drunk women.
Last year, my then13 year old daughter and I went to DC on a school trip. She
collects snow globes, so bought, with her OWN money, a lovey DC snow globe. She
stuck it in her carry-on and it was confiscated by security, and thrown away in
the trash. In front of her. I wanted to argue, but knew I would be talking to a
wall. We walk around the corner from the scanner and in the front of the gift
shop is a HUGE display of, you guessed it, SNOW GLOBES. Not more than 15 feet
away. I really wanted to go dig hers out of the trash, but didn’t want to get
arrested.
I had a very sweet sympathetic friend in DC who sent us a replacement.
There was no logic to this rule.
I don’t think snow globes should be allowed anywhere.
http://www.suntimes.com/lifestyles/easy/2590392,ESY-News-EasyPBath12.article
Yet another post about whether it’s safe to let kids use public restrooms.
I’d like to SEE them ban me from a playground. I go there all the time to play basketball–I don’t play WELL, but I play. That’s one of my main interests. Can I still go to McDonald’s to eat lunch–a lot of parents & kids there, you know, with that whole playworld thing.
LRH
@ Larry: Not just McDs but ALL restaurants. I mean, my kid eats at Applebee’s sometimes. God forbid adults eat there.
Other places we need to ban adults without kids:
Parades
Fairs and Festivals
The Zoo
Fun runs and charity walks
The Circus
All stores (grocery, department, and discount
Better yet, let’s just enact a law forcing any childless adult to stay in their house.
Emily, I agree.
Okay, so it’s probably a bad idea to get so drunk you forget things in the morning or pass out. It can’t be good for your body.
But what sort of asshole takes advantage of somebody in that situation? A rapist, that’s who, and they need to be held responsible. If you’d been whacked on the head and knocked out it’d be just as bad.
That playground age thing must be based on metric conversion. A kid is taller in feet than he would be in meters.
The drug-rape vs drunk-rape article is more about women thinking they’re perfectly safe getting drunk as a skunk as long as they never lose contact with their drinks. Also using drugging as an excuse is preferable since then it isn’t the woman’s fault at all, it’s that evil horrible MAN’s!
Anyway, we clearly need to create a closed city for children only. The only adults will have cybernetic implants to constantly observe their behavior and ensure no harm comes to the children. Then, since the children haven’t been socialized well, there should be another city to put them in at, say, age 15? After ten years or so they’re evaluated for whether they can enter grown-up society.
What could possibly go wrong?
I know about the snowglobes thing because my best friend also collects snowglobes like Layne up there, and when she was down her visiting me, we didn’t know until she went to go home. Our thinking was carry-on was better, as better control over the globe and less chance of it breaking. And she had to throw it away as well.
And to think, in just 2005 I hand carried two bottles of wine on a flight to Hawaii!
Well, Elfir, it isn’t the victim’s fault. The fault has to do with, yes, the evil horrible rapist.
WHEN you see somebody in a state where you can rape them, or rob them, or otherwise harm them, it doesn’t matter how they got to that state, whether they were drugged or just drunk or in a diabetic coma or what. There is only one moral choice, and it is your responsibility to make it. The only way you can mess that up is if you have the morals of a heap of garbage.
Also, the google street map link (http://bit.ly/b743xH) doesn’t lead where you think it does. What’s the correct link?
Regarding adults w/o kids at playgrounds…
My husband quipped that emergency responders couldn’t go there then.
I like the way he thinks.
regarding adults w/o kids…. i’m going to toss a thought out to you all and see what you do with it — let me know if i’m crazy. Why should i care if a pedophile sits on a bench at the playground, then goes home and “takes care of himself” so to speak?
mvb, I have asked the same question as it regards the fear of photos. If a pedophile finds a child’s photo on line and “takes care of himself”, except for the creepiness, who exactly is hurt by his behavior? He hasn’t tracked the child, he hasn’t kidnapped the child, he doesn’t know who the child is…it’s a photo, same as if he were looking at a JC Penneys catalog.
thanks, Beth, glad to know I’m not alone on this one because I really don’t get this “thought police” attitude. Granted, these are thoughts I’d really prefer to know nothing about…. but so long as “no child was harmed in the making of this fantasy”, who gives a crap?
You also tweeted:
Google Street View link of “dead” girl (happy ending!!!!)
http://bit.ly/8Xyz0Z
another sign of how kids not playing outside much has changed perceptions. This girl had been “pretending” she was hurt to fool a friend.
