Still not dead, just marooned. This connection is gonna fizzle at any se
What is this?
You are reading I Blame The Patriarchy, the patriarchy-blaming blog that advances the radical feminist views of Twisty Faster, a gentleman farmer and spinster aunt eating dinner in Austin, Texas.
I Blame The Patriarchy is intended for advanced patriarchy-blamers. It is not a feminist primer. See Patriarchy-Blaming the Twisty Way for details.
"I couldn't get Twisty's point. It was so longwinded." -- The Blogosphere
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cond.
Twisty, if you can fit into a T-shirt labeled “boys XL 18-20,” Lands’ End has a fetching t-shirt (if anything in navy blue can be deemed fetching) that features a patronymically labeled daddy longlegs. The chief parts of the bug are labeled on the shirt. Wait, you don’t need to wear daddy longlegs apparel–you can just go visit your writhing colony of the critters.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=OfZKTeOBuK0
OK, some entertainment to get us through this trying time.
Ground Control to Major Twisty?
Meanwhile, a tip o’ the hat to the California Supreme Court, which, as a friend of mine pointed out, isn’t even a “liberal” court.
Principles. What a concept.
so good to hear/see your voice!
I really like the way the Latest Blamer Invective links fade from dark to light as time passes. I’ve always thought it was neat.
King Arthur: [about the inscription on the rock] What does it say, Brother Maynard?
Brother Maynard: It reads, “Here may be found the last words of Joseph of Arimathea. He who is valiant and pure of spirit may find the holy grail in the Castle of Aaauuuggghhh…”
King Arthur: What?
Brother Maynard: “The Castle of Aaaauuuggghhhh”
Sir Bedevere: What is that?
Brother Maynard: He must have died while carving it.
King Arthur: Oh come on!
Brother Maynard: Well, that’s what it says.
King Arthur: Look, if he was dying, he wouldn’t have bothered to carve ‘Aaaauuuggghhhh’. He’d just say it.
Sir Galahad: Maybe he was dictating it.
King Arthur: Oh shut up!
Sir Robin: Well does it say anything else?
Brother Maynard: No, just “Aaaaauuuugggghhh”.
Am I coming in clear?
Hah!
Hey! The Professor can make a new radio out of coconuts!
You get nothing! You lose! Good day, sir!
Good morning, Blamers-
While we wait for the good Captain’s return, I have a question for you. Do you share with those around you when you’re pre- or menstrual? Who? Honeys only? Close family? Friends? Coworkers? Why/ why not?
I ask because I was recounting to a girlfriend a phone conversation that I had with a long-distance lust object of mine and said that he and I’d talked about my current terrible PMS in some context or another. She was aghast. I was shocked that she (a strong, hilarious, angry personality with a hilariously foul mouth) was shocked.
“It’s not like I’m crapping my pants”, says I, “Most women get it every 28 days for most of their lives”. (And I tell everyone. ‘Everyone’ meaning friends, coworkers, bed partners, my son, family, etc, when pertinent).
“Yeah but it’s your PERIOD”, says she.
It made me curious about how/why/how much women share or don’t share their current menstrual status and what it means Patriarchy-wise when we do or don’t.
Thoughts?
Be well, Twisty. Be well. ;)
In more recent years, I have nearly sworn to never use the word “love” or “friend” again.
I, hereby, fully take that oath.
Me? I’m as mad as HELL and I’m not going to take it anymore.
I almost never come out of lurkdom on this blog, preferring instead to savor Twisty’s wisdom anonymously. But see, I felt her presence the other night, so I feel compelled to share, especially in her distressing absence.
I was tired and head-achy, and I plopped down in front of the TV to lose myself in the mindless drivel that is the Turner Classic Movie Network. The movie was “Seven Brides for Seven Brothers.” Good lord, what a partriarchy fest! I think I saw a high school production of it when I was a kid, but it never dawned on me then what a paen to the patriarchy it was.
I kept hearing Twisty in my ear, pitilessly critiquing the horror of that MGM ode to misogyny. And then I knew: Even if Twisty ultimately abandons this blog for a horse and some peace and quiet, we’ll be okay. At least, I will. I will miss her brilliance and humor. But I’ll never stop seeing the odious oppression in cheerfully chauvinistic musicals, not if I live to be 1000. I’ll never stop blaming the goddamned patriarchy. Thank you, Twisty. From the bottom of my heart, thank you!
