Posts by Melissa McEwan

Melissa McEwan writes and edits the blog Shakespeare's Sister.

Judge Bans Use of the Word "Rape" in Rape Trial
Posted by Melissa McEwan, Shakesville on June 9, 2008 at 12:24 PM.

This is just getting absurd. Judge's ban on the use of the word 'rape' at trial reflects trend:

It's the only way Tory Bowen knows to honestly describe what happened to her.

She was raped.

But a judge prohibited her from uttering the word "rape" in front of a jury. The term "sexual assault" also was taboo, and Bowen could not refer to herself as a victim or use the word "assailant" to describe the man who allegedly raped her.

The defendant's presumption of innocence and right to a fair trial trumps Bowen's right of free speech, said the Lincoln, Neb., judge who issued the order.

We've discussed Bowen's case before at Shakesville, along with the increasing reluctance to use the word "rape" in media coverage of rape cases; now it's becoming a trend at rape trials, too.

"It's a topic that's coming up more and more," said Joshua Marquis, an Oregon prosecutor and a vice president of the National District Attorneys Association. "You're moving away from what a criminal trial is really about."

In Jackson County, Senior Judge Gene Martin recently issued a similar order for the trial of a Kansas City man charged with raping a teenager in 2000.

…But in cases where the defendant's version of events is pitted against that of the alleged victim, "words are really important," Marquis said.

"To force a victim to say, 'when the defendant and I had sexual intercourse' is just absurd," he said.

It's also forcing them to commit perjury—which is why I can't understand for the life of me how this can possibly be constitutional. Sexual intercourse connotes consent. Testifying to having "sexual intercourse," when one has not given consent, is not accurate. Effectively, rape victims are being compelled to perjure themselves to protect their rapists. Charming.

"It shouldn't be up to a judge to tell me whether or not I was raped," Bowen said. "I should be able to tell the jury in my own words what happened to me."

…Those who defend the accused say the determination of whether what happened was rape or consensual sex is up to juries, not witnesses.

"They shouldn't be able to use the word 'rape' as if it is a fact that has been established," said Jack King, director of public affairs and communications for the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers. "These are loaded words."

Read the rest of the post on the flip side »

Iraqi Mother Killed for Protesting Honor Killings
Posted by Melissa McEwan, Shakesville on June 2, 2008 at 4:33 PM.

Those were the fateful words of Leila Hussein, an Iraqi woman who was killed after telling her family's story to The Observer, after her husband and sons murdered their 17-year-old daughter/sister for striking up a friendship with a British soldier—a murder to which her husband confessed, but for which he has faced no charges and has been congratulated by police.

It was two weeks after Rand's death on 16 March that a grief-stricken Leila, unable to bear living under the same roof as her husband, found the strength to leave him. She had been beaten and had had her arm broken. It was a courageous move. Few women in Iraq would contemplate such a step.

...Leila turned to the only place she could, a small organisation in Basra campaigning for the rights of women and against 'honour' killings. Almost immediately she began receiving threats - notes calling her a 'prostitute' and saying she deserved to die like her daughter.

...[S]he was staying at the house of 'Mariam', one of the women's rights campaigners, whose identity The Observer has agreed not to reveal. On the morning of 17 May, they were joined by another volunteer worker and set off to meet 'a contact' who was to help Leila travel to Amman, where she would be taken in by an Iraqi family.

'Leila was anxious, but she was also happy at having the chance to leave Iraq,' said Mariam. 'Since the death of her daughter, her own life was at serious risk. And this was a great opportunity for her to leave the country and to fight for Iraqi women's rights.'

...Mariam said that when she awoke Leila had already prepared breakfast, cleaned her house and even baked a date cake as a thank-you for the help she had been given. After the arrival of 'Faisal', the volunteer (whose identity is also being protected), the three left the house at 10.30am and started walking to the end of the street to get a taxi. They had walked less than 50 metres when they heard a car drive up fast and then gunshots rang out. The attack, said by witnesses to have been carried out by three men, was over in minutes. Leila was hit by three bullets.

