Category Archives: violence

A trail of bullets…

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C.J.Chivers of the New York Times had this up over the weekend–a post on ammunition being supplied to Africa.  I thought I’d post it because of the focus on Africa.  Perhaps it’s just me, but it seems that Africa is becoming a focal point…or perhaps it was always there, but ignored?

Anyway, I thought that it’s striking that a lot is said about Iran’s nuclear capabilities, but not of small arms ammunition and shipping it to other countries.

The question one has to ask is…why?  What do they hope to gain?  Is it for their political benefit or just plain guns profits?

 

And my new favorite Twain quote is…

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“If Christ were here,  there is one thing he would not be…A Christian.”  Brilliantly said.  Trying to act like Christ is a little too much work…as it requires following “Do Unto Others…”

Diane Sweet has a post up on the fundamentalist Pat Robertson, doing what fundamentalists do:  putting women beneath them…

I disagree with one of the commenters who said that this kind of thinking was dying out.  It’s a dangerous assumption, and from what I’m seeing, far from being a thing of the past.  This crap has been going on for thousands of years, in different forms and won’t “die out” until women are seen and treated as equals. Women are a still not thought of as having equal value in whatever they do–if they stay home to raise the children and care for the house, or if they work outside the home.

The issues with rape and the degradation of the young woman in Steubenville are classic examples of treating women as “less than” and making moral judgments against her that are not made against the men.  She’s a slut to be peed on.  He’s just having a good time.

 

 

And the violent mindset escalates…

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My first impression of listening to Carolyn Cain is that she sounds waaay too much like Sarah Palin.  It was just a first impression I got…(and a side note~the eye movement?  That is a sign of mercury/heavy metal poisoning…I kid you not.)

Where to begin??

My God, can you imagine a child getting a hold of a gun and killing his/her classmates?

Or a child, say a middle schooler, that was in one of those pissed-off-at-the-world moods who gets the teacher’s gun and shoots her?

The gun can (and will) be used in so many ways that are unintended…that is, they won’t be protecting people’s lives, but ending them.

I mean, really, schools that I taught in were safe–all doors were locked and you had to be buzzed in to enter the school.  They go through exercises to practice the drill for any emergency, including this, so I’m at a loss as to how Sandy Hook even happened.  I do know that the nurse was given a moment in time when she could have tried to stop Adam Lanza–he was right next to her as she hid under a desk (if I recall correctly).

If she had a gun, would she have used it?  I know that I wouldn’t.  I’d try to find some other means to stop someone from the rampage.  I would have tried to tackle him once his back was turned…I may have died in the process, but at least I would have tried to stop more from being killed…and at the very least, it would have bought more time until police could arrive.  Just my thoughts on it…

Looking at the comments, the first one on the Ed Show website is brilliant:

If she wants to carry a gun at work, she should quit teaching and become a cop.

Amen.

Also, if I were still substitute teaching, I would not want to be in a classroom with a gun in it. Period.  I would refuse to teach or have the gun taken by the principal.

I’m not being dragged into the fear.  And the kids need to see the adults not being manipulated by fear.

 

 

She’s just a whore…

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…she probably deserved it…we can’t be arresting our star football players…/snark (be sure to click on the Prinniefied.com link–good coverage of the case there.

More here.  

It’s unbelievable that the dude in the video was saying that it should go through the courts…um, yeah, that’s kinda what they’re protesting about–that it wasn’t being forcefully dealt with because of the town’s football worship….

…and attitudes towards women in general and rape specifically…

You know, the arguments are as old as the hills:  the victim brought it on by herself by drinking/partying/wearing skimpy clothes, and on.  What other crime would they ever make that kind of accusation? Rape is the only crime where the victim has to prove they didn’t want the crime to happen.

Case in point (from the NY Times article):

He said that online photographs and posts could ultimately be “a gift” for his client’s case because the girl, before that night in August, had posted provocative comments and photographs on her Twitter page over time. He added that those online posts demonstrated that she was sexually active and showed that she was “clearly engaged in at-risk behavior.”

So….because she was sexually active and wearing skimpy clothes…God, this gets soooo old.…she couldn’t possibly have been raped, because everybody knows that sluts don’t get raped.  They *always* want it and if they don’t put out, well, then one just has to take it. /said with cynicism and dripping sarcasm.

Also telling is the statement “..some people deserve to be peed on…”  In other words, she’s not a human being— she’s an object to be peed on.

The coaching staff’s statement that she “made it up” to cover for her bad behavior is so out of line, but not surprising, given the mindset.  And the coach himself, well, what can one say to “you’ll get yours!” ??

Sadly, the mindset is not just in Steubenville or the U.S. or India, but all over the world. such as this group in Australia.

More blame the victim here.

More here on the politics of rape… note the conservative viewpoint to deny that rapes occur.  As this article illustrates, even women  attack other women about whether they were raped or not.  I seriously wonder if Katie Roiphe wasn’t raped and is in serious denial?

Link in criminal behavior and heavy metals

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One of the members of the support group posted this link to a timely article on the link between lead and criminal behavior–not just here, but around the world.  Pretty impressive.  Unfortunately, the article’s focus is solely on lead, and not other heavy metals like mercury, which also affect brain and body function, and is everywhere in the atmosphere.

