Golly, Officer, I’m Awfully Sorry My Rape is So Inconvenient for You

Y’all, it must be a cold day in Hell because when I read this post over at Women’s Health Newsabout how all the rape victims in Nashville are only stabilized at whatever hospital they show up at until they can be shipped off to General because it’s more convenient for the police and I saw that Nate the Pan Galactic Blogger Blaster (best known for his undying friendship with that Vox kid with the funny hair and fugitive dad) was chiming in with “This is as clear a sign as you’ll ever get that the police are not on your side.” my very first thought was “Preach on, Brother Nate.”

Yes, this is so outrageous that fucking Nate and I find ourselves in agreement (however briefly).

Let me reiterate: if you are raped in Nashville, no matter what hospital you go to, you will be stabilized and sent to General because it’s more convenient for the police, the other hospitals in town, and the nurse practitioners doing the exams.

See, when you’re raped here in Nashville, democracy kicks in.  Everyone who’s inconvenienced by the fact that you were raped gets a vote and it’s three against one–the police, the hospitals, and the nurse practitioners versus you and so, even though being raped is mighty inconvenient, to put it mildly, it’s outweighed by the fact that your rape is also inconvenient to others.  Their wishes, that you be more inconvenienced by having to make your way to General, outweighs your desire to have this whole thing taken care of as quickly as possible.

Let’s check out the pertinent quotes from the Scene story:

Police go along with the procedure because “it’s more convenient for us having one place to do the exams,” says Lt. Chris Blackwell, who supervises the police sex crime unit. “It actually works better for us.” [Emphasis mine]

And

If hospitals won’t hire their own nurse practitioners to do the exams, then why not have the nurses at General go to rape victims at the other hospitals rather than the other way around? “It’s a logistics issue,” says Sandy Myers, who supervises the eight nurse practitioners who do the tests at General.  “It’s just so much easier for us.” [Again, emphasis mine].

Rachel gets at the heart of it.

Woods also reports that the spokesperson for two of Nashville’s major hospitals, St. Thomas and Baptist, specifically stated that they don’t offer the forensic examination because “It’s what detectives want from us.” You’re kidding me, right? Hospitals are making policy on how to handle rape victims because of police preference? Look, I understand that the forensic exam is not technically medical care – it’s purpose is to preserve evidence against the rapist. But really, what kind of care is the rape victim getting if they can’t get the complete rape-related workup in one place? So many women don’t report in the first place – this is just an added barrier to women finding justice and peace in a terrible situation.

One hopes that the Scene making this situation known will be enough to shame local hospitals into actually providing full care to their patients and the police into putting the victims first.  But, if not, I hope we can do something about this.

Three Cheers for Sean Braisted!

Bill Hobbs says something moronic.

Sean calls him on it.

Hobbs defends himself by talking out his ass.

Sean calls him on it.

And then calls him on it again.

Folks, before you go shooting off your mouth about Planned Parenthood, take a look at their website (I swear to your god, you will not get any heathen feminist abortion cooties on you merely by trying to educate yourself about what goes on there).

Planned Parenthood provides reproductive health care to folks whether or not they can afford it.  You can get a gynecological exam there.  You can get a Pap smear.  You can get birth control pills.  You can be tested for any number of STDs.  You can get HIV/AIDS testing and confidential counseling.  In other words, you can get full medical attention.

Take a look at the Hope Clinic for Women.  They have a website, too.   Look at their services.  You can get a Pap smear.  You can be tested for some STDs (though, curiously HIV/AIDS is not on their list).  You can go to Bible study.

Hobbs is trying to pretend like we’re comparing apples to apples (with one apple being evil and the other being loved by God), when really, Planned Parenthood provides full reproductive healthcare and crisis pregnancy centers do just that–help Christian women who don’t want abortions deal with their crisis pregnancies.

Let’s not pretend that those are even close to being the same thing and let’s especially not pretend that defunding PP in order to fund faith-based centers doesn’t hurt women who need reproductive health care who aren’t pregnant.