Read the rest of the post on the flip side »

TV Host Fired for Criticizing O'Reilly
Posted by Melissa McEwan, Shakesville on May 30, 2008 at 6:34 AM.

Welcome to America 2.o, Barry Nolan:

CN8 host Barry Nolan, who publicly complained a few weeks ago about Bill O'Reilly receiving an award from the Boston chapter of National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences, has been fired by the Comcast network. ... The host of "Backstage With Barry Nolan" had argued that O'Reilly, the volatile Fox News host and former Channel 7 anchor, was unworthy of the Governor's Award. (Past recipients include the likes of Mike Wallace, Ken Burns, and Natalie Jacobson.) "The idea of honoring someone who does their job with constant factual errors, name-calling, and mangling of the truth ... It's ridiculous," said Nolan, [who] was warned by his bosses at CN8 to pipe down, but at the May 10 dinner honoring O'Reilly he handed out a six-page document listing some of O'Reilly's wackier errors, utterances, and information about the talk-show host's sexual harassment settlement. ... He was immediately suspended without pay for two weeks and then fired over the phone Tuesday.

Love that Nolan handed out pamphlets detailing O'Reilly's idiocy; can't believe he got shitcanned for it; really can't believe they did it over the damn phone.

Nolan blogged about the experience at Think Progress:

O'Reilly was an appalling choice, not because of his political views, but because he simply gets the facts wrong, abuses his guests and the powerless in general, is delusional, and, well, you might want to Google: Narcissistic Personality Disorder.

Plus there was that whole sexual harassment thing – the lawsuit he settled for an estimated $10 million. Not the kind of guy you normally think of when it comes time to pass out honors.

I found that most of my colleagues felt the same way. So, on May 10th at the Emmy Awards dinner, I quietly passed out a document that contained – not my opinion – but O'Reilly's own words and quotes from his sexual harassment lawsuit. And that is what got me fired. I got fired from my job on a news and information network for reporting demonstrably true things in a room full of news people.

I don't have anything particularly brilliant to add to that, although perhaps CN8 would benefit from hearing from some polite, teaspoon-wielding folks who don't appreciate their decision to fire someone for reporting facts. Email or call toll free: 1-877-862-9374.

12 Year Old Basketball Phenom Banned From the "Boys Team"
Posted by Melissa McEwan, Shakesville on May 27, 2008 at 4:49 AM.

Jamie Nared, a 12-year-old girl who is six feet tall and an extremely talented basketball player, has been playing on a mixed-sex team since the second grade—but has suddenly been banned from playing with boys after parents complained. Her coach, Michael Abraham, and her parents (and, frankly, video of her game) suggest that the complaints arose because Jamie is so good and makes the boys on opposing teams look bad.

Jaime's mom, Reiko Williams, said the issue boiled over after a particular game. "She scored 30 points," Williams said. "I remember one play. She stole the ball, dribbled up court and made a behind-the-back pass to a teammate. He missed the lay-in, and she grabbed the rebound and put it in. I think it was just too much for some of those parents."

Abraham put Jaime on the boys team to match her skills and keep her with peers. He has had her play on high-school girls teams, but many travel and "her parents want her to be around kids her own age," Abraham said.

And when she played on same-age girls teams?

"We beat one team 90-7," Abraham said. "At her level, it's like having Shaq on a high-school team."

He said the boys on his team enjoyed playing with Jaime — among a handful of girls to play on his boys teams over the years — because she helped them improve.

"If she were 4-feet-9 and no good, we wouldn't be having this discussion," Abraham said.

"I can't think of one boy that we've played against that's had a problem with her," he added. "Maybe their dads do."

Oh, snap! But of course the parents, opposing coaches, and league who enforced the rule deny that her talent has anything to do with the decision.

Read the rest of the post on the flip side »

There Is No "Boy Crisis"
Posted by Melissa McEwan, Shakesville on May 21, 2008 at 3:52 AM.

