it seems like a political winner
Apparently ogged was actually born on November 10, 2014.
I agree, but isn't it sometimes hard to catch somebody? Local and recent example.
Also, I just read the whole OP and noticed that it does mention catching people might be hard.
Don't death and rape threats already fall under the definition of assault? Does it matter if they are in a tweet?
I think that approach is going to make convictions very difficult because you'd have to prove that some reasonable fear was evinced, and under the existing laws, you're going to get most people pleading to some misdemeanor. Analogy! Reckless driving is already a crime, but drunk driving got a special carve-out with more severe penalties.
I don't see a free speech issue
There are a number of wrinkles here,* an important one of which will be argued in the Supreme Court in a few weeks.
If no reasonable fear was evinced, I'm not comfortable with people going to jail for that.
Otherwise you are just charging people for being an asshole, and if being an asshole was a crime, we would all be doing time.
I think that threatening to rape and murder children is a whole different level of thing than being an asshole.
Because I know all about being an asshole and that isn't part of it.
YEAH BUT WHAT IF THEY DESERVE IT, HUH? HUH?
It's not for being an asshole, it's for sending a tweet (or whatever) threatening death or rape. That's not something anyone stumbles into accidentally, ever.
I think that threatening to rape and murder children is a whole different level of thing than being an asshole.
Well, it is if the threat is serious enough to evince fear in its victims. But if your victims don't actually feel threatened by it, then you are just an asshole.
5, 7: The case I linked in 6 is about whether reasonably perceived fear is enough, or whether you need to also prove subjective intent to threaten. I can't imagine criminalizing speech that doesn't even cross the reasonable fear threshold would survive the First Amendment.
"It wasn't a 'rape threat' rape threat".
(And in my view, so much the worse for the First Amendment, but a lot of people seem to really like it.)
12: I would argue that threatening one's children is done specifically to heighten fear to the maximum level possible and is, by itself, evidence of a serious enough threat.
That's not something anyone stumbles into accidentally, ever.
Really? No one has ever said "I'm going to kill you, you bastard" in a flippant context?
The first application of ant-trust laws was union busting. The first application of these laws would be in response to "Fox news anchor should fuck off and die."
I would argue that threatening one's children is done specifically to heighten fear to the maximum level possible and is, by itself, evidence of a serious enough threat.
Well, I would argue that, if that fear was, in fact heightened, you already have the tools to prosecute.
ant-trust
There's nothing worse than an ant seeking to monopolize.
Sympathies on having your coach threatened, though-- how tight is the anonymity of the sender? Often, morons have a hard time keeping everything locked down. Reposting with a name attached would be one way to shut the dude up.
19: But if you have to prove subjective intent to threaten, it isn't. "I threaten to rape children in jest" would be a defense. The more children you threaten to rape, the harder to prosecute you'd be.
I don't see a free speech issue, it seems like a political winner, and while it may sometimes be difficult to prove that a specific person sent the message, some prosecutions will be successful, and have the intended effect.
Look. fuck the details, it's high time people were shouting this from the rooftops: "I don't see a free speech issue". I don't care if it's hard to catch and hard to prosecute, nail one in a hundred if necessary and bang them up for the foreseeable future. As long as people go on whining about how hard it is, we'll never regain the initiative. Lay about you and bring in the hindmost!*
(*Brecht)
We need someone to take one for the team and threaten someone, and then show up to do them harm. All subsequent online threats will induce reasonable fear.
Actually, surely this has already happened?
But if you have to prove subjective intent to threaten
Perhaps you are misunderstanding my argument.... I'm not saying you should have to prove the perpetrator had intent to threaten, I'm saying you have prove that the victim felt a reasonably perception of a threat.
How that compares to what the actual laws are, I have no idea.
Well, according to 13, it is up in the air.
It was some time in the mid 00's that I became aware of how many people seem to think that making death/rape threats online is perfectly normal. It was a very weird realization.
The recent gam/er/gate madness has made this especially prominent. Look at any instance of some one expressing outrage over death threats and rape threats and super creepy "I know where you live" threats, and that person is immediately swarmed with people insisting that this is no big deal and what are you complaining about and etc.
No one has ever said "I'm going to kill you, you bastard" in a flippant context?
Not recently--oh, "flippant." Sorry.
I threaten to rape children
Not that it makes it any more acceptable, but Trestman's daughters are both in their early 20s.
And if you're going to threaten to rape anybody after that godawful performance, shouldn't it be Jay Cutler?
28 -- I have no such people in my life, and if anyone said such a thing to me, they'd be gone (digitally --I'm not threatening anyone!)
I would actually put them in separate categories. A death threat, coming from anyone not a psychopath, is idiocy. Still unacceptable, but not personal. One could make it jokingly, although I don't do so. A rape threat is specifically gender-based and power-based in a way that puts it utterly beyond the pale. Not as a joke, nothing.
30: Kids grow up so fast these days.