Once Again We Pagan Feminists Try to Ruin America By Turning Us All Mexican

Damn that Bill O’Reilly!  Here I am, sweating over a hot cauldron trying to come up with just the right mixture of blue agave and eye of newt for my potion designed to enchant hot Mexican men into sneaking over the border and becoming the sex toys/housekeepers of white women or running for office, you know, whichever, when I discover, thanks to a link at Salon.com, that Bill O’Reilley is onto me.

Listen, I know at some level this is not funny because people really do think this kind of stuff:

O’REILLY: OK, I think it’s a small part, but I think it’s there. On the other side, you have people who hate America, and they hate it because it’s run primarily by white, Christian men. Let me repeat that. America is run primarily by white, Christian men, and there is a segment of our population who hates that, despises that power structure. So they, under the guise of being compassionate, want to flood the country with foreign nationals, unlimited, unlimited, to change the complexion — pardon the pun — of America. Now, that’s hatred, too. It’s a different kind of hatred, but it’s hatred and best exemplified by The New York Times, which today says in its editorial, quote: “Those who want [the immigration] bill to be better are horribly conflicted by it. Their emotions still seem vastly overmatched by the ferocity of the opposition from the restrictionist right, with talk radio lighting up over ‘amnesty,’ callers spitting out the words with all the hate they can pour into it,“ unquote.

Now, this is a theme of The New York Times, that if you oppose the immigration bill that you hate Latinos. Now, there’s a segment that does, but most oppose it on policy. They just think it’s bad policy, rewarding bad behavior. Bad policy. But The New York Times, which is an open border, OK, let-everybody-in concern — that’s what they want, because they want a totally different power structure in America.

Number one, they realize that 40 million new citizens — and that’s, you know, probably the estimate that if you let all the illegal immigrants and all their extended families come here, which is what The New York Times want, would wipe out the two-party system. You’d only have a Democratic party, because new immigrants are probably gonna break 3-to-1 Democrat, and that’s what The New York Times wants. But more than that, they want to change the white, Christian male power structure. That’s what they want.

Now, these are hidden agendas. The New York Times would never cop to that, ever, but if you read consistently their editorials, they have no solution to border security. They don’t want any sanctions on illegal aliens who come here and even commit crimes. They want criminal aliens to stay, and they don’t want any sanctions on businesses who continue to hire illegal aliens even after the Z visa is issued. It’s an open border, “Let them all in, anybody who wants to come here.”

That’s insane. We don’t have America then. America disappears. That’s where Pat Buchanan is right. You let that happen, there’s no more United States of America. It’s gone. You have United States of the World, because everybody comes here with no restrictions. So you’ve got racism on the anti-Latino front, and you have racism on the anti-Christian, white male front. Aha! Isn’t that interesting? [emphasis courtesy of Media Matters]

Y’all, I’m sorry.  White, Christian men, you know I love you.  I do.  I have you for relatives.  I’ve welcomed you into my home and into my cooter.  But this stuff is hilarious.

Let’s think of it this way.  Let’s say that “privilege” is cookies.  Let’s say that, at any given time, there can be only 100 cookies (I don’t know why.  Maybe this is hell.).  White Christian men, let’s say, can make 40 cookies–for various reasons that aren’t anybody’s fault or anything; they inherited an awesome oven from their grandma and they’ve got a great recipe they were able to buy off the internet.  Sure, there are folks who are grouching that White Christian men aren’t 40 percent of the population, so it’s not right that they get 40 cookies, especially when, say, it was Black people’s grandfathers who built their ovens in the first place.

And then let’s say that there are some fuckerly White Christian men who out and out take other people’s cookies.  So, now White Christian men have 42 of the cookies.  Then, let’s say that those men are, for the most part, married and they’ve gotten their wives to contribute their share of cookies.  So, now the white Christian men have 60 cookies.  It goes like this for a while and then the black folks start hollering “We’re not going to keep harvesting your grain and making your ovens just so that we can have 14 cookies.”  And so the White Christian men are all, “Fine.  We’ll find someone else to do it.  Hey, women, get out there and get some grain harvested.”  So, off we go, until we’re like, “Dang, we’re doing a lot of work and I only see about half of the White Christian men out here working with us and I haven’t had a cookie in days, have you?”

