Could we ALL just THINK for a minute?

A few days ago, some Australian radio station "pranked" a UK hospital, managing to convince a worker there that they were Royals with reason to be privy to information about Prince William's pregnant wife's condition.  A crappy, nosy, immature thing to do, but crappy, nosy, immature things are what we've come to expect from "radio personalities." 

This morning, it's come out that the poor nurse who was initially fooled by their act (and was almost certainly reprimanded) has committed suicide.

No, I'm not blaming the dimwitted DJs.  At some point, we have to take responsibility for our own stuff, and the blame for her death lies with her.

But.

Can we all agree that maybe a little forethought here might have taken things in a different direction?  It's no stretch to predict that making this sort of call would almost certainly cause folks grief.  That, if they did manage to fool someone, that someone would likely be in a world of trouble.  The DJs call theirs "lighthearted intentions."  Of that, I have no doubt, but add to it carelessness, a disregard for the circumstances of others, and a complete lack of concern for the effects their actions might have on on the people unfortunate enough to be caught up in their prank. 

Personal responsibility.  What a concept.

And, since I'm on a roll, let's talk about rape, shall we?  More to the point, let's talk about teaching women not to get raped.  This is something near and dear, as I used to both teach 'rape avoidance" classes and work with rape and domestic abuse victims, mostly in the ER. 

We used to tell women that rape is like dodgeball.  In a just, moral, RIGHT world, we'd teach the men to stop lobbing that ball.  But it's not a just, moral, RIGHT world, and we seem incapable of inspiring the men to stop targeting us, so we're forced to teach the women to dodge. 

And that's crap.  Straight up. 

Every excuse you've ever heard, every lousy question that's ever come up when a woman's been raped?  Stop it!  Unless you really believe that what a woman wears, where she walks, how much she drinks, or who she dates should possibly earn her a rape, stop it!  And if you DO believe those things?  You scare the hell out of me.  This is AMERICA, I am an adult.  I should be able to walk where I want, wear what I want, drink where I want, and date whomever I want and not have to worry that I might wind up splayed on a bathroom floor somewhere with a goose egg on my head and a crushing societal condemnation because somehow something *I* did made me deserve that. 

I get why our culture does that.  It's not just the lingering religious ideas that make women the temptresses and men the tempted.  It's also because we don't want to be the victim.  Who does?  Even more so, we don't want to believe that we COULD be the victim, just as easily as anyone else.  So we scrutinize victims closely, and we decide that something THEY did must have drawn the violence to them, like some twisted "The Secret" garbage.  We give ourselves a pat and tell ourselves that WE would never dress like that, WE would never walk there, WE would never hang out with those kinds of people.  And when an octogenarian is raped in her home?  We ask things like "Was her window open?" or "Had she locked the door?" or "Why did she open the door without asking to see his ID?"

All of these things shift the blame for a sexual assault from the ASSAULTER to the woman assaulted.  And we have got to stop that.

STOP IT!

Stop comforting yourself on the backs of victims.  Stop sending the message to our kids that the reasons for rape are tied up in a woman's wardrobe and recreational habits.  The reason for rape is simple--there are rapists.  Put an end to THAT, and rape ends.  Stop trying to convince yourself that *YOU* could never be raped because *YOU* behave better/smarter/more morally than do the women who've been victimized.  You're wrong.  you CAN be raped, and it doesn't matter where you are or what you're wearing.  So instead of blaming the victims, let's all stand together WITH the victims and put the blame where it belongs.

And let's do something about those messages we send our kids, daughters and sons, about rape, sex, and equality.

And that's all.  Went shopping at Costco and Wegmans last night.  Came out cheaper than the usual Wegmans/Walmart combo, and for more stuff.  Feels good to take Walmart out of the equation.   

Christmas Tree Day/I May Scream Myself to Death

Well, we bought a lovely tree yesterday--nothing from Walmart, we're not doing that place anymore.  After today's revelation about creatively cutting employee hours to deny them even the abysmal health benefits they were getting?  All done with Walmart.  We have Wegmans, we have Costco, both of which have terrific records when it comes to pay and benefits. 

Anyway, the tree.  It's a Fraser Fir, same as last year.  Got it from a little lot over by Sudley.  Local folks who bring in trees from North Carolina.  Sad about the Fraser Firs, though--apparently, some nasty non-native insect has decimated the old growth Frasers.  They reproduce eagerly, so there are plenty of babies, but once they're large enough for their bark to start cracking and giving an opening, they may be toast.  Apparently, they thrive in Scotland, so that's something.  Until some dip introduces some awful non-native thing there, too.

Our Fraser Fir--pay no attention to the horrendous mid-decorating mess.

We were a bit worried about the dog with the tree--after all, is it realistic to bring a live tree in the house and expect a dog to not lift leg?  Luckily, we've had no issues thus far.  Of course, the decorations aren't on yet.  Let's see how that goes, chewing-wise. 

Last night, our boy announced that he'd found a louse on his arm earlier in the day, after his Hapkido session.  He had tried to put it aside, but it had escaped somewhere in his bathroom.  So I took the fine-toothed, rat-tailed comb and went over him.  Nothing.  This morning, I was taking a shower.  After shampooing my hair, I looked down at my hand to see two strands of hair being held together by . . . what was that?  Was it moving?

Was it a damned LOUSE?

Yeah.  Yeah, it was. 

One is a coincidence.  Two?  Two is something more sinister. 

Once again, it was time to check heads.  This time I checked our boy's while hubby checked mine, and then I checked hubby's.  Nothing.  NOTHING!  Now, it's not like I don't know how to look for lice--last go-round, I mastered parting off the hair and checking, line-by-line, for those bastards.  No lice on either of my men's heads.  Our boy does have what looks like maybe nits, but not down near the scalp--these are 1-2 inches up the hair shaft, which isn't indicative of a going infestation. 