The article said:
“Slightly worrying is the fact the driver of the Google Street View car didn’t stop or contact police themselves.”
But do we know for sure the Google guy did NOT see the girl get up and run away?
When I was a kid, it was common to play cowboys and indians or some sort of shootem up crime scenario. Kids loved dropping to the ground, pretending to be
dead.
I’ve seen that sign on preschool play equipment here in the U.S. and always wondered about it. Either the U.S. has stricter safety standards, or Canadian kids are just bigger.
John Walsh et. al., including media, aren’t really interested in selling that the world is a safe place. It makes for terrible news cycles. And I don’t mean that we should enter a winnie the pooh type world were everything is happi thaughts, but there are news and then there’s news.
Here’s there been a recent murder. An mentally ill person killed a woman that was picking flowers. In itself that is horrendous. The news are now making it look like everyday situations, and that all people are out to get you. And the only time mentally ill people end up in the news is when someone commits a violent crime. The odds of that are miniscule. Noone listens to that apparent fact though. It’s great news to play and play again. What it does to fear, that’s not the news outlets problem.
Yes, a perfectly sober man preying on an extremely drunk woman is an asshole and probably deserves to be called a rapist.
However, in my 4 years at the current #1 party school, I never saw that occur. What I saw occur was a lot of really drunk women consensually sleep with a lot of really drunk men, with neither party having much of a memory of it in the morning but both having lots of regrets. That was no more rape than having consensual sober sex. The men had no more of their wits about them then the women. You can’t say that the extremely drunk men should have known better while the extremely drunk women were poor, helpless victims. Both made their choices.
I’m not saying that a very occasional sober man doesn’t take advantage of an extremely drunk woman. Nor am I advocating anyone, male or female, get so drunk that they engage in sex that they don’t remember. But let’s watch calling boys who were as drunk as the girls “evil rapists” when that is far from what it was in 99.99% of the cases and is a HUGE double standard.
Oh THAT John Walsh… We have a John Walsh here in the LA area; he is a rather unkempt “gadfly” who shows up at Metro Transit meetings and spouts off in a semi-coherent fashion. Regarding the John Walsh of the article–looks like some people are questioning his motives. Is he honoring his slain son’s memory or making a living from it? As far as “Bus Surfing” is concerned, it sounds like something that could have happened, may still be happening somewhere, but ranks somewhere below getting hit by lightning or run over in the street as an actual hazard.
And that item on snow globes–why did I “flashback” to “Little Brother”?
“WHEN you see somebody in a state where you can rape them, or rob them, or otherwise harm them,”
Yes, but wouldn’t it be nice if somehow, oh, say, by making good choices, a woman could avoid everything after the “when” of your sentence, because the “when” would be transformed to a “never,” at least insofar as it’s in her control?
Of course it’s entirely an evil creep’s fault when he commits a heinous act. but there ARE things one can do to deny even evil creeps the opportunity to commit their evil, and it’s worth communicating to women that “not getting drunk enough to be taken easy advantage of” is among those things.
Pentamom, you’re right that there are things one *can* do, but you’re wrong in suggesting they should, or should even consider it.
I’m an adult. It is entirely within my rights to get as lights-out drunk as I want. Same goes for every woman out there. Nothing an evildoer might do to me as a result should be the basis for whether or not I should let myself get intoxicated in the first place. If we have to stop drinking to avoid the evil acts of others, why shouldn’t we also stop leaving the house? Or wearing short skirts? Or emerging from our vats of Cleanlinol?
The whole thing with not, as a woman, making yourself vulnerable to attack by, well, not getting too drunk. Soon it’s down to clothing, how short of a skirt did you wear? Tight dress? Cleavage? You must have realised that you could get raped. Did you yell or say no loud enough? Did he realise that you were saying no or maybe not.
Just go ahead and blame the victim. It seems to be what many do.
You have the right to go around town, getting drunk if you want, and then make it home ok. And be able to wear what you want.
****Such a funny, weird sign. And think how it will affect USA kids’ self esteem (you darn Canadians)!
And think what it says about US-kids resp. their parents, *ggg*?
****
I just read your piece on ParentDish about “unaccompanied adults” — I mean: Please! This is so absurd — what’s wrong that people even seriously think up such rules?
So long,
Corinna
Donna has said what I wish to say so much better =)
And another, much much much more important point. Keep a few good friends around. Look out for each other.