I just saw two people yell threats at each other. Old white guy was crossing the street and a young black guy drove too near him. He slapped the car (I think). The young guy said he'd have beat the other guy if he weren't so old. The old guy responded with racism ("get back to ...."). But no death threats.
Driven home recently by the venerable Lore Sjoberg (uml. om.) observing that in his now over 15 years being funny online, he's gotten plenty of hate mail, but not a single death or injury threat.
I'd really like to see this happen and soon. I don't care whether it's a political winner or not, that's just icing on the cake.
The lawyers can correct me but since the threats are going over the internet surely the FBI can have jurisdiction here? I'd like to see a special task force set up to bring some prosecutions for this quickly. It really is completely unacceptable (to say the very least) but is looking to become the new normal.
I got hate mail for going on Jeopardy. An AOL user in Redondo Beach thought I was too fancy pants.
It's usually hard to see the pants of Jeopardy contestants.
I thought Redondo Beach was more of a Wheel of Fortune town.
I don't have very good stereotypes of California cities.
Dude, ogged, this is not even good trolling. I cannot even wrap my mind around how you would outlaw something that a high percentage of women (and plenty of men) I know experience on a regular basis. The volume is just too vast -- and that's not even touching on why you think the law would be the best way to address this.
God knows, I wrote to the DOJ asking them to investigate some of the GG threats. But not because I thought it would actually result in any arrests, let alone convictions.
(There is precious little public clarity about how and why the FBI determines a threat is real enough to be "actionable," and a fair number of anecdotes to the effect of, "They didn't really have any suggestions for what I as a victim could do.")
I don't think this problem is going to get solved by jailing people. I think it's going to be (is in the midst of) a long slog of social-norm-changing.
Heck, to start with, I'd be thrilled if we could just get some of the most mainstream sites in America to ban commenters for online threats.
You should've worn pants that were in style in 1991.
45.4 is the wrongest thing ever said. This is a social problem that only gets solved by jailing people. These kinds of threats are so common and pervasive because making them is so costless. So let's make them costly.
Given the people I think are making these threats, I'm pretty sure that jailing a very small number of people would produce a drastic change.
I cannot even wrap my mind around how you would outlaw something that a high percentage of women (and plenty of men) I know experience on a regular basis. The volume is just too vast -- and that's not even touching on why you think the law would be the best way to address this.
Cf. drunk driving (to borrow ogged's analogy). Or smoking in restaurants. Or racial discrimination in places of public accommodation. Or sexual harassment in the workplace.
Huh. I must be interpreting this totally differently than you guys. Who do you think is making these threats, and why do you think that jailing a few high-profile examples would dissuade them?
32: I don't know any such people personally (at least not that I'm aware of), but around the mid 00's it became clear that these attitudes, which I had thought were limited to the most extreme psycho's, were far more common than I thought.
Or maybe extreme psycho's are more common than I thought.
Cf. drunk driving (to borrow ogged's analogy).
I dunno, I know MADD went from a force for general good to fairly insane, but I thought that the cultural shift was going on for some time before we started to get laws on this.
Or smoking in restaurants.
No way. Social opprobrium came long, LONG before laws on that shift.
Or racial discrimination in places of public accommodation.
Hm. Yes, we needed the CRA to do this, but the CRA only happened because of a decade-plus of organizing and struggle. But OK, I'll grant you that one.
Or sexual harassment in the workplace.
Er, what now?
If your claim is "we have to signal how socially evil threats are by making and enforcing laws against them," I understand that as an argument. If your claim is "See why the law was the right way to address these four issues, so we should use the law to address threats too" ... we got issues.
I'm pretty sure making death threats is already illegal. So is cyberstalking. As I hear tell it's the sheer volume of incidents (and the relative un-sexiness of going after tweeters on the Internet instead of scary gangbangers) that prevents most of what happens on the Internet from being enforced*. What I'd personally like to see is a campaign to get make it a higher law enforcement priority -- which should be politically not too tough to do as it's become evident that basically any group of random trolls with enough time on their hands can mobilize the modern Internet to ruin people's lives for no reason -- and the fines and other associated penalties steeper.
(* Although I get the feeling that given how persistent, public and brazen GG has been, and their willingness to target high-profile targets and determination to stay in the public spotlight, it actually seems pretty likely that a few of the worst will eventually wind up going to jail. Much like Weev or the 4chan kiddie porn posse or an assortment of Anon "hacktivists" did. Whether they'll be there long is another question.)
I can't find the article I was thinking of, but this Daily Mail (!) piece has a fairly decent summary of England's go-round on this issue last year.
You remember: Woman proposes Jane Austen be pictured on british money, gets an avalanche of rape and death threats. Some were, in fact, publicly identified and shamed. At least one was arrested.
Trigger warning for that article. Avoid if you don't want to read hateful language.
No way. Social opprobrium came long, LONG before laws on that shift.
I suspect this is geographically-dependent. I didn't have the impression that was true in Kentucky.