Twisty, I just “found” you a few months ago, and had been reading your brilliant posts every day. I hope you’re alright, and that whatever’s going on in your life right now is okay, or turns out okay. I’m thinking of you with love and warmth.
Hmmm. I haven’t even been lurking for long and I’m worryin’ about ya. Hope yer ok.
I’ll mention it if it’s relevant to the discussion or situation. Not to dudes most of the time, though; I have a thing about dudes knowing any more than they absolutely have to about my reproductive system and/or whether I’m currently fertile or not, on top of the fact that the vast majority of dudes in my life have been, shall we say, less than supportive. The last job I had was in a department of all women, so when it came down to the fact that I was having to call in sick for the first three days of every cycle because of monstrous cramps, nausea and migraines, I felt comfortable explaining the situation to my boss. I’m glad my boss wasn’t a dude; I would have been afraid he would just tell me I was a wuss and discipline me for it, and so I would have established a pattern of absenteeism and eventually been disciplined anyway, probably fired. Or had to go to the damn doctor every time and paid for that just to be able to bring in a note.
Nigel hears about it at great length. I try to keep the discussion of clotty goopiness to a minimum, which he seems to appreciate.
Twisty, I maked you a picture.
http://photos-c.ak.facebook.com/photos-ak-sf2p/v256/170/5/511928106/n511928106_646938_8671.jpg
“It made me curious about how/why/how much women share or don’t share their current menstrual status and what it means Patriarchy-wise when we do or don’t.”
I rarely share my status with anyone other than my gf. On an interesting note, my mother thinks it would be awful for a man to see a pad in the garbage can, and if ever a man visitor comes to the house, every pad and wrapper has to be removed from the bathroom garbage and hidden in the garage garbage. Even if there’s no blood on it. I think it’s horribly offensive that she finds pads horribly offensive, and I try to get her to explain her position to me but she won’t. You ask what that means patriarchy-wise? Women’s bodies are gross and we should hide them from men, because if they knew how icky we really were, they wouldn’t want us to be their precious meat-socks anymore.
I hardly ever share details of this w/anyone, mostly because I am a private person and resist sharing at every possible opportunity, but also because I detest the patronizing bullshit about supposed hormonal swings. However my Nigel is absolutely fascinated with this issue and I have to consistently run him out of the bathroom so that I can take care of business w/o an audience. I have no idea WTF is up with that.
Bwhaha, sounds like a male dog I used to have.
The other thing, too, is that I’ve run into dudes on the intertoobs who have menstrual blood fetishes, and I don’t want to run into any of them in real life.
I have no idea why I completely missed the training on how a dude should behave when confronted by menstruation. It never seemed anything but something completely normal to me. The fact that it sometimes rips women apart was something awful, of course, and I was always glad I didn’t get cramps. But what is it that supposed to be so awful about it?
When I was a teenager sometimes a girl would decline to make love because of it, and I’d say it wasn’t a problem with me, but OK. And a towel under the two of us wasn’t a problem if she wanted to do it anyway. What was the big deal? How did I miss out on the programming that would make me shy away from so universal a human condition?
It must have been the attitude of my mother toward it, I can only guess. She never made much of it at all.
Bodily fluids and excretions come in hierarchies; from the cleanliness of tears to the disease-ridden filth of shit. Blood always seemed one of the cleanest fluids that could come out of your body - cleaner than saliva. Nothing sexy about it, but nothing sickening either.
Any man who would sexualize menstrual blood would have to totally hate women, wouldn’t he? Is there no end to the ways men objectify everything?
Current BF hears about the cramps. As for mood swings, I don’t confine those to a couple of days a month, so it’s not really an issue worth discussing.
May I just say that, until I started seeing this guy, who has no aversion to the menstruating body (in whole or in part), I never realized how much I’d internalized the taboos about my own body.
Apropos of this discussion, I saw a woman yesterday wearing a read t-shirt saying “my name is M.C. Menses, and my flow is fresh.”
I tell everyone about my period, ESPECIALLY the men. Fuckers. They may not get horrible cramps, bloating and physical sickness every month but they will know and pamper me when I do. If I have to deal with it they do to.