Shapeling and Shaker Sweet Machine forwarded me this article from The Times—helpfully filed in the "Education" section, despite having "girls" in the title—about a new report from the American Association of University Women which has found that girls' gains in the classroom have not come at boys' expense, contrary to the claims of the folks diligently promoting the "Boy Crisis" for the past few years.

Echoing research released two years ago by the American Council on Education and other groups, the report says that while girls have for years graduated from high school and college at a higher rate than boys, the largest disparities in educational achievement are not between boys and girls, but between those of different races, ethnicities and income levels.

…Linda Hallman, who became executive director of the university women’s group in January, when the work was well under way, said the report was an effort to refocus attention on what she said were the real problems of education for poor and minority children, and away from a distracting debate about a so-called boys' crisis. Ms. Hallman said the group's members were concerned about arguments by conservative commentators that boys had become disadvantaged and were being discriminated against in schools intended to favor girls.

"Many people remain uncomfortable with the educational and professional advances of girls and women, especially when they threaten to outdistance their male peers," the report says , citing Christina Hoff Sommers's 2000 book, "The War Against Boys: How Misguided Feminism is Harming Our Young Men."

Wait a minute—educational gaps being more directly attributable to race and class than sex? People promoting an imaginary sex-based crisis having an anti-feminist agenda and using dubious reasoning to come to their conclusions? Say it ain't so!

It seems to me, however, that I've heard those points made somewhere before. Where oh where could that have been, I wonder…?

The Demonization of Hillary Clinton
Posted by Melissa McEwan, Shakesville on May 19, 2008 at 4:58 AM.

Bless you, Julia Keller, for giving us this wonderful piece in today's Chicago Tribune, about the untold story of this primary: Devil in a pantsuit or the demonization of Hillary Clinton.

When the doctor checks to see if the patient is still breathing, it's disgust, not compassion, that leaks out between his syllables: "You couldn't kill her with an ax," he sneers.

That patient—the wide-hipped, unwieldy woman at the heart of Dorothy Parker's 1929 short story "Big Blonde"—is a familiar image in books, films, songs, comic books, TV series, video games and, now, politics: The woman as monster. The over-large, over-ambitious, overbearing creature who irritates everybody, the death-defying witch who just won't go away—and who therefore must be destroyed.

...Revealed in the coverage of Clinton's campaign is the persistence of an ancient and distasteful cultural theme: the powerful, ambitious woman as cackling fiend, as fantastically terrifying ghoul threatening civilization. And because this creature (or "she-devil," as MSNBC commentator Chris Matthews called Clinton) is not human, the only solution is to kill it. Not just derail its career—obliterate it. Smash it to smithereens. Vaporize it. Leave not a trace of the foul beast behind.

Hence the appalling preponderance of violent, death-infused imagery in conversations about Clinton, smuggled into otherwise ordinary political discourse like a knife taped on the bottom of a cake plate...

Keller goes on to detail much of the cast-as-inhuman and violent-death-to-the-monster imagery that we've detailed here, over the course of now nearly 100 posts, and notes, quite rightly, that, beyond the "normal" othering of sexism or racism, this is "something different and more sinister," because it is, cumulatively, "an unprecedented public call—albeit metaphorically, but still violently and persistently—for a person's death."

Death, death, death. The steady, depressing drumbeat continues. What these commentators seem to seek is not just a proud female's withdrawal from a political contest—but her outright annihilation. They evoke the nightmarish vision of a commanding woman intent on destruction—thus she must be destroyed before she can launch her evil scheme.

Read the rest of the post on the flip side »

Indictment in Cyber-Bullying Case
Posted by Melissa McEwan, Shakesville on May 16, 2008 at 7:05 AM.

Back in November, we discussed the absolutely heartbreaking story of Megan Meier, a 13-year-old girl with depression and body-image related low-self esteem who hanged herself after being tricked by an adult neighbor, mother of a classmate, who was masquerading on MySpace as a 16-year-old boy who liked (and then didn't like) Megan.

At the time, it was reported unlikely that criminal charges would be filed.

