(no subject)

Charles will be gone this weekend for the annual German Studies Association conference, in Pittsburgh. Dr. Barclay is the executive director thereof, and he needed a few extra hands, so he enlisted Charles and another former student to help out with the sign-in tables and such. Hence why we are both awake at three in the morning -- he's driving, and he needs to leave early.

I'm a little jealous, and also happy for him, though I wonder exactly what his experience will be -- will he discover a renewed interest in academia, or will he be driven away from it forever? Knowing the caliber and personality of many Ph.Ds, especially when it comes to conference registration procedures, computers, and other things that the highly educated should be able to figure out but can't, I suspect the latter. No offense to the doctors in the audience, but god damn some of these people are dumb. And most of them can't write their way out of a hat.

Four out of seven house residents will be gone this weekend. Weird.

Apropos of nothing, here's a recipe for Schadenfreude Pie. Looks good, and I like one commenter's suggestion to add some ancho chile powder. Might have to try this.

"now I hate women even more"

From the craigslist "rants and raves" section, found on blackfolk:

Reply to: ******@craigslist.org
Date: 2006-09-27, 9:19PM EDT

we've always horsed around quite a bit at work, 'busted balls' and made sexual innuendos and so forth, and everybody's been good sports about it. on monday there was lots of 'shit talking' back and forth. my co-worker, deirdre came out with "suck my left tit and make the right one jealous." i responded "gladly," and bit on her boob a little (thru her shirt). she got all pissed about it and stormed off to our supervisor. she wouldn't hear my side of it at all. i was asked to go home which i did under protest.

then yesterday i show up to work, get called into the supe's office and told i no longer have a job and that deidre is considering pressing charges against me. in the afternoon i got a call from the police who say they have an arrest warrant and ask me to come down to the station and turn myself in. they've charged me with sexual assault in the 2nd degree. i could end up as a registered sex offender and everybody could see my picture on the online registry because of this bs.

i don't think they have a case, considering she flat out asked for someone to do this to her. i don't think it's a crime to take someone literally like that. needless to say i'm gonna fight it all the way. also this really wasn't too outlandish given the usual standards of behavior in the workplace.

so now i have no job, and am looking at lord knows how much in legal fees. all for doing pretty much nothing. frankly, i'm much better looking than deirdre and she should've been flattered. i've emailed the courant and channel 3 (my favored local news channel) and hope to generate some public interest in my case. i'm hoping my fellow men will support me thru this, i'm sick of being treated like a villain for having been born with a penis.

thanks for listening,

***

---

Well, while I've been in social situations where "bite me" was often construed as an invitation, even there the standards were high: a stranger was not fair game, or a newbie, and nine times out of ten the response of "okay!" was completely in jest. There was perhaps more biting than was strictly necessary among friends, but then college students are an odd lot anyway.

I haven't heard the specific phrase this woman used before, but you know, if I respond to bad news with a hearty "aw, fuck ME," or if a friend cordially tells the room at large to "suck my dick," I don't think anybody expects any coitus or fellatio to come of it. Certainly I'm not prepared to have someone start humping me from behind, nor is my friend looking for anyone within earshot to start scrabbling at his fly. These are pretty standard rules of human conduct, I should think -- metaphorical language, hyperbole, respect of personal space. If I'd followed the expressed wishes of every person who ever said "kill me, please" or "just shoot me now," I'd be tops on the Ten Most Wanted list.

Of course, this isn't a rant about literalism in language. This is a rant about who deserves to file sexual harassment complaints, and it comes right down to this:

frankly, i'm much better looking than deirdre and she should've been flattered.

Only an attractive woman, therefore, is presumed to have the right to consent or object to sexual contact, because she can afford to be picky about her sexual partners and maintain high standards. Less attractive women should be grateful for what they can get, because it's only out of kindness that a good-looking man would touch them. The crumbs of his attention are worth a little embarrassment or degradation, right? Besides -- nine times out of ten, a man who sexually harasses an ugly woman doesn't actually mean it, because duh, she's ugly, so it's not like it's even a real crime.

I'll grant that she shouldn't have made that comment. It appears that the workplace environment was extremely unprofessional as a whole -- I'm no prude, but I think I'd be talking to HR after a few weeks of that. They all should have been behaving better, including her. On the other hand, going from talk to physical contact is a pretty damn big jump, and biting a woman's breast is too bizarre to be a reasonable response to ANY sexy jokes. He's lucky she didn't knock his teeth out.

Someone needs to impress upon this fellow that he doesn't have God-given rights over women's bodies, not even the one he deems unattractive enough to be "fair game." Maybe going door-to-door in compliance with Megan's Law will do the trick.

(no subject)

Instead of having to go to a psychiatrist for meds and Planned Parenthood for birth control, is it possible to find a general practitioner who'll just prescribe both for you? I'm sick of the hassles. I just want a yearly checkup and my fucking meds.