Nice comic!
If you want to blame anyone, please do it on the blog “Families against feminsim”: http://heartsforfamily.blogspot.com/
I find that blog truly awful. The owner of the blog claims that you as a woman, are supposed to stay home and care for the home, the children and husband. Feminism is something evil and bad, and a threat against families. A woman has only one right way to go in life, and that is the family-way, cause that is God’s will.
Baah, this makes me soooo angry. I want to cry, because there still are people who believe in this. This woman’s main goal in life, is to defeat feminism. Please step by this blog and flag it as improper.
Lately I’ve been discussing with some friends menstruation as a potential bear attractant. As in, women bleed, and the smell of that blood might attract bears. Apparently a lot of people believe this, despite the fact that considerably more men are attacked by bears than women. this article further discusses how much of a danger this is, and suggests ways of reducing the threat, such as burning tampons. It makes me want to burn a tampon and see what happens.
When Twisty comes back, everyone pretend we weren’t talking about bears!
Twisty, my friend, you are well missed.
I tell the Sig other if it is pertinent, like I’m not going to do whatever planned activity that day because I feel cruddy with the cramps. I will him before sex, just because Oh, I don’t know, I guess so he knows what to expect. I’ll talk about it to girlfriends if it comes up. But that is about it.
I realize that some women have symptoms and hormonal changes during their period, and I don’t mean to be unsympathetic towards that. But I do despise the idea of going around and telling everyone about your PMS. If only because it is so often used against us.
In unrelated pop culture news, y’all should check out this month’s Cosmo. There’s an article about how to tell if a guy is “capable of rape”. It is so ‘empowerful’ to know which ones are rapists and which ones are just regular porn-watching, strip-club attending dudes! In a case of extraordinary irony, one of the ways to tell if a guy is ‘capable of rape’ is that he has “traditional views of men and women”. This differs from Cosmo magazine in general, which has enlightened views of gender roles. Like, that women should wear a lot of makeup and learn 101 ways to please their man in bed.
I laughed out loud in the store and the next lady turned around to give me a funny look. I think Twisty could do a pretty funny analysis, but I doubt she’d read Cosmo even to make fun of it, so there’s my mini-analysis for my fellow blamers.
Cool whip comes in a squirty can now! Not that inferior sugary mess but actual real life cool whip! Is this enough to lure you back out of hiding?
FYI, I just published this rant about a sexist newsletter I received, with the catchy title “Why Men Rule,” just in time for father’s day, I guess, from one of those “Care Page” sites that people use to keep family in touch during illness, and thought I’d share it with all the blamers out there.
As per the menstruation question - I don’t mind mentioning it. Certainly my husband is well aware of when I’m on my period. All of the men I’ve ever been with have not cared, in terms of hearing about it or in terms of having sex during it.
At the same time, I don’t think women feel the same comfort in making jokes about it as men do about cum. But I’m sure some of this is more to do with a disinclination to be crass than anything else.
I’m sure I’ve mentioned it to work colleagues before but then you open yourself up to jokes based on stereotypes.
Doesn’t it seem that stereotypes about women are much more accessible and common than those about men? I’ve been thinking about this recently in relation to the Clinton campaign and the types of invective used against her (not those criticisms about her as a politician, but those terms directly related to her gender).
Bushfire, I sometimes do takedowns of femininity magazines at my LiveJournal. However, the ones I do are the magazines I misguidedly subscribed to several years ago that haven’t run out yet; they’re already paid for, they already come to my house, I might as well blame them. My ass is not paying for Cosmo, or I’d write it up tonight.
While Twisty, like the irresponsible parent you would expect a spinster aunt to be, leaves us to our own devices for entertainment, I offer a follow-up topic to the “how publicly to you deal with your periods”:
How publicly do you deal with birth control? (sorry for the lucky lesbians, this one is for breeders)
Do you cringe when you pay for pills or condoms at the check-out counter?
Do you feel comfortable asking your significant other to pick up condoms at the supermarket? Your friends or your mom? Egads, your father? In-laws?
Do you whip our your pills and take them in public, or go hide in the ladies room? If you use a diaphragm, how do you deal with taking it cleaning it out the day after, if you’re at work?
