A warning for bloggers

Beware bloggers who use blogger. If you save your post as a draft, blogger eats bits of it.
Check and recheck because you'll loose words and links will disappear.

TP
Keeping you informed

Public opinion: Women are to blame

A report published today (Guardian/BBC) by Amnesty International reiterates the skewed public opinion surrounding rape and the blame culture that works towards keeping victims silent.

One in three people believe that women who behave flirtatiously are at least partially responsible if they are raped.

I wonder how can this possibly have happened? How is it even possible for women to be responsible for being attacked? Do these idiots think men are completely unable to control themselves? Do they think that men faced with the slightest hint that they might get some action can't then stop themselves from committing a crime if they don't get a shag?

Do they actually think rape is about sex?

Men are marginally more likely to blame the victim than women, although in the case of drunkenness 5% of women thought a woman would be totally responsible if she were raped, compared to 3% of men.

The figures are totally appauling. And depressing. And insane.

The conviction rate for rape is 5.6% - the lowest ever recorded, with 741 cases resulting in conviction last year.

It's no bloody wonder why when a third of the people in the country think that the woman bears some of the blame. Do people who have their cars stolen of get mugged or beaten get blamed for actions of violence that take place against them? Would the same view be taken for male-male rape, or even female-male rape (as opposed to male-female)?

I doubt it. Women are sex objects, they're around to appeal to men, entice men, flirt with men, shag men. When they don't act as they should and submit, their a cock tease. People seem to have a lot of difficulty in seeing male-female rape as anything other than sex. Male-male of female-male rape is different because it doesn't start from an assumption that women are for men to have sex with.

Thankfully this report has got the publicity it deserves. However it's not going to do a damn bit of good if no one explains why these assumptions are so wrong. Hopefully some long overdue education is to follow.

A recent group of posts by Nick about her own experieinces (starting with this one, look particularly at the comments) on Alas, a blog show just how intrenched this blame culture is across the Western world, and pretty much everywhere else it would seem.

Amp also comments on the Amnesty report.

Death penalty for cop killers

WPC Sharon Beshenivsky was murdered last week during an armed siege of a travel agents. It's been 31 years since a female police officer was killed on duty.

Understandably there's been a fuss, but the reaction has led me to wonder why it seems a police officers life is valued so much more highly than other members of the population. For example the police force have errected boards cordoning off the entire street in which the shooting took place. This is unusual.

As a direct result of Sharon's murder there are calls to reinstate the death penalty for people who kill police officers. I am against the death penalty for many reasons, but I am left wondering, if the death penalty then why just for cop killers?

Surely the murder of a person, no matter what their profession, is horror and should be punished.

Bang bang you're dead.

Gary Glitter (in the news again) could face a firing squad after boning two 12 year old girls.
He's 61.

Kicking it to the paedo's Vietnam style.

On being an obsessive geek with a spending habit.

I used to have this problem with ebay. I would check it every single day, searching for new things to buy. Sometimes I would search and search for hours, looking at different types of things, watching and bidding on items I neither needed nor really wanted. I passed two years at uni doing this. Staying up late on ebay. Not doing work because I was surfing ebay. Missing lectures or setting my alarm to wake me up at two in the morning to bid on something.

I was so cheap though. At least there was that. I used to like getting close off ebay, and still do, because you can get great bargains, and you can get ridicolous old vintage stuff like carpet bags (which I am currenlty lusting after). I would go into shops and say "£10 for a top! What a rip! I can get a whole outfit plus shoes for that on ebay."

When my paypal account maxed out I had to stop buying things. I could never be bothered with the faff of cheques. I did get some great things off ebay, but I also wasted a lot of money.

I think I've replaced this ebay obsession with blogging. I have to read blogs, I can't get on with my work until I've taken my daily walk around the net checking my favourite sites. Once I've got an idea about something I want to blog about can't get on with stuff until it's done.

Aw man - I've just realised it. I've turned into on of those internet geeks who hangs out in chat formus all the time. Except my chat formus are blogs.

I sometimes wonder if I should go cold turkey.

Throw her to the lions

So, this is my 200th post. I’m marking the occasion because I forgot to mention my 100th and I feel like I missed out. This blog’s been going since April 7th, when I announced to the world I would spout ‘a hell of a lot of crap’, I think I’ve lived up to this claim.