Last party I went to one of the girls knows what she is like when drinking (ie, she seeks out sex – then has regrets). Usually she moderates her intake to combat this, but it was graduation.
She arranged with two separate friends whom she trusted
“Make sure tonight I end up in my bed, and my bed only, with no one else in it!”
Her friends made sure this happened, despite her “drunk-self” protests.
Good friends are worth their weight in gold.
People have made a few good points about the date rape drug article. My first thought reading it was that they didn’t mention that it’s still rape if it’s non-consentual, whether the drug was put in the woman’s drink or she took it herself. I may have very little respect for someone who chooses to get “lights-out drunk” or drug him-or herself to oblivion, but it needs to be clear that it’s still never the victim’s fault if rape occurs. Not making that clear is almost implying, “… so it was her own damn fault”.
As Donna mentioned, though, there’s a difference between being incapacitated and being taken advantage of vs. being so drunk that you consent to something you regret. I can’t offer advice on how people should handle this because I really don’t get the appeal of drinking to the point where you can’t control your own actions. I think it needs to be clear that these are two different scenarios, though: a victim of rape (non-consentual sex) is never to blame, whether she’s passed out or wearing a short skirt or the guy thinks she’s being “a tease”. A drunk person who consents to sex he or she regrets isn’t a victim of rape.
Parents need to talk to their kids (sons AND daughters) about the dangers of drinking too much. People have a right to not be taken advantage of. We also need to be responsible and know our limits.
We have TV’s in our local Walmart store as well. I HATE Tv’s in stores and in offices, although I am much more understanding of a Tv in an office waiting room – I just bring my own book.
More disturbing to me was a ‘Tv Corner’ in a local children’s consignment shop. It is a 3′ x 5′ cell with a TV taking up one side where you can put your kids while you shop. It isn’t really large enough for older kids – so why not a toy corner if you need to put the little ones some place?
“but there ARE things one can do to deny even evil creeps the opportunity to commit their evil, ”
Sorry Pentamom but that logic sounds an awful lot like the logic paranoid parents use to justify keeping their children tied to the hip (or enact ridiculous laws like keeping tax-paying citizens out of public places their tax dollars help pay for)….the very things FRKs are against.
And where do you draw the line? I know three people who were raped, none of whom were engaging in drunken nights of partying. Two were 17 and were walking home together after a movie. Should they have not walked home after the movie, thus denying their rapist the opportunity? Another friend was raped by a good male “friend.” She went to his dorm room to study. Should women avoid going to men’s dorm rooms or even avoid being friends with men because of the possiblity of “opportunity?”
@ Mrs. Embers, I agree. The problem is that both scenarios DO happen and trying to sort out the truth can be difficult. It’s even difficult when the person is not incapacitated, as was the latter case I mentioned in my above paragraph. In that case, the man claimed it was consensual sex my friend regretted. My friend still maintains to this day that it was not consenual.
tommynomad — not everything that is your “right” is a good idea. I’m not talking about what someone has a “right” to do, or who should get blamed. I’m saying that it should be non-controversial to say that every day we make decisions about whether something is smart to do or not. Getting drunk isn’t ever smart anyway, so this sort of thing is just icing on the cake.
DMT, we’re talking about not getting drunk, which is a dumb thing to do anyway, not about all those other things. I’m not saying people shouldn’t dress a certain way, or leave their houses. I’m saying people shouldn’t deliberately engage in behaviors that reduce their mental faculties for no good reason, since loss of mental faculties has no benefits and puts you at risk for all kinds of things.
@ Pentamom: that advice I can agree with, particularly since it applies to both sexes.
What I take issue with is the advice that women in particular shouldn’t get drunk because it puts them in a position to be raped. While that certainly **could** happen, there are many more things that have a larger potential to happen…..again, to both sexes.
I’m not saying this is what you meant; however, I do know a woman who gave her granddaughters this exact advice. When asked if her grandson got the same “don’t get drunk because you could be a victim of a crime” advice, the answer was “of course not.” To her, only women are victims, not men.
“What I take issue with is the advice that women in particular shouldn’t get drunk because it puts them in a position to be raped.”
I don’t take issue with this advice at all. I fully intend to give me daughter advice, probably starting in high school since we live in a college town, that includes don’t get shit-faced drunk at frat parties because you then become vulnerable to all sorts of bad things, including rape.
