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POPSRape is never okay... unless you also happen to make Great Art More: Rape is a crime of violence. It doesn't matter who the rapist is. It doesn't matter who the victim is. It doesn't matter how hard she fought or what she was wearing or how much she had to drink. It doesn't matter whether she knew the rapist, whether she'd gone out with him, whether she kissed him or went back to his place or had sex with fifty thousand other men first. No one has the right to rape another person, and anyone who does must be held accountable, must receive the message that rape is not okay and will not be tolerated, each and every time, no exceptions. How else can we ever build a society in which a woman can move freely through her world without fearing for her physical and emotional safety at every turn? I can only hope and pray that our justice system takes this opportunity to declare loudly and without apology that no one has immunity from accountability for rape, not even Roman Polanski.
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POPSMore rebuttals to more Polanski-apologist rationalizations More: Where is the outrage of so many of these same people over men who have been sitting on death row for decades based on perjured testimony, judges who didn't let in relevant testimony, or simply biased juries... even before we get to DNA issues? He's guilty... he admits he's guilty... he ran... but we like him... so it's okay. Epic Fail. If you want to make the argument, make a real argument. I haven't heard one yet.
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POPSUC Berkeley scientists unveil skeleton that shares chimp, human features More: she is not "the missing link," a transitional creature between today's chimps and humans. This concept has been abandoned: We did not evolve from living champs or apes, but shared a common ancestor. Nor is she this long-sought "last common ancestor." That's because she's too young; chimps and humans are thought to have diverged between 5 million and 10 million years ago. Then we went our separate ways, each taking different evolutionary trajectories. But she's important because she is the closest we have come to this unfound "last common ancestor." She belonged to a new type of early hominid that was neither chimpanzee nor fully human.
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POPSPolanski's lost alibi More: If the plea was withdrawn, could the DA’s office pull the case together after all this time? Probably. First of all, even though Geimer said she didn’t want Polanski to do any more time, I wouldn’t discount the possibility that she’d show up to testify at trial. But even if she didn’t, lots of other evidence is out there: Geimer’s spontaneous statements to others about the rape, the observations of the nurses and doctors who examined her, and Polanski’s admissions to friends, family, and others would come in. Bottom line, there’s a case that can be made even without the victim—and without Polanski’s guilty plea. And if this case does go to trial, Polanski might find himself wishing he’d gotten it into court back in 1977. Because Wells was certainly right. The ’70s are long gone, and today people see rape for the crime it is.
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POPSNate Phelps: My father is addicted to hate Nate Phelps is the son of Fred Phelps , leader of the hate-filled Westboro Baptist Church. More: violence was a fact of life in our home, and is interwoven from my earliest memories as a child… In terms of knowing how to administer punishment, my father was an adept. Seven or eight blows would be enough to cause the skin to swell and bruise. However, if he administered a few blows, and then waited five to ten minutes before the next round, this gave the damaged tissue time to swell and stretch the skin tight. The new round of blows would cause that skin to split and bleed.… When my mother tried to intervene in some of his more brutal beatings, he’d turn on her and punish her, also. Proverbs 13:24 was core to his actions: He that spareth his rod hateth his son. But there was a fundamental contradiction. He claimed that this punishment was done out of love for his children; yet as he beat us, he’d scream his hatred at us also.
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POPSNew game: Don't Give Money to The Rapist More: There are several means of doing this, some of which relate to downloading them, which is TOTALLY ILLEGAL, and the official position of Tiger Beatdown is that you should NOT DO ILLEGAL THINGS. Oh, hey, here is another illegal thing: rape! An activity engaged in by Roman Polanski!
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POPSEast Bay poverty rates show 1 in 10 below federal poverty line
More: in real terms — adjusted for inflation — East Bay incomes have been flat for two years. East Bay residents make about $3,500 less than they did in 2000 if their incomes are adjusted for inflation, said Jennifer Lin, a researcher for the East Bay Alliance for a Sustainable Economy. Lin points out that averages can also disguise the growing inequality the census numbers reveal. There are fewer East Bay households now making the middle incomes of from $75,000 to $150,000, and more people—especially Latinos and African-Americans working in low-wage service industries—are having a harder time making enough money to get by without public help.… Homeownership declined in both counties, which was no surprise to a region hard-hit by the foreclosure crisis… For homeowners with a mortgage, the median monthly cost last year was $2,755 in Alameda County and $2,842 in Contra Costa County. For renters, the median monthly rent was $1,192 in Alameda County and $1,254 in Contra C
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POPSAbuse led UK woman to kill disabled daughter, self More: Pilkington's son Anthony, now 19, also was abused over the years. He was once taken to a shed at knifepoint and locked in by the gang — some of whose members were as young as 10. Later, he was attacked with an iron bar. The inquest in Loughborough, in central England, heard that 33 calls to police did not result in any prosecutions for bullying or harassment. In one case police reported back that Pilkington had been "overreacting" — in another case she was simply told to draw her curtains. The inquest — which under British law must be held when someone dies unexpectedly, violently or of unknown causes — ruled that police's failure to respond to the family's pleas for help contributed to their deaths. Related: Did bad care spur a mother to kill her disabled daughter?
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POPSWhy should prisoners be denied the right to vote? More: One of the most important aspects of human rights is that they are unearned. Being of the human species is all that is required, and for a perfectly sound reason: it is intended to prevent governments oppressing unpopular or difficult individuals or groups. No human should be vulnerable to being misused by the mob or the government. That is the essence of human rights and has been for 50 years, and yet the debate about prisoners (and criminals in general) fails to appreciate this simple point. Just because you don't like someone or they make your life difficult, that is not a reason to leave them vulnerable to misuse. …If human rights had to be earned, if the unpopular could be legally misused, who would decide who has rights and who has none? All governments have an inherent urge to usurp power and to lean heavily on those who stand out from the crowd.… All have rights, even those we despise.
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POPSA clarification of "The Terrible Bargain" More: Iain's taken a long look at the Terrible Bargain from its other side, and doesn't want the easy comfort of unexamined privilege at the cost of my trust. And so he does his best to quell that reflexive defensiveness and listen. And in those moments of listening, we forge a new bargain, lovingly struck: He looks inside himself for the hardened bits of internalized misogyny that yet linger, unexamined; I hand him in exchange the crumbling bricks of a protective wall built long before we met. The rubble collects at our feet, and we kick it away.
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POPS"Polanski's victim and me" by Robert Goolrick More: it is the absolute, final, and total end of childhood, of any sense of innocence and wonder. Perhaps the girl in California had already lost hers. Perhaps her mother manipulated the situation. I, frankly, don’t give a good goddamn. That girl is forever defined by that moment, as I have been defined by my own moment of terror and pain and horror. There is, for me, no place on this whole planet that is safe. I move farther and farther from the center of things. I find myself in hotel rooms or houses in remote places where nobody knows where I am, and very few even care. I have been an alcoholic, a drug user, a sexual deviant and addict. I have tried with what heart I have left to be kind and generous and loving, and I have wrecked my life and hurt people I love. I have tried to be whole, to be a regular man inside a regular man’s skin, and I have failed miserably.
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