In celebration of 8 months and 200 posts clogging up the internet I have the following for your delectation.

My first post, god I’m an idiot.
My first comment, apart from the comments I left for myself on my own posts.

I was so excited when I got my fist comment! When I started out I didn’t think anyone would ever read my blog, so getting a comment was a total thrill. I am so sad.

I still get dead excited now, and I check my emails about 30 times a day for comment notifications! Thanks for leaving comments when you do.

According to my ‘stats counter’ this blog gets about 30 visitors a day now. Wow. Thank you for coming back even though I have a tendency to post inane narcissistic nonsense and get my facts wrong.

TP x
Not a poet

p.s. In writing this I managed to write over my Feminism and Capitalsim post in preparation. Damn it.

Am I conditioned to be late?

Today I was late for work. I was late yesterday. I am late everyday. I was 30 minutes late on Wednesday.

As I drove to work this morning, realising I would be at least 10 minutes late (the reason being I had to scrape the ice off my car) I mused on the topic. Why don’t I get stressed out when I’m late, again?

My musings led me to think about operant conditioning, and Pavlov’s dogs.

Now, for those of you who were fortunate enough not to study psychology at some point in your life, here is a little introduction to Pavlov and his dogs. (I say fortunate because even though I love it, psychology has fucked me up irreparably. I know too much and too little about the internal workings of the mind. It drives me mad. I analyse myself, badly, and come to unsettling conclusions. I think about stuff like classical conditioning when I drive to work. Who does that!?)

Back to the point. Ivan Pavlov was a physiologist who originally intended to study dogs drooling. I don’t know how that went, but in the process he discovered a phenomenon now called operant conditioning.

I’m not sure if Pavlov was a nice man, he was not nice to dogs (they say serial killers start off torturing animals…). He rigged up several different experiments the involved tricking, fooling and electrocuting dogs in some way. The famous study I will describe involved electrocution.

Pavlov constructed a box, in which he put a dog. One half of the floor of the box was conductive, the other half wasn’t. He stood the dog on the conductive half and flipped the switch. The dog jumped off the conductive side onto the non conductive side to avoid the shock. Result: dog learns to move to avoid shock.

As I said, Pavlov did not like dogs, so next he put a wall in the box separating the conductive and non conductive halves. He put the dog on the conductive side and flipped the switch. The dog panics, I imagine it yelped in pain, it tries to get off the conductive surface – but can’t because of the wall.

Pavlov does this a couple of few times cause he’s a sadist.
He then takes the wall away.

Pavlov again puts the dog on the conductive half. He flips the switch. The dog doesn’t move. It stays there, even though it can stop the shock by moving onto the non conductive side. The dog has given up. It has been conditioned not to try and escape because it was shocked so many times in the box with the wall stopping him moving.

Sad story, poor dog, but what’s the point?

The point is, have I been conditioned to stop trying to get to work on time because I never get to work on time? Have I given up hope of this ever happening because no matter what I do it just doesn’t work?

Will that excuse fly at (an inevitable) formal review of my tardiness?

For the real story on Pavlov, and not just what I can remember having done bugger all research, please do not google operant conditioning and find nothing about this study so making it look like I made it up.

Fooling the fashion types

Success! My rather pathetic excuse for a disguise fooled another member of the public today. He obviously thought I was one of those trendy people who spends a fortune buying their clothes from fancy designer boutiques – so gave me a card promoting such a boutique. No, in fact, he chased me through the shopping centre to give me this card.

It must be the cool aloof (or is that blank and distant) look I get when I’m plotting the best possible way to make the most of my ever so sweet lunch break that sold my disguise.

On reflection, maybe I should not be so proud of my disguise. He may in fact have spotted me for what I am, someone with contempt for fashion and its minions. This gesture of good will and money saving may have been made in pity for my blackened soul; an attempt to draw me back into the 'overpriced for the amount of material it contains' fold.

A narrow escape was provided by pressing matters at the bank.

Found - sugar free lemonade

Great angry post by Gwen. Venting on abortion rights, religious zealots (read her jehovas witness story) and conservative anti-feminists.

Nerve wracking

I have decided to go and see my doctor. Except she is not my doctor, he is on holiday.
She and I do not get on. I worry this will end badly. I am extrememly nervous.