Does Kentucky even have laws against smoking in restaurants? Philadelphia does, but it was very controversial (only very recently expanded to restaurants AND BARS) and the suburbs largely don't, AFAIK.
Apparently Pennsylvania banned smoking in "most" restaurants in 2008. All I can say is that apparently a number of places I know are finding a loophole.
I agree with 56. Certainly, almost no bars around here would have stopped customers from smoking if not for the state law. I did see a guy who just moved here from NYC go outside to smoke until he was really convinced it was legal to smoke in the bar.
58: The exemption is for places where food sales are below a certain percentage of total sales.
I guess I really wanted to make it clear I was responding to 58.
57: Looks like there aren't any state laws, but most of the cities have them.
60: yeah, see, that's the part I can't figure out. I'm used to bars trying to masquerade as restaurants (bc of liquor license weirdness) by pretending they have a HIGHER percentage of food sales than they actually do, not restaurants trying to masquerade as bars so they can allow smoking.
I'd like women to feel safe online and I'd prefer not to wait until we've won over the mouth-breathing sexist contingent. I don't think you'd need to prosecute every case; announce some big "making the internet safe (for our daughters?)" initiative, send ten or fifteen random shmucks to jail, and I think you take a big chunk out of the problem.
We don't have the same liquor license weirdness here. At least, I never heard of a difference between a bar and a restaurant license. We do have a 7.5% tax on poured drinks, so I'm pretty sure nobody pretends they have a higher percentage of alcohol sales than they really have.
51. These tweets are the normalization of what would have been actionable speech not that many years ago. Idiots think that "I'm going to kill you and rape your daughters" is something that will get you mad and annoyed and maybe produce some LULZ for them. I doubt many of them even see it as bad behavior, just "edgy." (Yes, they are sick people.)
SWATting is the frontier of "I'm really a crazed person," and should get prison.
57: As essear says, it's currently city-by-city and a lot of restaurants (and some bars) have decided on their own to go smoke-free. Right now I'm personally angrier at the states that make it legal to fire someone for being gay, but more on that in a week or two when there's more resolution.
66.1: They are sick people, but there seem to be hordes of them. I've seen a lot of Gamergate defenders arguing on my FB friends' posts, and I would be surprised if the pool of my friends-of-friends is more sympathetic with that sort of thing than the general public, so I feel like the numbers must be pretty bad.
65: So don't overeat at the cage or else it goes smokefree.
send ten or fifteen random shmucks to jail, and I think you take a big chunk out of the problem.
See, this is the part where I don't get the mechanism. Is the idea that people who are sending these threats will stop and think "Yikes, I might end up jail," and not send them?
That's why I asked Walt and Moby up above who they thought were sending these. In order to believe that thought process, you have to believe that the people making the threats are capably of rationally assessing risk.
I would really, really like to believe that some high-profile convictions would have a deterrent effect, but I'm honestly not confident that it would.
SWATing on the other hand -- straight to prison. No hesitation. Start now in condemning it before it gets to the level of normalization.
At some point in the last 10 years, I decided to stop even saying "Ungh, I could fucking kill you!" as hyperbole. It was just getting too hard to tell the difference between the real threats, the mindless trolling, and the figures of speech. So to hell with all of that.
Also, there is no shortage of ways to express your total frustration with this planet of ass clowns. I mean, threatening to rape someone's daughters because they lost a game? Its a game! What the fuck is wrong with you! Do you have any sense of perspective on reality at all? Dear god, they should just rename the earth "ASS CLOWN PLANET" so the aliens know to watch out for the ASS CLOWNS when they come here.
I think the threats are from middle class white males ages 15 and up.
Let's just say I've known too many sports fans.
Is the idea that people who are sending these threats will stop and think "Yikes, I might end up jail," and not send them?
Yes.
In order to believe that thought process, you have to believe that the people making the threats are capably of rationally assessing risk.
What makes you think they aren't?
A civil action with statutory damages and fee shifting? Any account that gets a judgment automatically gets shut down? There will still be crazy (judgment proof) assholes, but no one will be saying it's no big deal.
Civil penalties against a social media carrier who refuses to take a threat down, and shut down an account.
68. People don't like to be attacked, and the GG fans think they have been attacked. Being attacked causes you to clump up with other people who feel like you do. I doubt your friends are necessarily misogynists or people who would threaten to rape someone. (Or at least I hope not.)
To me the whole problem with policing the on-line world is that anonymity (the enabler of internet asshats) has a cost but a lack of it has a cost, too. The cost is obvious; threats, rampant asshatery, and so on. The cost of lack of anonymity is a greater scope for totalitarianism.
I dunno what the tradeoff is here. I hate the panopticon and totalitarianism of whatever stripe, but then I'm not female, so online sexual harassment doesn't impact me directly.
That is, the jails are already full: someone threatens Witt, she should get his car.