If I had a son, I would advise him not to get falling down drunk as well but for different reasons than I would advise my girl. I do think that the risk is different for men. My biggest fears would be (a) son hooks up with a high school kid he believes to be in college and gets a stat rape charge; (b) son sleeps with an equally drunk girl and ends up with a rape charge, disease or baby; or (c) son does something really stupid that he never would have done sober and ends up seriously injured. The last happens yearly in our town. Crime is pretty low on my list of worries for a son because I’d like to emphasize not drinking to excess at all rather than not drinking to excess at the bars downtown. And face it, rape is rare in general and much more rare for male victims – and not even legally possible in my state.
There was a story in the paper of my town today. A college girl went to a bar and got so drunk that she has no recollection of what happened. She does know that she has some genital discomfort. She and her roommate seem to jump to some conclusion that she was raped and go to the hospital. The hospital, as a mandated reporter, calls the police and a report is filed with her saying that she might have been raped in the bathroom of this bar. Surveillance tapes are pulled, people interviewed and it becomes very clear that, not only did absolutely no rape occur, but no sex occurred anywhere in that bar that night.
Now if this chick can be so drunk that she comes to believe that she was raped when she didn’t even have sex with anyone that night at all, how easy could it be for a girl who did have consensual, albeit very inebriated, sex with someone to believe that it was rape and completely screw up a guy’s life?
I don’t have daughters; I have a son. While I don’t know of a man that was raped, I do know plenty that have gotten into all sorts of trouble while inebriated, including DUIs, falling out of a tree while spying on an ex-girlfriend, and even one who died because he decided to go for a drunken joy ride on his motorcycle…without a helmet.
Aside from a few incidences, I agree these consequences were the result of poor choices the men made. However, had excessive alcohol not been involved, the choices (and outcomes) most likely would’ve been different. This is why I believe in advising BOTH sexes that excessive drinking can lead to negative outcomes, rape being only ONE potential outcome (and an uncommon one at that) for women. That was really the point I was trying to make.
And I never said that women don’t get drunk and then confuse the terms “consensual” and “regret.” I know it happens. I also know the opposite happens as well, where women who really were raped are dismissed because the guy tells the police, “We had sex and now she regrets it.” This is what happened in my friend’s case….and no alcohol was even involved.
Wow. I had no idea that some NYC parks were “no unaccompanied adults”. Since we’re from out of town and when we visit sometimes stop at a park (and there are 3 adults, 2 children) I don’t want to get questioned by police. I’ve written to the commissioner to see if there’s a list anywhere that shows which parks are ‘child-accompanied only’.
“Just go ahead and blame the victim. It seems to be what many do. You have the right to go around town, getting drunk if you want, and then make it home ok. And be able to wear what you want.â€
I have a right NOT to have my house robbed even if I don’t lock my doors when I’m gone, but it would nonetheless be wise for me to lock my doors, and I might even prevent a robbery by doing so. I might get robbed even if I DO lock my doors, but I’d still be wise to lock my doors. If I advise my children to lock their doors, am I blaming the victim?
I don’t want my daughter getting fall-down drunk and dressing sluttily at a frat party anymore than I want my son getting fall-down drunk and putting dollar bills in a stripper’s g-string at his lacrosse party. Avoid those kind of debasing behaviors, and you’ll have better luck not getting raped or being falsely accused of rape. It could happen to you anyway, even if you behave respectably. But it’s LESS LIKELY to happen if you behave in a respectable and self-respecting manner. And even if behaving respectably doesn’t increase your odds of avoiding such horrors (and I think it does), behaving respectably is objectively better than behaving like an ass, so it’s a win-win as far as I’m concerned.
Avoid those kind of debasing behaviors, and you’ll have better luck not getting raped or being falsely accused of rape. It could happen to you anyway, even if you behave respectably. But it’s LESS LIKELY to happen if you behave in a respectable and self-respecting manner.
Actually, like child molestation, most rapes are perpetrated by people known to the victim – often a partner (husband or boyfriend, or your ex).
And, you know, wearing skimpy clothes != lacking self-respect. It might just mean you like to wear “slutty” clothing (and maybe don’t appreciate people judging you by your clothing). Even getting drunk doesn’t necessarily mean that you lack self-respect. It might mean that you don’t know what your tolerance level for alcohol is. It might mean that you are having a party with some friends and decided not to worry about it. It might mean that you’re immersed in a culture of binge drinking.