But today CNN report that the neighbor has been indicted in the deadly hoax, charged with "conspiracy and fraudulently gaining access to someone else's computer."

Lori Drew, of suburban St. Louis, allegedly helped create a MySpace account in the name of someone who didn't exist to convince Megan Meier she was chatting with a 16-year-old boy named Josh Evans.

…Salvador Hernandez, assistant agent in charge of the Los Angeles FBI office, called the case heart-rending.

"The Internet is a world unto itself. People must know how far they can go before they must stop. They exploited a young girl's weaknesses," Hernandez said. "Whether the defendant could have foreseen the results, she's responsible for her actions."

Drew was charged with one count of conspiracy and three counts of accessing protected computers without authorization to get information used to inflict emotional distress on the girl.

I only wish there were more charges to be brought against the soulless shit who told police she "felt this incident contributed to Megan's suicide, but she did not feel 'as guilty' because at the funeral she found out 'Megan had tried to commit suicide before'."

[H/T to Angelos, via email.]

California Overturns Gay Marriage Ban
Posted by Melissa McEwan, Shakesville on May 15, 2008 at 12:15 PM.

Blub, blub, and more blub (emphasis all mine):

The California Supreme Court has overturned a gay marriage ban in a ruling that would make the nation's largest state the second one to allow gay and lesbian weddings.

The justices' 4-3 decision Thursday says domestic partnerships are not a good enough substitute for marriage. Chief Justice Ron George wrote the opinion.

…The case before the court involved a series of lawsuits seeking to overturn a voter-approved law that defines marriage as a union between a man and a woman.

With the ruling, California could become the second state after Massachusetts where gay and lesbian residents can marry.

And because California already offers domestic partnership which afford same-sex couples the same legal rights as opposite-sex married couples, it doesn't leave opponents of this decision much wiggle-room: If domestic partnerships already guaranteeing the same legal rights are not good enough, there's not a hell of a lot of space to provide yet another alternative to fully. equal. marriage.

Blub.

Of course there's a "coalition of religious and social conservative groups" that is already organizing to try to get a measure"on the November ballot that would enshrine California's current laws banning gay marriage in the state constitution," but fuck them and fuck their bigotry and fuck their retrofuck fuckery. I hear equality coming down the tracks—and they really just need to get the hell out of the way if they don't want to get crushed.

[H/T Catherine.]

Death Toll After Myanmar Cyclone Could Reach 10,000
Posted by Melissa McEwan, Shakesville on May 5, 2008 at 12:47 PM.

This is just unbelievably sad:

Almost 4,000 people were killed and nearly 3,000 others are unaccounted for after a devastating cyclone in Myanmar, a state radio station said Monday.

Foreign Minister Nyan Win told foreign diplomats at a briefing that the death toll could reach 10,000, according to diplomats who spoke on condition of anonymity because the meeting was held behind closed doors.

… "It's clear that we're dealing with a very serious situation. The full extent of the impact and needs will require an extensive on-the-ground assessment," said Richard Horsey, a spokesman in Bangkok, Thailand for United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.

"What is clear at this point is that there are several hundred thousands of people in dire need of shelter and clean drinking water," Horsey said.

U.N. agencies were working with the Red Cross and other organizations to see how it can help those affected by the cyclone. UNICEF spokeswoman Veronique Taveau said the U.N. children's agency alone has five teams assessing the situation in the country.

…The cyclone blew roofs off hospitals and schools and cut electricity in Myanmar's largest city, Yangon. Older citizens said they had never seen the city of some 6.5 million so devastated in their lifetimes.

Hundreds of thousands of people are homeless. Candles and bottled water have, of course, doubled in price.

I don't know that any charitable aid has been set up specifically for Myanmar yet, but, in the meantime, if you'd like to help, donating to UNICEF would be a good start. (You can donate specifically to Myanmar here until they get an emergency fund set up.) They've been working inside Myanmar since 1950 and are likely to have the organization already in place to make sure money gets to where it needs to go.

Please drop any other suggestions—or links to charitable aid and/or emergency funds for Myanmar—into comments.