75. Shutting down an account is like waving a finger (and not the middle one) at someone. Accounts are free.
Penalties against social media sites that don't police is a huge legal change. IANAL, but my understanding is that currently sites are not liable for the content put up by users of the site. This goes for newspaper comments (which are 99% cesspit), semi-public sites (that you have to register for), and open ones like this.
Moderation works, but it is hugely labor-intensive on anything but niche sites. One that does a pretty good job is Making Light, but the volume is probably less than what's here.
What makes you think they aren't?
For one thing, the fact that they make so many of the threats under their real names.
Although I suppose that could be evidence of their rational assessment of the low risk that they will even be embarrassed publicly as a result of their actions, much less fired or jailed.
69: The limit is 20 on-premise food sales. So, if I get a $6 order of wings, I need to drink $24 of beer.
Although I suppose that could be evidence of their rational assessment of the low risk that they will even be embarrassed publicly as a result of their actions, much less fired or jailed.
Yeah, this. They're making a rational assessment of the risk of making these comments, and concluding accurately that it's minimal.
Shutting down an account is like waving a finger (and not the middle one) at someone. Accounts are free. Penalties against social media sites that don't police is a huge legal change.
I agree on all counts, but there are so many other solutions that people and companies aren't implementing. And many of them would be easy! Plenty of people have asked Twitter to allow them to share block lists with each other. Nope. (There are third-party tools that let you do it.)
People have asked Twitter for a setting that lets you ban people with accounts less than 30 days old from following you or messaging you. Nope.
And on and on. There are many, many creative and potentially powerful ways to tackle online hatefulness that don't require hand-moderation of millions of comments or legal action. But companies don't yet feel the social pressure to act.
So are these threats not actionable in the US, or is it just a case of difficulty of prosecution? Becasue they're totally actionable over here, and in much of Europe the sites themselves are also liable.
78.1 -- It's not much granted, almost nothing, really, but it's something. Which takes us out of no big deal, ferris wheel, same old stuff you know into that's bullshit, cut it out.
78.2 -- I wouldn't make Twitter buy Witt a car just for the threat. Unless it refuses to take down a threat and shut down a serial threatener's account that Witt has reported.
One concern is that, if you start throwing people in jail, then they become the victims. You think GamerGaters are whiny entitled douchecanoes now? Wait until you start re-enforcing their victim complex.
Not that they wouldn't deserve it. Still, maybe civil action is a better way to go?
83. Those are all good ideas except that they don't really get rid of the morons, they just prevent you from seeing them directly. So your friend (who doesn't share your block-list) responds to it with a "#whatamoron" addition and you see it then.
One idea I've toyed with, because I work in this area, is the idea of reputation sharing. If enough people you trust have bad experiences with another person, that person can no longer "connect" to you and eventually can't connect with anyone in your community. There are issues with DDOS attacks (sockpuppets complaining about you, for example) but techniques like that have been implemented in various reputation management systems, mostly for things like e-commerce, and they aren't disasters. More work is needed, but it can be done somewhat automatically. You still want a human there who can fix things in the worst case.
There is no cure for this world's filthy humanity, but the occasional sock in the kisser wouldn't be misallocated to any given GGer.
||
I'm probably over-thinking it, but Hokey Pokey has been clearing his throat in a very tic-like way for the past few days. Doing it a LOT and doesn't seem otherwise sick.
|>
One reason prosecuting online threats seems to me to make sense is that, for example, making a big deal about online bullying did have some effect. Schools were forced to tell kids that cyberbullying was against school rules, schools were no allowed to write off everything that happened online or off school grounds generally as not their business, etc. Those things arguably have some effect on how much online bullying among students takes place, even though potential criminals aren't directly affected by the fear of prosecution.
As has been mentioned, writing someone a letter and saying "I'm going to rape you and kill you" is against the law. Putting up a poster in front of your house saying, "I'm going to rape Jane Doe, and if you see her first, you should do it for me," is against the law. But people--not people who'd thought it through--said, well, the online world is different, and I don't feel comfortable pushing the issue there. Passing a law saying it's not different wouldn't allow them to do that anymore. Talking about a law and convincing everyone not to pass it would have the opposite effect.
ISTM the people doing this are a probably combination of hardcore people and doofuses who haven't thought about it much except to notice that nobody really seems to take it seriously. Those are the people who might be turned aside by the passage of a law.
I can't imagine we need a new law. We have plenty of laws. They're just rarely enforced in the case of online threats.
A law could affect the behavior of the service providers.
Also, I'd be surprised if this would be the only time a criminal law was passed about something that was supposed to be already criminalized, at least in the opinions of some people.
Also, there is a lot of rhetoric saying making threats isn't actually illegal (rhetoric that nobody would have uttered seriously before the Internet existed, but is now made in very generic--if Tea Party-sounding--terms). I don't see how saying it's a mistake to oppose that rhetoric isn't saying, okay, it's not illegal to make threats (in which case "they're not enforced" seems kind of irrelevant).
Passing a law saying it's not different wouldn't allow them to do that anymore.