Do you have a hiding place for condoms near the bed, or are they tastefully conveniently displayed in a lovely ceramic bowl on the bedside table? Do you feel like you have to hide used condoms in the trash under mounts of tissues?
I can’t believe I’m coming out of lurking for this, but this happened last week and I thought it was interesting.
Mr Mouse & I were at the grocery store with my sister, just getting a few last minute things for a bbq… He had gone to find chips while I think I was looking for matches or some such and I happened on the condoms, remembered we needed some and grabbed a box. While I went to find matches and Mr Mouse I noticed Concerned Parents with their younglings staring at the contents of my hand.
I started feeling foolishly self-concious.
So it was kind of a relief when I spied my sis carrying a shopping basket. I asked if we could share baskets, she said sure, and I sauntered off.
Once I was done my half of the list, I stumbled into Mr Mouse and sis near the registers. I retrieved my condoms from sis’ basket and dropped in ours.
Mr Mouse (who frequently buys the bc- pill, condom, whatever), turned beet red and stammered, “You put that in your sister’s basket?” And we both stared at the other like they’d turned into a three-headed martian.
I just found that such a funny response- the strange looks from parents, my husband being shocked that my sis has proof we do the dirty… at least the checker didn’t seem to find anything strange about my purchase. Why is it all a big secret even when you’re finally a consenting adult?
As for period sharing, my bffs and I used to make tampon critters from (clean) tampons. I always thought the strings looked like tails. I can’t find an exact version online, but this is close:
[img]http://photos1.blogger.com/x/blogger2/6082/487777911667875/1600/z/788766/gse_multipart39761.jpg[/img]
(sorry if I screw up the html)
Sorry, didn’t mean to write a novel there. Here’s the link if anyone wants it: http://snipurl.com/2c5qy
I just came from a bunch of blogs written by women and celebrating porn and pole dancing. I guess I could get my sanity fix from vintage Twisty, but oh how some new blaming would have made my night.
Survey answers:
I tell no one when I have my period unless it is germane to the conversation immediately happening. I have this type of conversation with a very small number of people.
There are pantiliners and pads stacked on the back of the toilet and tampons in a glass over the stove. The divacup lives in the medicine cabinet.
I cringe when I buy my Nuvarings only because of the price. I am horribly embarrassed when buying condoms or spermicides. I would never ask anyone who I was not planning to use these items with to pick them up for me.
When I was on the pill, it lived in a drawer in my bedside table and I took it there. On those rare occasions when I planned ahead to have the pill with me if I were going to be out of the house at the correct time to take it, I hid the act of swallowing it. I also hide taking Pepto Bismol in public. Now that I am on the ring, I remove the old one in the bathroom, in private, and replace the new one in the kitchen, also in private (hey, I live alone). If I lived with a roommate, I would take the new Nuvaring to the bathroom or my bedroom and replace it in private.
The condoms are in the bathroom still in the bag from the pharmacy b/c I have no current need for them. In the unlikely but happy event that I should develop a need for condoms, they will live discretely by the bed.
Bonus answer: when it is likely that company will come over, I remove all clothing from the floor, chairs, railings etc, and throw it in the closet out of sight, but I pay particular attention to making sure I take all bras off the door knobs which is where I hang them when I remove them. Bikini tops inexplicably remain hanging on the towel bars.
(erm, about the seemingly strange placement of cooter-related items in my kitchen - the tampons live there to make my landlord uncomfortable. He goes in my apartment without telling me, so I try to give him something to find while he’s in there. Nuvarings are supposed to be stored in the fridge. I get the new one out of the fridge and stick it in right there.)
Condoms live in the nightstand drawer. If not contained thusly they would wind up buried behind and under things and would not be findable when needed. This is not at all an embarrassment issue. The lube and vibrators are arrayed in plain sight on the ledge above the bed.
I’m on the Patch, so as far as that goes I’m usually putting the new one on after I get out of the bathtub, as opposed to in front of people, but on one memorable occasion when called upon to prove that I am the one person on earth whose skin tone it actually matches I turned my back to my friend and mooned her. (The Patch lives on my butt cheeks, alternating left and right.) My parents and sister hear about my various birth control troubles (such as when I go to the pharmacy and for no real reason my insurance decides not to cover it this quarter), as do my friends, basically anyone I talk to enough for it to come up. Even the fundy woman I know through choir who periodically takes me to task for not having waited to have sex until marriage. (I think she’ll shit a brick if it ever comes up that Nigel wasn’t the first man I slept with, or indeed that the first person I slept with wasn’t a man.)
