Sexual Assault – Politics Plus

Open Thread April 20 2026

Posted by Joanne Dixon at 6:00 am Open Thread, Personal, Politics

Apr 202026

Yesterday, I saw Virgil and we played cribbage. A good number of hands were outstanding, and about the same number were awful. I think we had less decent average hands than usual. You can’t predict that kind of thing. It just happens. The weather was lovely, and I wasn’t fighting the sun either going or returning. So I think I can be getting there from 10:30 to 5:00 – in other words, get my half-hour back by leaving home a half hour earlier, at least into fall. Of course, in the winter the sun squeezes the time at both ends. Happy 4/20 today to those who celebrate!

https://www.cnn.com/interactive/2026/03/world/expose-rape-assault-online-vis-intl/index.html
Between CNN, UltraViolet, and John Pavlovitz, I was able to use CNN after searching for and finding a readable article. I really would have hated to use a video.

https://theconversation.com/about-half-of-young-americans-cant-name-a-single-holocaust-site-repeating-a-pattern-of-ignorance-seen-in-postwar-germany-278507
Even though I was not born until after VE Day (and less than a month before VJ Day), remembering the Holocaust comes to me almost as natural as breathing. But – I got an education – not just in school, but also through reading, and even movies and television contributed. It isn’t merely the loss of knowledge of the Holocaust which has degreaded our education since then – but that is a teribly important part of what we have lost.

The Corporatization of Public Schools

How long will it take for people to learn that any kind of privatization (including so-called public-private partnerships) will always cost more and provide less than just letting the government do what government does?

Open Thread September 26, 2023

Posted by Joanne Dixon at 6:03 am Open Thread, Personal, Politics

Sep 262023

Yesterday, I decided that, before the week gets crazi(er), I would feature a couple of articles on disabilities. One is discouraging, but at least the more we know about it the better we can cope. The other is a pure feel-good story (although, like health care go-fund-me stories, it would feel better if the ADA were properly enforced so that this wasn’t needed. I am fortunate in that I can deal with my mobility issues myself everywhere I need to go. But there are a lot of places I can’t go because they are toxic to me with my allergies.) Then I ran into this story (more of an anecdote, really) and thought I would share. You can’t make this stuff up (But who would want to?)

Cartoon –

Short Takes –

The 19th – Nearly half of women with disabilities report experiencing sexual harassment or assault at work, poll finds
Quote – The number [of women with disabilities], 48 percent, compares to 32 percent of women without disabilities who reported experiencing sexual assault or harassment at work…. SurveyMonkey did not reach enough nonbinary people with disabilities to break out in this poll. However, the poll did find elevated rates of sexual harassment and assault in the workplace for disabled men: 23 percent of disabled men reported experiencing sexual harassment or abuse in the workplace, compared with 11 percent of non-disabled men.
Click through for details. This is a poll which the 19th ran itself, using Survey Monkey, and that could affect its application to society in general. However, if one realizes that sexual assault is less about sex than it is about power, and that the disabled are more vulnerable to predators than the abled, it does make sense.

Wonkette (via Substack) – BeyHive Rises In Formation, Helps Disabled Fan See Beyoncé Concert
Quote – Jon Hetherington from Oregon has been a fan of Beyoncé since her Destiny’s Child years and was looking forward to finally seeing her in concert at her Renaissance World Tour in Seattle. However, on his Instagram a couple weeks ago, he’d expressed concerns after a difficult experience when he’d seen Janelle Monáe. Hetherington has cerebral palsy and uses an electric wheelchair. The accessible transportation service he’d used apparently claimed 9:30 p.m. was just too late to take him home and he was almost stranded for the night. “I’m tired of not having the access most people in my life do,” Hetherington posted on his liberatedbygaga account. “I’m tired of having to fit ableist standards because society wasn’t built to include people like me.”
Click through for full story. While this is both heartwarming, and also revealing of the kind of people who become fans of Beyoncé, it doesn’t actually address the difficulty which mobility presents to so many disaabled people that it’s the kind of disability we think of first. (Nor does it address the issues of people whose disabilities are not mobility related.)

Food For Thought

Open Thread April 29, 2023

Posted by Joanne Dixon at 6:07 am Open Thread, Personal, Politics

Apr 292023

Yesterday, I managed to get all 8 questions right on the Conversation’s “Weekly News Quiz.” That has never happened before. Usually I get 6 out of eight, occasionally 7 on a good week, occasionally 5 on a bad week. There weren’t that many I actually knew – the rest I got by elimination, including some logic (ocean-going ships “going downhill” is not a thing, for instance.) It’s a small thing – but it does bolster my confidence a little that I am actually keeping up with the good stuff in the barrage of news.

Cartoon –

Short Takes –

The Warning – Have you ever heard of ‘stealthing?’
Quote – “Non-consensual condom removal,” said Google. A behavior and problem so prevalent that it not only had a nickname — “stealthing” — but a range of definitions largely dependent on geography, the most severe being a rape crime punishable by a maximum sentence of life in prison in the United Kingdom. In the United States, however, there was little to no legal definition of this act, which remains the case to this day. The first and only piece of legislation — adopted by California in 2021 — recognizes stealthing in the state’s civil sexual battery code and allows victims to sue for damages.
Click through for article (you may have to click on “Keep reading.”) Yes, I’d heard of it, but relatively recently. There were a couple of terms in the article I had to look up, however. Reading the whole thing will probably mak you angry once or twice. But without anger, there is no change.

Colorado Public Radion – One suspect in fatal rock-throwing case had a history of destructive behavior
Quote – Three teens accused of driving around and throwing large rocks at passing cars, one of which investigators say killed a 20-year-old woman, circled back to take a photo of her crashed car as a “memento,” according to court documents released Thursday…. In a hint at a possible motive, Karol-Chik said all three got excited every time they hit a car with a rock that night but acknowledged he felt “a hint of guilt” passing by Bartell’s car, according to the documents.
Click through for story. Now that there are identified suspects in this crime, we can get a glimpse of what they were thinking – if you can call that “thinking.” It certainly gives a new, though equally pernicious, meaning to the acronym KKK.

Food For Thought

PHP is a programming language used to build websites. We have it at all through our hosting partner, BlueHost. In order to update it, we have to go through Bluehost. During his life, TomCat was the only one who had access to our account there. I (JD) am now the only one. I have been to BlueHost and investigated updating our PHP to 8.3 or even to 8.1. I found instructions to do so - in fact, I found two conflicting sets of instructions. I went through one set of the steps and got the message that Our site could not handle 8.3, but that it had successfully updated to 8.1. I then went back here to see what it looked like. But I couldn't get in - either as an administrator or as a reader. It was just gone. I had to reach BlueHost by phone. It was determined that Politics Plus is in fact not compatible with any version of PHP newer than the one we have. BlueHost therefore uninstalled it for me, and the site came back to normal. Of course, like everyone else, I care about security. But I also am aware that TomCat elected to use different providers for several of the services that BlueHost provides, for instance backups. We are backed up daily - but not by BlueHost. However, out PHP is through Bluehost. I feel that if they are not worried about the older version, I am not going to worry about it. I believe that our security here is all or mostly through WordFence, whom I trust.