Anybody wanna bet that this will not be looked at in the case of Adam Lanza or any of the mass killers?

Let My People Go…

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Okay, I went and looked up the story that I referenced earlier on the zoo animals, except it was an Orangutan named Fu Manchu at the Omaha, Nebraska zoo that made the great escape.  (with apologies to Orangutans everywhere. Haha.)  It’s just sooo compelling that I had to come back and share it.

I tried to find it on the National Geographic Kids website, but alas, it was not there.

Story here:

Fu lived at the Henry Doorly Zoo in Omaha, Nebraska.  And he used his skills, for one purpose–to escape!  “It was a game to him,” says zoo director Lee Simmons.  “He never went anywhere.  But he’d let everybody else out and we’d have orangs all over the zoo.
“

The first time he did it, head keeper Jerry Stones blamed his staff for leaving a door unlocked.  By the third time, Stones threatened to fire someone.

Luckily, before he did, Stones caught Fu in the act.  Like a burglar breaking into a house, Fu was slipping a piece of wire under the latch and unhooking it!

Stones confiscated the wire.  And he ordered his staff never to let the orangutans go outside without first checking their yard for trash such as sires.  The keeper thought he had the problem solved.

But two weeks later, Stones noticed something metallic between Fu’s lips.  He told the ape to open his mouth, stuck in his finger, and guess what he found?  It was a piece of wire—bent at both ends to fit around Fu’s gums.  “All the work we were doing, searching and tearing things apart, wasn’t doing any good,” says Stones.  “Fu had made his own key.  And he was hiding it in his mouth!”

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I have nothing to add–except that it’s pretty sad that some will think this is a cute story instead of a sad one that illustrates we have a ways to go in treating animals compassionately.

I feel the same way about the marine worlds.  And yes, I used to go to them, as well.  I now look at the pictures I have of the dolphins’ magnificent jumps with guilt and sadness. A pretty blunt article here.   I have read of dolphins purposely drowning themselves in captivity.

Let’s not forget the tragedy associated with Tillikum, one of the whales that killed his Indiana native trainer.

 

PR Watch

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(I’m sooo far behind, I think I’m ahead…)

Trying to play catch up–here are some highlights of issues sent out by Center for Media and Democracy–

I love that he is holding Whole Foods accountable for the food they are saying is organic….but not quite telling all of the possible ingredients (heavy metals and other contaminants)…

The “Don’t ask, don’t tell” I-see-no-evil, I-hear-no-evil is pretty standard.  They aren’t counting on folks like Mario asking questions, either.  The more people ask questions, the harder it is to come up with evasive answers.

Like I’ve said before, know where your food is from–buy locally if at all possible, because the gossip is at least one other national organic food store is selling conventionally grown (using chemical fertilizers, herbicides, pesticides) food is being marketed as organic.

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Addressing the gun violence issue.  Like in my previous post, you can use other weapons for violence instead of guns–it’s the acceptance of violence in our society (and others) that encourages this.  It’s so much easier to throw a rock than to try to reason with someone and to compromise and to recognize one’s own responsibility towards making peace.  A gun is a  quick way to end whatever problem there is…

And the argument that everyone carrying a gun would stop violence…oy vey…

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ALEC member Scott nominated to fill Demint vacancy.

IRS audit for ALEC?  The question becomes “are you a charity if you have a political action committee and go from state to state trying to heavily influence legislation?”

Michigan and ALEC’s right to work law.   This is part of the religious right’s assault on fairness, which I’m finding out in the book Holy Terror.  (I’m slowly getting through it, a better report later.)

 

…and then there’s violence without a gun…

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The human body can be used as a weapon, as well.  How effing vicious does a rape have to be to put a woman into intensive care?  And what about that bus driver?? He had to have known what was going on.

And the way this story is written makes it sound like only in India is rape a stigma…yeah, well, I’ve got news for ya, it’s a stigma *everywhere*…right here in the U.S., we have republicans who say if a woman is raped, she can’t become pregnant...or if she is a Native American woman, a non-native man can rape her without fear of punishment.

Or how about the town I grew up in–where teenage boys tied a mentally challenged woman to a tree and raped her…one of my former friends actually blamed her, saying that she “let them”.  How the hell can you defend yourself if you’re tied to a tree? Or not in command of all your mental faculties?

So we come back to the acceptance of violence in our society.  “Boys will be boys” and all that crap…

Genetic tests on Lanza?

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Oh.My.God.

I am just stunned.  Eugenics, anyone??

Nothing in this article about him having amalgams or mercury exposure or diet (if he is gluten intolerant, leading to schizophrenia).

No…we can’t have scientists looking at stuff like that, because that’s too simple an answer and the ways to fix it make us uncomfortable.   It means we have to give up some things that pollute our environment and we have to make more of an effort to understand the diet and immune system and how they affect our brains.

I mean, really, “science” has taught us that amalgams are safe, right??

…and “science” has brought us pesticides, herbicides, chemical fertilizers, and genetically modified organisms.

So, yeah, scientists with biases and prejudices should *absolutely* assign a value to a gene and making sweeping generalizations with those biases. /snark

More here. Be sure to note the Americans funding this garbage.