rape culture

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I posted the other day about how difficult it was to get convictions in rape trials even with incredible evidence. In this case the perpetrators’ lawyer claims that it couldn’t have really been rape because the girls were unattractive and probably wanted the attention.

lawyer Sheilagh Davies, acting for one of the defendants, said the girls consented to sex “maybe to gain attention, maybe to gain affection”.

She told the jury one of the girls, who testified via video link, had “slimmed down a lot” since the incident in southeast London last November.

The barrister added: “She was 12st 6lb – not quite the swan she may turn into. She may well have been glad of the attention.”

In addition to being just one more example of a case where women are blamed for being raped, the lawyer’s suggestion that fat women want to be raped is extremely dangerous and cruel.

Via Feministing.

new plants!

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I’ve got a bunch of seeds coming coming in the mail. I hope they’ll do well inside in the winter. Most of my apartment doesn’t get much sun, so I tried to get shade-tolerant plants. But I wanted something colorful, so I went for impatiens and coleus.

impatiens

coleus

I also got white and yellow black eyed susan vines to grow up my staircase.

bes vine

lithops

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My living stones are so adorable! Though these green ones are doing something strange… They are supposed to be very short.

lithops

tall

Democracy and religious fundamentalism in India

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We should be paying attention to this:

While Americans have focused on President Bush’s “war on terror,” Iraq, and the Middle East, democracy has been under siege in another part of the world. India — the most populous of all democracies, and a country whose Constitution protects human rights even more comprehensively than our own — has been in crisis. Until the spring of 2004, its parliamentary government was increasingly controlled by right-wing Hindu extremists who condoned and in some cases actively supported violence against minority groups, especially Muslims.

What has been happening in India is a serious threat to the future of democracy in the world. The fact that it has yet to make it onto the radar screen of most Americans is evidence of the way in which terrorism and the war on Iraq have distracted us from events and issues of fundamental significance. If we really want to understand the impact of religious nationalism on democratic values, India currently provides a deeply troubling example, and one without which any understanding of the more general phenomenon is dangerously incomplete. It also provides an example of how democracy can survive the assault of religious extremism.

Via 3QD.

Hand it to the Catholics

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While the price of birth control pills on college campuses in US has skyrocketed this year due to Bush’s Deficit Reduction Act, Brazil is looking to prevent unwanted pregnancy by subsidizing the pill. If our politicians really were interested in reducing abortions, they wouldn’t make it so difficult to prevent pregnancy.

Embarrassing incident of the day

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So I’m sitting in a coffee shop, reading some papers, trying to figure out some data when a woman who I have a huge crush on, who has no idea I exist, sits at the table next to me.

I realize as she’s leaving an hour or so later that I’ve probably been talking to myself quite a bit.  So she may now be aware of my existence, but I’m sure she thinks I’m crazy.  Such is my life.