There has been a disturbing trend in the news of the day, and the more I read about it, the more distressed I become. Peruse Beat a Woman? Play On; Beat a Dog? You’re Gone, and Kim Pearson’s blog and perhaps you’ll begin to get a sense of where I’m going with this. The US is a culture which is, at least ostensibly driven by a free market economy, where, at least in theory, demand informs supply.

What does it mean, then, that we so regularly allow men to harass and assault women? What does it mean that there will be a market for Quentin Tarantino’s Rapist #1 action figure? Surely there are those out there who would say, “I would never condone rape…but it’s just a toy” or “I’m a huge fan, and I have all of his action figures from all of his other movies”. But at what point will the market push back? When will people say “No, that is too much, that offends my humanity…” Apparently, as Sandra Kobrin notes, we will accept reprehensible behaviour towards women, but not towards animals. The market has responded to Michael Vick, and with a fury.

What does it mean that there are people who walk the earth with everyone else, who would buy a doll which depicts a rapist, but who would not call the police when they see someone being assaulted? Never underestimate the power of suggestion. During training to be a Rape Crisis Counselor, we had a speaker come in to talk about self defense and pro-active safety (ie, don’t tolerate harassing behavior). The speaker said something which has really stuck with me, that people need to be told what to do. Screaming “Help!” or “Fire!” or “I’m being attacked” won’t actually do much to help you. Scream “Call the Cops!” and perhaps one of the fifty people around you, quietly watching, without having it occur to them that they should actually DO something, will take your direction.

And on the other side of that, our free market economy has taught us to buy things. Express your beliefs, your thoughts, define your identity through your stuff. People plan entire days around accumulating stuff. So really, it doesn’t surprise me that there is a rapist action figure, or movies which glorify violence against women. Our culture has told us that if we can buy it, it must be okay. Even good.

So here’s three things for you to do:
1. Program 911 on your speed dial
2. Program the non-emergency police number for your area in your phone
3. Next time you see someone on the street, sleeping on the sidewalk, or stumbling down the street, or screaming, assess the situation and call one of those numbers, rather than just walking past and thinking “man, that was strange”.

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I was also published on CasaSugar this morning, check it out!

Su Casa: A Compact and Charming Kitchen Sink

(CasaSugar is where I get almost all of my neat home ideas, including my NEW FAVORITE THING).

I haven’t seen the morning side of 5 am since I was living in Colorado and going snowboarding on Saturday mornings during the winter of 2005/ 2006. In this city it seems like there are precious few reasons to be up before 6 am, and certainly none which involve being outside of my home. Yet I was well rewarded by my early rising this morning, not only was one of my pictures published on DCist, but I was treated to a beautiful lunar eclipse. It was especially wonderful as the last eclipse I tried for was totally obscured by clouds. The next one will be in 2008, and the next one after that won’t be until 2010.

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This story in the New York Times is interesting to me on many levels. First of course, there is the basic and fundamental part of me which hopes that this treatment will work for veterans who are suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder; that they will be able to heal and move forward to have successful and fulfilling civilian lives.

As a child of the 80s and 90s, someone who was in high school at the time of the Columbine shooting, heard frequently about the dangers of desensitization to violence through video games, I have some questions. There is the part of me that would like to trust that medical professionals know what they are doing, but there’s also the part of me that is well versed in the ways that just about every industry has of saying “man, we screwed up, but we sure are sorry”. I guess what I’m trying to say is that if being desensitized to violence is really as dangerous as people have been yelling about for the last 20 years (and I am pretty skeptical on that count, for the record), what effect will that same desensitization have on people who have actually held a real gun, and shot it at other real people? Yes, the simulation does not allow the participant to shoot back, which is an important distinction to make between this program and regular video games.
The human mind is a complex battlefield. I am loathe to suggest that any of the brave men and women who have put their lives on the line to serve their country (no matter my disagreement with the war and the reasons we are there) would intentionally harm others without due cause. Yet the statistics remain. Domestic violence rates are higher on bases and in the surrounding communities than in non-military oriented towns and cities. Soldiers have done bad things on the battle field, and they have done bad things after they have returned home. I do not want to suggest that they should not be healed, of course they should be healed. Yet the term “desensitization” makes me nervous. While the participant is being desensitized to the triggering factors for PTSD, what else may he be desensitized to? Post Traumatic Stress Disorder often causes the sufferer to feel like he or she is back in the original situation which caused the trauma. How different is the scream of an Iraqi woman on the street to the scream of his wife in her home?
I am not a mental health professional. I am a woman who knows more than many about the dangers and realities of partner violence, and the many many ways that Americans don’t want to deal with mental illness. I would hate to see a video game replace the therapeutic relationship between counselor and client, and I would hate to see the world given one more excuse for the bad behavior of humans.

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My reasons to move to Canada seem to increase with every passing day. Imagine the newspaper that runs stories about stationary and journaling and the difference between American tendencies and European? Ah…
One of the first things I ever remember seriously wanting was a diary. I was very young, perhaps kindergarten, and wanted a diary with a lock and a key. And I got two. I found one of them a couple of years ago, it’s funny to look back at what I thought was worth writing down when I barely knew how to write.
I love the idea that in this age of microchips and instantaneous communication there is a growing (if small) trend in people who are writing letters and journals. There is something which is necessarily far more real about writing than about typing. I think that no matter how much code and programming I learn in my life, there will still be an aspect of magic to the fact that when I hit the buttons on the keyboard, words appear on the screen. I started out using dos code to move the turtle, and it still seems like magic.