It's already not different, at least under federal law; maybe some states draw a distinction like that but I'd be surprised (and the federal statute ought to apply to anyway).
76.2: Valuing anonymity or pseudonymity is a reason to punish doxxing. Take it to the real world, the real world follows you home.
We had to doxx the village to save it.
This Obama/Xi climate deal confuses me. Obama doesn't have the power to actually do anything useful toward implementing the goal that he set, does he?
He clearly seems to think he does, and the courts have generally been friendly to the EPA's recent efforts. It'll be interesting to see the details of this agreement with China.
This talk by two local lawyers (video at the link) didn't leave me feeling good about what would happen if it goes to the Supreme Court. As I understood it, the takeaway was that most of the nitpicky technical challenges can probably be overcome but that in the end the basic issue is that the court sees this as a massive overstepping of the EPA's mandate and that they had language in some recent decision that could be interpreted as a strong warning toward the EPA. (See the part beginning 45 minutes in, about the court alluding to the Brown and Williamson decision.)
Well, I'm not familiar with all the legal intricacies, but when the SC last ruled on the EPA's regulation of carbon they essentially approved the overall concept while striking down the EPA's specific approach. Anecdotally, I don't get the sense that people who work in energy policy feel like the courts are going to strike down the more recent EPA plan on reducing GHG emissions, although it will be interesting to see what changes the EPA makes after considering the public comments (which I really shouldn't say much about, since I was very peripherally involved in developing the comments of one interested party).
84 - this has been a strange thread to read.
84: That is a good question. If you'd asked me 10 years ago, I would have said they were, but then we've had 10 years of nobody going to jail for it.
In enlightened Britain we imprison people for tweeting stuff like this (the weird Jane Austen thing earlier this year for example; a man and a woman got banged up for that) but then we also imprison people for tweeting facially ludicrous threats to blow up airports. So, you know, swings and roundabouts.
Its a game! What the fuck is wrong with you!
Many years ago, Boris Becker lost a major final, and when he was interviewed he said, "Look, nobody's dead, it's not a war." And yes, he took a lot of shit in the media for not being sufficiently broken up about it.
about the court alluding to the Brown and Williamson decision
Oh good, so we can look forward to the spectacle of the Court ignoring Brown & Williamson when it guts the ACA, and then embracing it when it guts greenhouse gas regs. (B&W said sure, if you just look at the Food & Drug Act's definitions of drug/device, you might walk away the the idea that the FDA has jurisdiction to regulate nicotine/cigarettes. But when you look at Congress's larger goals, that doesn't make sense: the FDA would have to ban cigs as dangerous/no therapeutic value, but Congress has passed laws governing cigarette advertising and why would it do that for something it intended to ban?)
I haven't read the entire thread so maybe someone else has already made this point, but:
Where else is law enforcement going to pivot to justify the need for billions and billions of dollars once drugs are legal? Online threats, of course.
Where else is law enforcement going to pivot to justify the need for billions and billions of dollars once drugs are legal?
When are you expecting this to happen? Pot possibly, but cocaine, heroin, metamphetamines? I don't think law enforcement has anything to worry about.
Where else is law enforcement going to pivot to justify the need for billions and billions of dollars once drugs are legal?
Exactly the same place they've been going to for the last 13 years - counterterrorism.
Speaking of bad behavior online, I've been morbidly fascinated by this story since first reading about it this weekend.
Short version: under various identities and pseudonymes, someone led an epic hall of fame worthy career as a troll for a decade or more, largely focusing on the left-is SciFi writing/fandom community. (S)he was outed, the dots were connected, and now everyone's heads are exploding. Warning, the first link in the page above is a massive time suck.
I can't get the link in 110 to work, but this is the requires hate thing, right?
84
So are these threats not actionable in the US, or is it just a case of difficulty of prosecution?
Illegal but hard to prosecute. Death threats are harassment, maybe a minor kind of assault, but if they aren't credible and imminent then I can't imagine that they would lead to jail time, just community service or a fine or something. (IANAL obviously.) Not worth the trouble for the FBI to track them down unless it's really, really credible.
Becasue they're totally actionable over here, and in much of Europe the sites themselves are also liable.
That's a difference. Most of the sites themselves aren't liable here. If you're a corporation, you aren't liable for anything if you put up a sign saying you don't want to be liable for it.
The link in 110 worked for me. I didn't click the first link on the linked page because I was warned.
If you're a corporation, you aren't liable for anything if you put up a sign saying you don't want to be liable for it.
On the one hand that seems horrible. On the other hand, if it weren't that way, it would be nearly impossible to get meat that isn't overcooked.
It worked for me when I tried again, so my computer was the problem.
For example, it can't remember my personal info.
112: this is the requires hate thing, right?
Yep.
110: Cool. The secret history of the interwebs has yet to be written.
