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Sunday, Nov 8, 2009
My point was that the jury (and the audience in the courtroom) convicted Matt Winkler, a man who had been shot in the back in his sleep and therefore wasn't able to offer his side of the story, of abusing his wife, based on the small-town knee-jerk reaction to a pair of fuck-me shoes. A woman got away with killing her husband (she's free now, and trying to get her children back) largely because of the emotional impact of those shoes.
>>Nor do husbands murder their wives significantly more than wives murder their husbands. A 1994 Department of Justice study analyzed 10,000 cases and found that women make up over 40 percent of those charged in familial murders.
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Excuse me? That is significant. That means out of 100 spousal murders women accounted for only 40 of them compared to men accounting for 60 of them. That means that men in this instance of 100 murders, killed 20 more spouses. Why is this being touted as an insignificant difference?
we agree on winkler, a miscarriage of justice. however seeing
her i couldn't help thinking she was NUTS! (not a psychiatric term)
and not a danger to the community, but if i were to accept that i'd
have to accept the jealous rage of a crazed husband as nuts as
well. can't do that. we have to figure out something better to do
with these people.
i too agree that she was coached by a lawyer (no matter HOW crazy,
nobody wants to go to jail - not strictly true, some folks feel so
remorseful that they do. in such cases, where rehabilitation is
actually possible, you'd think mercy would be applied - but it's
the opposite. guilty as charged! life without parole!)
as for the shoes, who knows how they think? perhaps in saudi arabia
they have equally acceptable excuses.
yes, i didn't figure on falling. you can fall and get killed. that
is what? manslaughter? (yes, you're just as dead).
mean humor. i was referring to TV. embarrass contestants. freaky
people the audience feels superior to. that sort of thing. i wasn't
talking about jokes.
the last para - "The story about the two people in the park is
horrifying. Am I supposed to be sorry that the people who watched
someone die and didn't do a thing have difficulty getting over
it?". what i wanted to do here was to place a picture in peoples'
minds so they would not necessarily act that way if that occurs.
you *can* stop these things. it doesn't matter how big or strong
you are. i am 5'8 on a good day - and scrawny. but i was able to
stop domestic disputes before anyone (but me) got hurt. yes, i got
hit - and required stitches (didn't call the cops) but i didn't
fall on the pavement and hit my head. i think if i were a woman and
not drunk i would have gotten away without even that. just by
calming people down - and women are good at that. here's a couple
of instances where you don't have to act, just talk - but you can't
count on help. i told an elderly man on the bus to watch his pocket
(he was being pickpocketed). he came over and said, "it's ok, i
don't have much". meanwhile the pickpocket sized up the situation.
he came over, leaned over me and said "come out of the bus, i'm
going to slit your throat", of course, i didn't. but the people on
my side of the bus quietly went over to the other side. first the
old man, then the rest. the bus driver kept driving. later he was
cranky. guilty conscience? who knows? this went on seemingly
forever until the pickpocket got off. i "whew-ed", the whole bus
laughed. one young man said, "you shouldn't be afraid, if they talk
they aren't going to do anything". but of course, he waited till it
was safe to do that. if One Person had said "shut up and sit down"
that would have been the end of that - but you either have to be
very courageous or just act on instinct. you can't expect help.
well, you can *expect* it but you aren't necessarily going to get
it. if you are a woman? *maybe* that would help - in the Old West,
not in the here and now. the last case. i was in grand central
station at the morning rush hour. there must have been a thousand
on the platform. three tracks over a middle-aged black man climbed
down from the platform and lay down on the tracks. right where the
train would be coming. i talked loudly (it was three tracks over)
in my best police voice (my best intimidating voice), "That's no
place to go to sleep! Get Off the Tracks!" to my amazement he
sheepishly climbed back on the platform. within a minute (it was
rush hour) the train roared past. did any of the crowd react? Not
at All!. Now this might make me sound like a Great Hero. maybe i am
maybe i'm not, but it has other "collateral damage". i am
imperfectly socialized. i have a Big Mouth. i get banned from
threads (Glenn Greenwald's for one). maybe they go together - i
think they do. but you don't have to be like me. you can practice a
"motorcycle persona" in your imagination and if you ever have to
use it, you can dig up the guts to talk when no one else is. or at
least i think so. allie_, thanks for inadvertently reminding me of
the few good things i've done.
To count as domestic violence, aggressive physical contact needs to be a repeat activity.
One of the threads at "Jezebel" describes a whole lot of women who got in a single fight essentially simultaneously with dumping a loser. And the guys were by and large not hurt much.
This is NOT domestic violence since it's not about domination or power. It's just a garden-variety minor assault. Shit, that happens to even the least pugilistic guys in middle and high school, at least a handful of times.
As for why abusive girlfriends might be funny in the abstract: it's because it upsets the classical power model, which--in the abstract--is often very funny.
If some woman is repeatedly beating up a boyfriend to dominate him, well that's something else. It's only funny in the abstract.
Much of the initial coverage about Fort Hood turned out to be wrong. Is there anything wrong with that?
The accountability imposed by another country for the CIA's kidnapping and torture reveals much about our own.
Fox News' morning show plays to type, talking about whether Muslims in the Army should face "special debriefings"
The survivor and author is upset about comparisons some on the right are making to genocide
Once seen as a lunatic fringe, reactionary anti-women groups are courting respectability
Salon headlines in your mailbox