But it’s funny you should ask; I’ve just spent the past week complaining to everyone I know that my insurance decided, last Friday, to stick me with a $230 bill for my three months’ worth of birth control, and that if it weren’t for the goddamn patriarchy no woman would have to pay for this kind of stuff, and it should be illegal for them not to cover it, and just generally ranting on until people began to tune me out.
I do however get really nervous and stressed about going to the pharmacy to pick it up. It could be because they always treat me like a complete idiot when I go in there, though. Which is why I’m switching pharmacies.
My boyfriend will know when I’m surfing the red waves. Mostly because my periods are very heavy and havign sex would be a mess worse than I’d be willing to clean up. I’m lazy like that. So no sex for almost a week = Jem’s on her period.
No one else gets to know. It’s none of anyone else’s business. Though sometimes I do complain to a close girl friend about the cramps and such. But other than that? Nyeh.
As for the BC. I’m on the pill, that’s no secret. Mind, here in DK people are generally more open-minded about sex and BC, so being condemned at the apothecary’s because you had the audacity to buy BC pills is highly unlikely.
Not currently using condoms because the SO and I are long-term and exclusive to each other. Back when condoms were my regular BC I kept a packet in drawer by the bed. Wouldn’t do to keep it on top of the bedside table for one simple reason. I keep placing books there… in stacks several volumes high, and in the heat of the moment having to move 7 volumes in order to get to the tool needed for the continuation of the activities… No… it’d end in major crashes. Rather just have one drawer designated for that purpose, and thus always know where to find them.
HELP!
http://buzzfeed.com/peggy/panties-for-peace
Panties for Peace? OK, not sure what to make of these top articles on Buzzfeed.
Maybe . . . they should bleed on them first. That would REALLY freak ‘em out.
http://www.no-contact.com/
This has to be a joke, right?
Oh Twisty, please come back. I miss you so.
I dreamed that Twisty was a fire-and-brimstone preacher (or perhaps she was singing from the pulpit?) in an African-American church. (I’ve been reading _Go tell it on the mountain_ by James Baldwin.) All the people in the church were her family. Her passionate eloquence was being filmed for the blog, so she referred to herself as “Twisty” to preserve her pseudonymity. All the congregants were cool with that.
Cool dream, Karen.
where are you?!?
I cry in the bathroom at work. well, okay, for other reasons, but come on!
hope all is well.
twistyyyyyyyyyy desde la pampa la distancia hace que tu ausencia sea mayor…. twisty on vacations??? yes, we ALL miss you. i send you kissess from here to theare. came back soon
Has it been long enough to start alluding loudly to the possibility that Twisty has died or been in a horrible accident?
No no no. Clearly she’s just found a P-free sandy spot on the beach and is enjoying it too much to come back here yet.
I bet it’s a sandy beach spot with a margarita-and-taco stand.
“Lately I’ve been discussing with some friends menstruation as a potential bear attractant. As in, women bleed, and the smell of that blood might attract bears. Apparently a lot of people believe this, despite the fact that considerably more men are attacked by bears than women.”
That’s cuz men suck hairy ass and bears know this.
My period: I don’t really share info unless it’s relevant to the discussion, and it’s usually with other women. Men, as I said before, suck hairy ass, so they don’t deserve to know about the wonderful and complex cycles of my great female body.
Patriarchy-free tacos….mmmm
Female supremacy…
http://femalesupremacist.org/scaal_home.html
For your amusement. =)
Twisty Faster fans - you might be interested in pumapac.org. It is a site for a new PAC formed in resistance to the hijacking of the Democratic party. the idea is to get the Dem party “bosses” to realize that Hillary should be the nominee, and if she is not the nominee, PUMA dems are not going to support the party or vote for Obama. This grew from the Confluence. Please check it out - it is full of die hard Hillary supporters who are trying to organize to fight the patriarchal bullsh*t that is the foundation of what has happened to the most qualified candidate for President. Thanks for considering -
I neeeeeed Twisty back….