104: It does seem a shame (to argue the other side, lest I come off as an authoritarian shrew) to imprison some dumb teenager who thinks "I'm going to rape you" is basically like "I'm going to whup yo' ass" spoken to his fellow white teenager face to face, and who thinks it's also okay to say those things to strangers face to face, and thinks it's also okay to say those things to strangers online. But these kids give cover to the people who are seriously malicious (who probably encourage them in turn).
115: it's basically the only way to run a website with comments or any kind of social media service, unless you want to have moderation of everything in advance.
119: I am quite in favour of dumb teenagers who say "'m going to rape you" being put into a situation where they get to be frightened of being raped themselves. Especially if it doesn't happen. I would feel reasonably horrible if some of the gg trolls ended up being the victims of their own fantasies, but to know what it feels to be frightened by the prospect -- that would be purely salubrious.
121 reminds me how much happier I'd be if the comments of every article about anyone being arrested weren't crowing about how the person is going to be raped now. That's not a thread exactly, but just shows how awful we are as a culture.
Though that probably made it look like I'm being awful to Werdna, which was not my point or intent. I do have some thoughts about how men who feel threatened by rape may in fact be more prone to become rapists and thus his plan might backfire, but they're just guesses on my part.
Supporting Thorn, I actually don't get how saying "X should be illegal, even though lots of people in group Y incorrectly think X is basically OK" means "I wish people in group Y would be raped to teach them a lesson (and hey, I'm also seriously totally in favor of the US prison-industrial complex and all that implies)." When it means "I think it should be more widely understood that X is REALLY not OK."
This isn't jaywalking. Dumb teenagers are more likely to try to cross the highway in the middle of the block. We don't say, "oh, they're just immature, trying to stop them would be wrong," and promote climbing lane barriers as a normal, practically healthy part of growing up, which is automatically going to stop when they turn twenty-one or something, even if the rules against it go away.
More serious dumb-young-person-related ATM: I haven't set up my phone to get collect calls from Rowan in jail, but he called five times yesterday and I didn't answer because I couldn't answer because I don't have them set up and only the first time do you get a few free seconds to say that. I think I'm going to send a letter saying that I don't think I should be talking to him until trial or whatever since I'm a witness against him and so it's not as if I'm a safe space, but I don't know. Presumably he's asking for money and I'm not in the mood to give him that and Lee has asked me not to. If I write him, I'll sort of have to send a stamp so he can write back and I'm not sure I want a letter back, that it will make me queasy the same way the first call did and as sad as all the ones since have. I do not know any parenting books that will tell me what to do and I'm not sure myself what I should be doing, especially if I have to not upset Lee in the process.
Maybe just not responding at all is good for now. Because of the whole armed robbery in your house thing.
Is your ATM question, "Am I in a tough, no-win, heart-wrenching situation?" I can answer that one.
I just really hate getting phone calls and six a day forever is going to be really annoying. Presumably he'll get the message, but it's not as if he has that much else to do with his time that it will necessarily be a deterrent. Any other option is fairly annoying too. (More honestly, I think my answer is that I'm not going to do anything until the other people involved have also been arrested, at which point I'll be willing to do something to talk to and support in some non-financial context him and him alone. But while they're not, I'm still waiting for closure or something.)
123: I entirely agree with you about prison rape jokes, and *I'm* not trying to be nasty to Werdna either. My point was that the people who make threats to women probably believe that prison is full or rape and almost certainly make jokes about it as well.
I really don't approve of the prison industrial complex and I find rape jokes about it horrendous. I'm so old and priggish that I am still shocked by the use of "pimp" as a positive verb. My original thought was that the fear of prison would tend both to discourage rape threats and seeing rape as a subject for jokes.
And 126 is wise. There is a limit to how much of the weight of the world even Thorn should try to bear.
I think you write him, but you do not include a SASE. It's kind to let him know why you're not available, but you don't then give him means to get in touch.
130 makes sense and you guys are really nice and also have been particularly hilarious today. I'm doing fine in general, although Lee is telling me I need to get less involved in volunteer work yet again.
My original thought was that the fear of prison would tend both to discourage rape threats and seeing rape as a subject for jokes.
I'm not optimistic about that, but whatever works is fine by me! In fact a facebook friend (relative of one of Lee's relatives, but not someone I'd be friendly with if we met on the street) posts prison rape joke memes interspersed with posts on how much she misses her boyfriend and how difficult it is to get a chance to see him in prison, and I don't think she even sees any cognitive dissonance there.
Also interspersed for prayer requests for her grandmother, who set herself on fire by smoking a cigarette while on oxygen. I am not even kidding. These are the people we are trying to reach with initiatives like this, because she's threatening to kick people's asses all the time, though for personal rather than "political" reasons.
(And on that note, guess who just called! I did not answer.)
Prob a violation of his bond to contact you.
I doubt it. I'm not a victim and the detective suggested he call me and apologize, which he sort of did before asking for advice on how to get his charges lowered and find a lawyer who will get him out of jail. I guess I could find out.
132: That seems like a reasonable thing to ask for prayers for, if you ask somebody who prays. I said one for her for you. I won't walk over to church and light a candle, because it doesn't seem appropriate in the circumstances.