After all the combing through and checking, I feel a tickle on my bare leg.  I look down, and, sure enough, there's a LOUSE on my leg.  Smaller than the first ones, but absolutely a louse.  No mistaking it's blood-filled little abdomen. 

What the hell?

So that's another 40 bucks in lice treatments.  It's not that this has been an ongoing thing--the last (first) infestation, which only affected our boy, was  back in early July.  Five months ago.  This is a whole new group, and here's the thing--we don't hang out with anyone, really.  The closest contact we have with anyone is shopping, visiting various historical sites, our boy's Hapkido, and hubby's daily bus commute.  My money's on Hapkido, since that involves a lot of close contact and rolling around on the mats.  Whatever it is, I've gotta say, I'm unhappy.  You know I hate ticks, but at least ticks don't lay EGGS on you.  Of course, lice don't have the potential to give you possibly deadly diseases, so I guess it's "ick" factor vs really dangerous. 

But ICK, you know?  I really may scream myself to death.

Our boy just started another online course, this time with hubby.  A course on logic and arguments, offered up by Duke University.  We're really liking this Coursera gig--gives us the opportunity to fill in any gaps in our boy's education.  He's got the basics, but this gives him those electives. 

Anyway, I need to give up my post on the computer so they can get back to work.  It makes me very happy to have them sharing the time!

The tree--not done yet, I'll likely fiddle with it for a few days.  But done-ish.

The Birthday Camel is Watching You!

I awoke this morning, after only three hours of sleep, chewing on a memory.  I repeated it aloud a few times so I wouldn't forget, but only really succeeded in waking myself up beyond the point of re-nap-ability.  So here I am--8 am, dishwasher unloaded and reloaded, load of laundry in, Hapkido uniform washed and hanging, just sweaty enough to feel gross.  And I'm thinking about the Birthday Camel.

I think we all have parenting failures.  I think that, often, they arise from that mix of personalities, the clash of different ways of thinking and feeling.  You see, our boy, especially when younger, didn't really respond to reason.  It wasn't possible to explain why he shouldn't do something.  He's on that "spectrum," you see, and so he fixated, reverberated, and often boiled over without ever really hearing us.  The one thing he DID respond to?

Threats. 

I know, I know--all the "wow, you suck at parenting" things you're thinking?  I thought them all myself.  But when reasoning, pleading, wheedling, and bribing fail, you're left with three things--punishing (like time out), threatening, and beating.  Since the first never worked (not allowed to use duct tape on five year olds, and he wasn't inclined to go alone with time outs otherwise), and the third isn't an option, we landed on the second.

Threats.

Santa, of course, was great for much "get in line or lose out" fodder.  Yes, we're atheists.  Yes, we went the Santa route.  I remember once cruising the local "Christmas Village" with my sister, her now-ex, and their kids, who were perhaps five and six.  They were (or actually, my sister was--her atheist husband was rolling his eyes) making a very big deal of waiting until our boy, who was then five years old, was within earshot, then pointing out that Santa isn't real, but baby Jesus is.  We made an equally big deal of telling our boy that the jury was still out on Santa, but that everyone knew Odin and his mythological pals were just fun stories from a long, long time ago.  Nothing like family to make the holidays warm and fuzzy.

So, the Santa threats worked.  Yes, there were many calls to Santa, letting him know our boy was misbehaving.  And every one of those calls had the desired effect--they diffused otherwise pitched situations.  Understand, Santa calls were always a last resort.  After everything else, including the confiscation/sequestration of toys, failed, we'd call Santa.  The problem?  Santa is a seasonal thing--he works great, maybe October through December, but in March? 

Not so effective. 

I don't know where the Birthday Camel came from.  I was caught in the throes of a particularly wowser boy-meltdown, grounding him off toys and activities wasn't working, and from some weird corner of my mind, I belched out, "Keep this up and the Birthday Camel's gonna trot right by on your birthday--NO presents for you!"

And it worked.  Just like that.  The eyes widened, the screaming stopped, and he said. "But . . . I'm sorry!" 

Now, you're probably wondering why we didn't just give him "cooling off" time.  The answer is simple--he didn't cool off.  As I said, he reverberated, he escalated, even when we refused to engage.  There was no way to put him off by himself--he would refuse to disengage.  Telling him to stay in his room or sit in a chair?  Fruitless--he'd follow, screaming, shouting, and sometimes more.  On rare occasions, he would require physical restraint to keep him from doing us harm.  I know, sounds horrible, and, at the time, it was.  He grew out of it.  Thank goodness, huh?


So the Birthday Camel galloped (gallumphed?) to our rescue.  Thank you, Birthday Camel!

On a different note, we cruised by Costco last night--they were closed (lousy hours!), but we wanted to check the gas prices.  We'd heard stories of their amazing petrol prices, but they were only three cents cheaper than the station we normally go to.  So much for imagining the gas savings would pay for the membership.  That leaves me leaning toward BJ's because their hours are markedly better and they accept manufacturer's coupons.  Plus, they hand out free 60 day trial memberships.  I'll have to see what BJ's return policy is like--Costco's rocks.  The next step?  Go to each place and write down prices. 


The boy's alarm just went off, but I'm not going to force it.  We were up playing Monopoly and bad 60s/70s music until after 3 am.  I'll give him another couple of hours.

Speaking of that boy (which is really all I've been doing all morning), I think we'll be signing him up for the next programming course through  Coursera.  If you haven't checked them out, you should.  They rock.

Oh, and also--the horse-head mask came yesterday.  For reasons completely beyond me, our boy saw one online and absolutely had to have one for Halloween.  Go figure.