I miss Twisty! What are some other sites that people who love Twisty go to? I also like feminist reprise, but she has not posted much recently either…
Sorry to say, crowlie, I was not amused. I think that sub-dom shit makes a joke out of women’s superiority. Men like it because they can fetishize women’s superiority by making women a sexual spectacle for them.
I don’t need stilletos or roleplay to be superior, I just am, thanks. :P
In a brave attempt at lightheartedness, I note that Twisty reminds me of the Cheshire Cat, to whom Alice says:
“I wish you wouldn’t keep appearing and vanishing so suddenly; you make one quite giddy!”
“All right,” said the Cat; and this time it vanished quite slowly, beginning with the end of the tail, and ending with the grin, which remained some time after the rest of it had gone.
Can someone check on Twisty to make sure she is alright? Someone must know… I don’t want to be intrusive, perhaps she needs her privacy right now. On the other hand, maybe she’s in a situation of some sort, and needs her Blamers to help in some way.
KinkyKathy is not a “dude,” not a “fucking pedantic asshole” and not a feminist sipping soy in academic circles. KinkyKathy is a lesbian Republican. But she hopes you re-establish your connection, because she looks forward to reading your cool entries. And possibly dating you.
Dearest Twisty, I certainly hope that your analog life, loves, family, friends, dogs, obligations and tacos don’t prevent you from gratifying the blametariat’s deep and abiding need for your brilliance for too much longer. The internet is just no damn good without you.
Hey crowlie? Please don’t link to porn. If there’s any doubt in your mind that that little computer-generated image of the naked woman with stiletto heels and wobbling hips isn’t porn–I don’t even know. Yuck.
*any doubt in your mind that it is porn.
I need food and to get more sleep than this.
Seconding the request for someone who knows Twisty IRL to please check on her and report back. I mean, golly, it’s been almost a month.
Great blog! You need to update it more often - don’t keep up waiting so long!!!
I blame patriarchy too. See?: http://shesontherag.blogspot.com
Let’s blame patriarchy together. Okay. Cool.
http://technorati.com/posts/dnkKTtswIDtnZN31fGOcIeEgcwPL1NGRlbpMRymORhU=
Damn!
Hattie–thanks. Twisty–good luck, you have a lot of enthusastic admirers (including me) who are rooting for you.
All the best, Twisty.
Before everyone panics, I think the post Hattie links to is at least 2 years old (couldn’t actually find it). Someone who’s been around here longer correct me, but I think Twisty had cancer, and subsequently had both breast removed. This was at least a year ago.
Hope all is well in Twisty-land now, just want to avoid confusion.
Hattie’s link is from 2006.
Whew! Thanks, Ate and Cassie.
I think she’s two timing us with Stanley again.
I should say, I hope she is.
We’re getting fretfull Twisty.
Someone has already snuck a porn link into this thread. It can only go downhill from there.
=(
**FLASH**
a little victory in canada:
Plan B comes out from behind the counter
“Canada has become the fifth country in the world to approve the off-the-shelf sale of levonorgestrel (Plan B), the emergency contraception drug, after the National Association of Pharmacy Regulatory Authorities recommended it come out from behind the pharmacy counter.”
http://www.cmaj.ca/cgi/content/full/178/13/1645
from the canadian medical association journal
miss you twisty.
Phew, indeed. Gotta get those glasses checked!!!!
Mea culpa, everyone.
I’m repeating what has often been said here, but heck, Twisty, I miss you.
Those who are looking to do some blamer brain-trusting in Twisty’s absence: please call 757/247-4537 and talk to Samia or her editor at the Daily Press in Williamsburg, VA. The paper is refusing to cover a developing story on an unsolved April rape case at William and Mary. Samia says they only cover rapes involving well-known individuals.
Is it a story? (1) The William & Mary law school accidentally admitted some guy with a documented history of sexual misconduct. Per an anonymous tip, they requested files from his former educational institution. Now he’s not a student there anymore. (2) Some people (like Liz Jackson) at the law school are worried about sharing documents pertaining to that history with WM Police Department. Wouldn’t want to trample on anybody’s civil rights. (3) The WM PD has only one investigator, and he’s out of the office — a week after the tip was called in, no one’s moving on this. His sargeant’s not worried about the suspect skipping town, because they think they can get to him anywhere… The patriarchy, as we all know, is omnipotent. Is inaction a story? In this case, when it’s a threat to justice and public safety?