UPDATE: There's more information on the scope of the devastation and which aid agencies are providing immediate help here.

Americans Selling Possessions to Stay Afloat
Posted by Melissa McEwan, Shakesville on April 30, 2008 at 2:06 PM.

I want you to think of President Mondo Fucko's total shock at hearing gas would hit $4/gallon and how blissfully isolated his precious ass is from actual Americans as you read this item:

Struggling with mounting debt and rising prices, faced with the toughest economic times since the early 1990s, Americans are selling prized possessions online and at flea markets at alarming rates.

To meet higher gas, food and prescription drug bills, they are selling off grandmother's dishes and their own belongings. Some of the household purging has been extremely painful — families forced to part with heirlooms.

…At Craigslist, which has become a kind of online flea market for the world, the number of for-sale listings has soared 70 percent since last July. In March, the number of listings more than doubled to almost 15 million from the year-ago period. Craigslist CEO Jeff Buckmaster acknowledged the increasing popularity of selling all sort of items on the Web, but said the rate of growth is "moving above the usual trend line." He said he was amazed at the desperate tone in some ads.

Like a Georgia teenager whose mother lost her job and whose ad pleaded, "Please buy anything you can to help out." Or like Alabama mobile home resident Ellona Bateman-Lee, whose husband was disabled in 2006 by an electric shock on the job as a dump truck driver: "Among her most painful sales: her grandmother's teakettle. She sold it for $6 on eBay."

Now, according to conservative philosophy, private charity is supposed to step in and help these struggling Americans in their time of need. That's the whole plan: Let people keep their tax money, starve the government, subcontract welfare to via faith-based initiatives to private charity, who will be phat with donations from the Americans who have been allowed to keep more of their income care of tax breaks.

But guess what?

The trend may be hurting secondhand stores too. Donations to the Salvation Army were down 20 percent in the January-to-March period. George Hood, the charity's national community relations and development secretary, said that was probably partly because people were selling their belongings instead.

There's your trickle-down economics at work, right there.

Noose Found At Secret Service Training Center
Posted by Melissa McEwan, Shakesville on April 29, 2008 at 7:04 AM.

Noose Allegedly Found at Secret Service Training Center:

The U.S. Secret Service has placed a white agent on leave after an African American employee reported finding a noose hanging at the service's main training facility outside the nation's capital.

The service has acknowledged "an allegation of misconduct" at its J.J. Rowley Training Center in Beltsville, Md., and that an employee last week was placed on administrative leave pending the outcome of an investigation. The employee is a veteran agent with the service, according to fellow agents.

The noose was found by an African American officer in the uniform division of the service during the week of April 14, according to those familiar with the alleged incident. That division protects the White House and surrounding grounds.

Gee, couldn't this be kind of a huge fucking problem given that we may be only eight months away from our first black president?!

Cheesus. What the fuck is wrong with people?

(Rhetorical. There ain't enough bandwidth in the multiverse to completely answer that question.)

SCOTUS Strikes Again!
Posted by Melissa McEwan, Shakesville on April 28, 2008 at 10:43 AM.

Upholds bullshit voter ID law from Indiana (sorry, everyone):

The Supreme Court ruled Monday that states can require voters to produce photo identification without violating their constitutional rights, validating Republican-inspired voter ID laws.

In a splintered 6-3 ruling, the court upheld Indiana's strict photo ID requirement, which Democrats and civil rights groups said would deter poor, older and minority voters from casting ballots. Its backers said it was needed to prevent fraud.

It was the most important voting rights case since the Bush v. Gore dispute that sealed the 2000 election for George W. Bush. But the voter ID ruling lacked the conservative-liberal split that marked the 2000 case.

The law "is amply justified by the valid interest in protecting 'the integrity and reliability of the electoral process,'" Justice John Paul Stevens said in an opinion that was joined by Chief Justice John Roberts and Anthony Kennedy. Stevens was a dissenter in Bush v. Gore in 2000.

Read the rest of the post on the flip side »

McCain's Temper Should Be A Liability