136: Oh, I feel awful for the woman and she's doing better. But it's all stuff about prison, bitches better not be doing X or they're going to get whooped, pray for grandma, never trust a ho, etc. Ah, facebook!
Oh Moby I laughed out loud, that's some Zola level humor there. Excellent.
Thorn 126 is entirely wise. Maybe 130 at a stretch, but as young children were present in the house during the armed robbery really 126 seems the better current course. Surely he knows why you need a breather from interacting with him, he isn't unintelligent.
That's horrible, Thorn.
(I hope you don't think I had your situation in mind when I said "dumb teenager." I was thinking of a discussion I had with a relative who's a school guidance counselor.)
Oh, believe me, I don't think there's any shortage of dumb teenagers and didn't take it personally.
Does he know who won the civil war?
Also a college student was killed last year trying to cross the highway a couple of blocks from here, a road people who move here already driving get nervous about just with the cars.
My favorite are the people who get drunk, miss the last incline up Mt. Washington, and try to climb the hill. I wonder if maybe some of them don't make it and we only hear of the failures because you tend to get on the news if they have to call the rescue team to get you off the side of the hill.
Also, there's this dude I see walking up the sidewalk when I'm waiting for the bus, who's always doing his reading for his next class instead of looking where he's going.
I hadn't realized they do extra security on the US end for flights to Israel. It didn't seem very thorough but it was weirdly belligerent.
146: As I understand it the point is less to simply locate contraband as to rattle you a little bit so that if you respond like someone with something to hide they'll take you aside for further questioning. I've been subjected to that sort of thing and found it unpleasant, but I have no doubt I'd have spilled if I'd been up to no good. Of course I'm a lousy liar and a bit of a chicken, so YMMV.
I sure hope essear is a lousy liar, because we're all counting on his coworker overshares being 100% accurate!
And super-crowded gate areas feel even more cramped when someone stands right in front of your seat and starts shouting some kind of prayer or chant or something. I guess tolerance for religious requirements is not a virtue I've had much opportunity to develop.
He'll feel more comfortable if you start praying loudly too. Or have you considered speaking in tongues?
Praying for the conversion of the Jews that the Messiah might return would be even better, or more obvious.
That's more of a Christmas Eve thing.
Speaking of Christmas, should I buy insulated, waterproof snow pants on the off chance I'll want to take up skiing? There's a sale at REI.
Yes. Even if you never end up skiing, they're great for playing in the snow with your kids.
Also, skiing is super fun. Although I have to do my annual whining about planning a ski trip, which I find horrifyingly expensive and terribly defeating, trying to figure out a reasonably cheap way of doing it.
I only have one kids. Still, I think at North Face at 50% off may be as good as I get on that type of thing.
You don't get any less cold and wet playing with one kid in the snow than you do with two. I'd get them regardless of how many kids you have.
(Oh, jeez. Now I have to figure out if there are any ski pants in Newt's size, whatever the hell that is by wintertime. Goddam growth spurts.)
(I get embarrassed by how much I talk about skiing here. I'm really pretty terrible at it. And scared of anything steep. And very very slow.)
I think that's called cross country skiing or biathlon, depending on whether you're armed or not.
No, that's ruled out by being both unarmed and lazy. I like the downhill, because that way I'm not doing the work.
158 is like a horror movie for me. Not crowding your ski destinations - my gift to all winter sports enthusiasts.
Huh. "Werewolf on a Scooter" can be sung to the tune of "Girlfriend in a Coma."
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Oh, geez, I've started arguing about affirmative consent on CT. That can't possibly have been a good idea.
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Digs adorable, but my lizard like metabolism and vertigo make snow-based pursuits uninviting.
167: EMOARTS* is indeed negative.
*Expected Mouse Organisms Above Replacement Time Spent is indeed negative.
Something tells me 169 didn't come out the way it was intended.
I actually try to limit the number of Mouse Organisms I have to deal with on a daily basis. Glue traps work pretty well.
Once upon a time, I proofread a grant application where the word "organism" was, well, let's say misspelled. The author, a non-native English speaker asked me why spellcheck hadn't caught the error. Me: Well, it's a word, just not the one you want. Him: Oh, what does it mean? I love learning new words.
A friend, in high school, had an embarrassingly public moment of biology class-related confusion between alveoli and aureoles. He lived through it, but it was apparently a bad experience.
173: So you're saying you want a shrubbery?
I made a trip to the boys' room between 169 and 173 and on the way there I did have a fleeting though that I had in fact made that mistake. But priorities.
No, I want you to cut down the mightiest tree in the forest with ... a herring.
(Another shrubbery left as an exercise for the reader.)
(The plural of which I believe is "areolae".)
178: Whoops, the latter. I suppose there could have been more wacky religious-art-based confusion.
And I was stupidly pleased with EMOARTS as an acronym (despite the awkward phrasing needed to produce it) and then I typoed into even greater irretrievable stupidity.
