Blog

The game blame

07/15/2007 by Debra

Very sad story about serious neglect and abuse of two children, a 22 month old boy and an 11 month old girl.

Police said hospital staff had to shave the head of the girl because her hair was matted with cat urine. The 10-pound girl also had a mouth infection, dry skin and severe dehydration.
Her brother had to be treated for starvation and a genital infection. His lack of muscle development caused him difficulty in walking, investigators said.

Not content to let the story stand on it’s own as an example of the horrors humans commit on one another and that not everyone is equipped to be a parent, both the media and the authorities are spinning this as a “game addiction”.

Viloria said the Reno couple were too distracted by online video games, mainly the fantasy role-playing “Dungeons & Dragons” series, to give their children proper care.
“They had food; they just chose not to give it to their kids because they were too busy playing video games,” Viloria told the Reno Gazette-Journal.

Gaming is the excuse, not the cause. Video games are blamed from everything from obesity to murder. It is as if none of these things ever existed before.

It would be much more helpful for us a society to focus on what drives people to obsess, what drives people to neglect their children, what signs of trouble are being missed.

Domestic abuse, road rage, gaming addiction, these are all silly labels put on big problems that allow media and authorities to easily file cases rather than have anyone actually find out the underlying causes of the initial behaviors.

“Having a girl is to plant a seed in someone else’s garden.”

07/14/2007 by Debra

cross posted at Bread and Roses: Front Page

India is proposing to register all women who are pregnant. This ostensibly is being done in order to curb the number of female fetuses being aborted and to help stop the number of female child infanticides.

Currently up to 500,000 female fetuses are being aborted yearly. The preference for boys has “[…]reduced the number of girls per 1,000 boys from 945 in 1991 to 927 in 2001.” ((http://www.forbes.com/feeds/ap/2007/07/14/ap3914376.html))

Boys tend to be preferred because they carry on the family name. But families here also fear the financial burden of girls – when it comes time to pay huge traditional dowries to their daughters’ future husbands upon marriage. ((http://www.voanews.com/english/archive/2007-03/2007-03-05-voa17.cfm))

Until there is a change in the way females are viewed societally, the attempt to limit abortions will only result in more female children suffering. As they are more likely to be killed at birth and less likely to receive the same care in feeding and medical attention and less likely to receive education.

There are many mitigating circumstances in the law that permit a woman to have an abortion. Rape is one, the inability of an unmarried woman to care for a child is another. Any pregnancy that causes mental anguish to a woman can be legally terminated even against medical advice. The minister ought to be looking at the root cause of female foeticide, not try to enter a personal domain. ((http://www.hindustantimes.com/StoryPage/StoryPage.aspx?id=db8deabe-930d-40d9-8f91-c02f151bc8ff&&Headline=Getting+up+close+and+far+too+personal))

Friends don’t let friends get married

07/13/2007 by Debra

A 13 year old Bangladeshi was saved from a forced marriage by her schoolmates.

BBC News~
Around 50 pupils in the town of Satkhira took to the streets to demand that Habiba Sultana’s wedding be called off, they say.
Pupils even submitted a petition to police urging them to take action.
Police summoned Habiba’s father and ordered him to stop the girl’s marriage, which they said was illegal.
Her father was told to sign a bond in which he promised not marry off his daughter while she is still a child, the Bangladesh Daily Star reported.

The BBC story doesn’t mention all the pupils were girls.
What a beautiful thing to see these girls claiming their power and helping each other.

VIVE MARC LEPINE

07/13/2007 by Debra

This was the subject line of an email I received on my YouTube account today.

Now normally I’m not one to shine the spotlight on slimy creatures. I generally believe that most of these idiots are in it for the shock value and I imagine them to be semi pubescent boys jostling each other in front of the computer daring each other to go even further.

Every so often though I think it is important to show just what sort of people the right would have us support.

This is how Mr Happy Tube describes himself [actually considering the Happy Tube and John Long maybe he is an overcompensating prepubescent!]
[Read more…] about VIVE MARC LEPINE

I’m ok..you’re gay

07/12/2007 by Debra

Everybody’s journey is individual. If you fall in love with a boy, you fall in love with a boy. The fact that many Americans consider it a disease says more about them than it does about homosexuality. ~James Baldwin

NEW YORK (AP) — The American Psychological Association is embarking on the first review of its 10-year-old policy on counseling gays and lesbians, a step that gay-rights activists hope will end with a denunciation of any attempt by therapists to change sexual orientation.
Such efforts — often called reparative therapy or conversion therapy — are considered futile and harmful by many gay-rights activists. Conservative groups defend the right to offer such treatment, and say people with their viewpoint have been excluded from the review panel.
A six-member task force set up by the APA has its first meeting beginning next Tuesday.
Already, scores of conservative religious leaders and counselors, representing such groups as the Southern Baptist Convention and Focus on the Family, have written a joint letter to the APA, expressing concern that the task force’s proposals would not properly accommodate gays and lesbians whose religious beliefs condemn gay sex.
“We believe that psychologists should assist clients to develop lives that they value, even if that means they decline to identify as homosexual,” said the letter, which requested a meeting between APA leaders and some of the signatories.

It is incredible to think that in 2007 there is anyone who still believes that homosexuality is a disease or an abomination. Sadder still that such people rather than keeping to dark dank diseased corners of bigotry feel quite safe spewing their prejudice like toxic rain upon anyone who will listen. [Read more…] about I’m ok..you’re gay

“Working Girls” and the Media

07/12/2007 by Debra

One might have hoped that after the Ipswich murders the media would have learned a thing or two about treating sex workers as different, disposable, and authors of their own misfortune.

Sadly reading the CTV report on the death of an Edmonton sex worker it would seem no lesson has been learned at all.

We begin by reading;

Police have identified a missing woman as a dead Edmonton sex trade worker and have launched a homicide investigation.

Really?! So if we were all to get together and purchase a head stone it should say dead Edmonton sex trade worker?

At least in the next paragraph they deign to identify Leanne Lori Benwell, by name. [Read more…] about “Working Girls” and the Media