Anyway, my point is that, at some point folks are like, “You know, I wonder if it’s true that there are only 100 cookies at any given time.  That seems like a big oven.  And what are they doing when all of the cookies are made?  What if, once they made their 60 cookies, they got out of the kitchen and gave us a shot to make 60 for us?”

And the loudest of the White Christian men are all, “No, no, there can only be 100 cookies.”

And we’re all, even including some White Christian men, “But no, there can be more.  Look.”

“No, don’t fuck with our tradition.  God said there can only be 100 cookies.”

“Dudes, God doesn’t say anything about cookies in the Bible.  Now, you have your 60 cookies; get out of the way so that we can bake.”

Now, don’t get me wrong.  It’s not all smooth.  The white women think they should get to use the oven first.  Black folks are still like “Hey, we made the oven.  Now we’re going to use it.”  And the Latinos are all “We picked all your ingredients.  Try to use the oven without those.”  Nobody’s above that nonsense.

But, if we can figure out how to work together, everyone can have cookies.  Maybe not 60 cookies, but maybe 40, which is what the White Christian men could make on their own.  And, in the end, we’d end up with a buttload more than 100 cookies all together.

You’d think this would obviously be a good thing.  But instead, you’ve got fools complaining that they’re going to have fewer cookies.  Other fools complaining that it’s wrong that we’re not following tradition.  And you have damn fools like O’Reilly complaining that he’s uncomfortable with the racial make-up of folks in the kitchen and, if all those folks insist on being in the kitchen, it must be some kind of punishment for, some kind of hatred of, White Christian men.

Yes, yes, that’s exactly it.  It’s not that everyone wants access to the good stuff in the kitchen; it’s that we hate the people who occupy it.

Please.

Some pagan feminist needs to come up with a potion to turn him into a toad.

I’m Done with Terry Frank

Yes, I know, I should have been done with her a long, long time ago, but I am taking her out of my aggregator (which, I guess should more fairly be called my aggravator) this very day, so that I don’t have to accidentally stumble upon her crap.

Here’s why.

You’ll remember that it wasn’t but two days ago that Ms. Frank was weeping and moaning and rending her garments running through the streets of Tennessee going on about how unfair and unpatriotic it was of Kleinheider to not verbally fellate the armed forces every chance he gets.

Surely you remember that, how some things are just off limits and how they’re just so obviously off limits that, even if they’re metaphorical, they ought to cause us all to pile on a man and call his office to complain to his bosses about him?

Remember how that was fucking two days ago?

And yet today, Frank has a photoshopped image of Chuck Schumer aiming a gun ostensibly at the White House.

Yes, America, it’s wrong for Kleinheider to not love our troops enough, but it’s perfectly fine for Frank to hate the Democrats so much that she would pass along as an acceptable joke for her readers to laugh at Schumer opening fire on the White House.

Certainly no one is required to love the Democrats.  Hell, my unhappiness with them can be figured in proportion to their ability to act like salted slugs upon arrival in Washington this term.

But the insinuation of that image is beyond “I just don’t like the Democrats” into “I think the kind of threat they are to our democracy is one that is punishable by death.”  That’s just bullshit.

And the fact that Frank can demand respect for our troops as some symbol of America, but doesn’t give that same kind of respect to our elected officials as similar symbols of America, pisses me off.

So, I’m done with her.

Ice Cream for Dinner

Of course you can eat ice cream for dinner two nights in a row.  I wouldn’t recommend it, though, unless you want to wake up in the middle of the night to the feeling of your body saying, “We’re not that lactose tolerant, woman!”

You may then, fall asleep on the toilet and have a dream that you are trying to find a field in which to take a nap and just when you’re about to settle in, John H. and Mary Mancini and Gunner’s wife show up and sit next to you because it turns out that you’ve accidentally decided to nap right where they’re hosting the outdoor Prairie Home Companion.

Some of you might like that, I don’t know.  I just thought I’d throw that out there.