Don’t just BTP. Call the paper. Just because it’s rape, doesn’t mean we can’t talk about it. The press exists in part to be a further check and balance on governmental actors (like schools and police departments) in this country. Please remind it what it’s there for.
At 3:15 eastern time on June 19th, my IBTP-action request qua comment is stuck in moderation; I thought previously used moniker-webaddress combo comments went right through? Meanwhile, I’ve asked much the same of Salon.com editors and Feministing folks. (Who ought to open my emails by next Tuesday.) So never mind, I guess. Situation ought to be different by the time these comments get moderated. (So if you’re the moderator and you’re reading this, you can just delete them.) Thanks.
WTF? My initial comment is still stuck in moderation, but that second (”never mind”) one went right through. Let me try this in pieces (maybe it was too long):
Those who are looking to do some blamer brain-trusting in Twisty’s absence: please call 757/247-4537 and talk to Samia or her editor at the Daily Press in Williamsburg, VA. The paper is refusing to cover a developing story on an unsolved April rape case at William and Mary. Samia says they only cover rapes involving well-known individuals.
Is it a story? (1) The William & Mary law school accidentally admitted some guy with a documented history of sexual misconduct. Per an anonymous tip, they requested files from his former educational institution. Now he’s not a student there anymore. (2) Some people (like Liz Jackson, 757/221-3782) at the law school are worried about sharing documents pertaining to that history of sexual misconduct with WM Police Department. Wouldn’t want to trample on anybody’s civil rights. (3) The WM PD has only one investigator, and he’s out of the office — a week after the tip was called in, no one’s moving on this. His sargeant’s not worried about the suspect skipping town, because they think they can get to him anywhere. The patriarchy, as we all know, is omnipotent.
The rest is hung up in moderation again, and I don’t know why. Just ask if you want more info to make your phone call.
At issue: The press exists in part to be a further check and balance on governmental actors (like schools and police departments) in this country. Even when that requires talking about icky stuff like sexual assault and bureaucratic inaction. Please remind it what it’s there for.
If you’re still raring after that first phone call, you could also call William & Mary Law at 757/221-3785, and ask that they share files relevant to a suspect’s history of sexual misconduct with the police department.
Here’s a lovely article for ya - judge bans rape victim from using the word “rape”:
http://www.kansascity.com/105/story/654147.html
I hope Twisty is ok.
Come back! I miss your sass :(
If you would only stop saying ” ghost of a dead nazerene on a stick”.
That hurts me.
“Ghost of a dead nazerene on a stick” - that hurts me because it makes me laugh so hard.
Come back, Twisty, come back!
Have you eaten any good tacos lately?
huh?
Hmmmm… taco strike in protest of my absolute favourite blog and favourite wit going on sabbatical. I hope you are well and safe Twisty, I very much miss you.
still no Twisty.
I haz a sad.
Hope you’re alright. Us blamers need their guru back.
There is no need to go and get misty.
We’ve survived all these weeks without Twisty.
But without her, I fear
The wide blogosphere
Isn’t nearly as rad-feministy…
(Yes, it’s an ellipsis. What are you gonna do about it, you and the horse you rode away on?)
words?
delurking….
Been reading IBTP for a while now - missing your voice, Twisty. Saw this in the NYT and wondered what you’d make of it:
Albanian Custom Fades: Woman as Family Man
Also, someone mentioned the “M.C. Menses” t-shirt upthread; that’s from the webcomic ‘Diesel Sweeties’. Link to comic is here, link to buy shirt is here.
peace ‘n tacos.
Love you, twisty. In case you had not already noticed.
;)
come back! come back! come back!
I miss you and you don’t even “know” me!
:)
I guess she’s never coming back. sniff sniff wimper
No. Really. When Twisty returns, pretend nobody mentioned bears!
…We were talking lizards and spiders. I distantly recall a baked eggplant parm. Cilantro! Goat cheese, anyone?
Whatever you do, do NOT type “twisty” into the search engine.
IBTP
Oops, I guess I mis-spelled Nazarene. My bad.
On the other hand, typing IBTP into Google comes up as #1 for Twisty in the urban dictionary.