I blame Eric Holder.
XCing keeps you pretty warm. I think I need to try snow biking.
Is that the one with the really fat tires?
167: I managed to muster unusual levels of willpower and stay away from that thread. I just couldn't stomach the prospect of reading a bunch of the current crop of CT commenters stroking their chins and holding forth eruditely about sexual assault.
If it helps, I added a necrophilia joke.
Something tells me 169 didn't come out the way it was intended.
IYKWIM(AITYD).
Warning, the first link in the page above is a massive time suck.
Oh boy, no kidding. Dowwwwwn the rabbit hole I go. Pat Cadigan unsurprisingly seems like a good egg.
110, 187:
What links this story together with This one from a couple of weeks ago is that in both cases the troll turns out to have been a woman.
I guess I'm still surprised by that, although both stories give a lot of backstory. I love the Sara Silverman quote in the Guardian Story.
At the dog area of the park near my house, a greyhound straight-up murdered a cockapoo. I always thought greyhounds were too skinny and into their cardio for that kind of thing.
I had thought the greyhound would die also, but it turns out that cockapoos aren't poisonous.
189: You mean, literally killed it? Didn't the owner object?
I hate the flying-east thing where you land in the morning and it's too early to check into a hotel.
I usually project "I don't want to talk" pretty well on airplanes but on this trip the couple seated next to me (a man and woman in their early 60s or so) wanted to chat a bit. The woman told me how much she enjoyed her physics classes because physics makes it so clear that God designed the universe. Then they asked if I was anxious about going to Israel or worried about danger. I said not really. They said they weren't either because they were going to walk the same places that Jesus walked and so of course they'll be safe. I thought about asking if they knew how that story ended but I decided to just smile and nod.
What links this story together with this one from a couple of weeks ago is that in both cases the troll turns out to have been a woman.
As indeed was one of the two people convicted in the Criollo-Perez Jane-Austen-on-the-ten-pound-note business.
191: They were not fast enough. Which is why I expect cockapoo will evolve to become poisonous.
Our local park had a scary greyhound that bit a number of other dogs. Beautiful animal -- huge, and looked like a supermodel. I think that sighthounds generally are hard to train and control, so, while most of them are fine, when they have anti-social inclinations they're hard to deal with. (Come to think, I don't know what happened to that greyhound. I didn't know the owner, but I still see him around so he didn't move. Either the dog was put down, or he only walks it at four in the morning or something.)
Probably bit a pug. They must be poisonous to have survived this long.
Pugs are creepy as hell. If someone genetically engineered a creature that looked like a pug, it would be because they were a character in a dystopian SF novel and the author wanted to show how decadent the citizens were, that they would actually use science to twist and deform a perfectly good dog into some sort of bizarre short-lived crippled chibi dog. But because they're bred using normal techniques, everyone is like "oh, fine".
While I hate the idea of somebody losing a beloved pet, "cockapoo" is such a stupid word that it's probably best if all of them are eaten by greyhounds. Sorry weirdly-named-dog having people.
Also cockapoo sounds like a potential side effect of buttsecks.
My neighbors have a pug. That strange shape may look bizarre, but it really compliments their stance when taking a shit.
Pugs are awful. Cockapoos are getting into the territory of dogs-for-people-who-actually-want-cats, which mean they're quasi-acceptable. I'm okay with dogs that approximate that teddy bear from the laundry commercials.
"cockapoo" is such a stupid word
I searched just to make sure Moby wasn't talking about a bird.
Cockapoo: an absurd name for an absurd animal.
Having witnessed a few dog-on-dog killings/near killings in my "fear of dogs"-scarred youth, something like this is a bit of a trigger for me in that I went to bed thinking about it and woke up thinking about it. Thanks, Obama Moby.
205: You probably read the paper and would have seen it anyway.
It's somewhat Thurberesque; I've confronted the deepest pits of my psyche and it's full of dogs. No real depth--also see his adventures in the West Indies:
Instead of being followed by the whispers of men and the glances of women, I was followed by bead salesmen and native women with postcards. Nor did any dark girl, looking at all like Tondelayo in White Cargo, come forward and offer to go to pieces with me. They tried to sell me baskets.
207: Actually, I almost never read it.
193: the story ended with me IN THE CLOUDS and I haven't come back down yet. So it's a very comforting to those afraid of flying.
Warning, the first link in the page above is a massive time suck.
No kidding.
When greyhounds started getting popular as pets, they kind of freaked me out. They looked like tiny, very fragile deer. It disturbed me to see them walking out on the street, like if they fell or someone accidentally kicked them, they'd never get up and walk again. I knew two pugs, though, when I was little, them, I don't mind.
"cockapoo" is such a stupid word that it's probably best if all of them are eaten by greyhounds.
I don't think I can agree with this. "Labradoodle" is also an absurd word, but labradoodles are wonderful dogs.
REI is really quick. I already have my snow pants.
